Glen & Stephen Thistlewood
Carnival Glass Worldwide
  • Home
  • Patterns, Colours, Shapes
  • Carnival Gallery
  • Books, e-books

​Rocky Road!

Those Confusing Vases with Bumps and Swirls

Arising from (or based on) our original work in “Carnival Glass The Magic & The Mystery” 1997, and our subsequent research articles and writings.

​​One of the questions most often asked of us is how to tell the difference between the swung vases with bumps! April Showers, Rustic and Tree Trunk are the three difficult ones to distinguish, and we’ll add Swirled Hobnail (aka Hobnail Swirl) to the mix. Let’s just take a quick look at the big picture before we get to the crux of the matter.
Carnival Glass
​Left to right: April Showers (Fenton), Rustic (Fenton), Tree Trunk (Northwood) 
and Swirled Hobnail aka Hobnail Swirl (Millersburg).

All four vases are found in a standard size, with base diameters around 3 to 3½ inches – it is these that cause the most confusion. The vases shown above range from 9 to 10 inches in height. Sometimes they have been swung a little more (or less), making them taller (or shorter). Extra height may distort the pattern further, while shorter versions show it more clearly.

Note: Rustic and Tree Trunk are also found in further sizes – but we are concentrating on the standard size vases in this article, as these are the ones that are seen most frequently and which present the puzzlement over identification.

Look at the lower part of the vase! They are distinctive.

April Showers, Fenton
April Showers

Tree Trunk, Northwood
Tree Trunk
Rustic, Fenton
Rustic

Hobnail Swirl, Millersburg
Hobnail Swirl

April Showers (Fenton)
​

This has elongated hobnails that look like protruding ovals, which are connected vertically by long lines, rather like syrup drips. Sometimes, at the top of the interior, there may be a soft “peacock tail” pattern effect. The lower part of the vase is distinctive in that it has nine U shapes like scallops. The vase top is sometimes tightly crimped like the example shown here.
April Showers
April Showers

Rustic (Fenton)
​

Just the hobnails – nothing else. No drips, no lines, no swirls! Near the tops of the vases the hobnails are often quite round, whereas they become elongated and drawn out, further down the vase.
Rustic
Rutic

Tree Trunk (Northwood)
​

The hobnails are there, but they are surrounded by curly lines. These semi-circles or squiggles have been described as “tadpoles” which is very explanatory.
Tree Trunk
Tree Trunk

Swirled Hobnail (Millersburg)
​

The name describes it perfectly – hobnails interspersed with swirled lines. The entire background to the hobnails has these swirls, so it’s an easy one to identify.
Swirled Hobnail
Swirled Hobnail
Copyright © 2022 by G&S Thistlewood and individual authors and contributors where named. Protected under all applicable international laws and all rights are reserved. No image, text, or any part thereof may be copied, shared or transmitted to others without permission from the Copyright holders. Information herein may not be posted or made available, in whole or in part, on any website, social media site, FTP site, electronic bulletin board, newsgroup, or their equivalent.