If someone admires your nubby butt, don’t take it personally — but do take it as a compliment.

Chances are, they’re among enthusiasts who are paying as much as four figures for swung vases.

Available in a variety of colors, this elongated style of handmade glassware first gained popularity in the 1960s and 1970s and is now making a comeback among avid collectors. Some of the most desirable examples were produced in Western Pennsylvania during the mid-century modern decorating trend.

One of the features aficionados look for is a raised hobnail texture at the base of a vase, otherwise known as a nubby butt.

The vintage vases get their name from the method of production — beginning with hand-blown glass that is suspended and swung upside down, using gravity to help form the cooling molten substance into a uniquely shaped decorative piece.

Local auctioneer Brian Carey has seen the popularity of the vases soar at his Dargate Auction Gallery near Blairsville.

“I’ve noticed the price swing probably within the past five years,” he said. “It just seems to be a fad for now.”

He recently sold a 30-inch-tall swung vase in white milk glass for $7,250 to a woman who traveled from New York to pick up her auction purchase.

Though no two of the vases are exactly alike, the buyer didn’t want to miss a chance at getting hold of one of the rarest kind, according to Carey.

“She said it was one of four known in that color and pattern,” he said.

Carey, 46, suggests the new desire for swung vases isn’t driven simply by a nostalgic interest in their mid-20th-century aesthetics, since the New York collector wouldn’t have been born yet during that period.

“It’s been a meteoric rise,” he said. “When I was in my teens and 20s, you could buy these for $15 or $25 apiece. Even a few years ago, they were under $100.”

Carey has acquired the vases he offers at auction primarily through estate sales.

As for the vase features that seem to attract bidders, in addition to rarity, he said, “Bigger is better and, for the most part, opaque colors are better than translucent colors.”

Local roots

He’s also found many collectors who gravitate to vases that were produced by Mt. Pleasant’s defunct L.E. Smith Glass.

Founded in 1907 by Lewis E. Smith, the company got its start in a Jeannette glass plant and moved to Mt. Pleasant after Smith acquired the closed Anchor Glass Co. plant there two years later. In 1975, it was taken over by Toledo, Ohio-based glass container maker Owens-Illinois Inc.

The plant was purchased out of U.S. Bankruptcy Court in 1995 by a Belle Vernon money manager. Glass production ceased there in 2008, though some of the remaining inventory continued to be sold.

The Mt. Pleasant Area Historical Society has a collection of the company’s glassware, including swung vases.

“Each one of these is a work of art,” society President Rick Meason said of the vases. “It wasn’t just a product to be sold. That’s what makes it so historic for me.”

The popular “nubby,” or hobnail, pattern wasn’t the only textural detail at the base of the vases. Others might have a diamond pattern or a “moon and stars” design.

The vases originally “were extremely popular for about 10 years,” Meason said. “It seemed like everybody had them back in the day. I think they overpopulated the market, and then everybody started getting rid of them.”

Now, he said, “When I talk to people about them, they either love them or they hate them. There’s no middle ground.”

Meason said L.E. Smith was known for producing the vases in a “bittersweet” color — an opaque blend of orange and other hues.

“I love them. I think they’re cool,” he said. “They are very popular and very high-priced now. That’s why I don’t own one.”

Domestic decor

Yesterday’s RAVE antique store owner Patty Wolfe said swung vases have been a hot item recently for vendors at her shop in Greensburg, with bittersweet-colored pieces among the most coveted.

“It’s more of a milky color,” she said. “It’s one of the highly sought-after ones.”

Wolfe is familiar with the swung vase’s past as a simple element in domestic decor.

“My mother had a green one at the top of her steps,” she said.”It was just decorative. She would put pampas grass in it.”

Recently, she has seen some of her vendors selling larger swung vases for as much as $800.

“For a long time we couldn’t keep them in the store,” she said. “The big ones are harder and harder to come by.”

For every collector, there are different facets of a swung vase they may prefer. In addition to the color and the base pattern, Wolfe indicated, some of the vases may have a three-toed base.

Others may have sides with a draped, paneled or ribbed appearance.

A vase’s top edge may feature a series of pointy “fingers.” The tiny stalactites of glass may form as the vase-to-be hangs upside down, transforming into stalagmites when the finished piece is turned right-side up.

Color attraction

Lori Mozina of Hempfield, one of Wolfe’s vendors, has dipped her toe into the world of swung vases — both as a collector and a dealer.

A retired Franklin Regional art teacher, she said, “I was familiar with them, but at first I didn’t understand how valuable some of the bigger ones can be.

“I like that most of the time they’re asymmetrical, and they have that handmade feel to them.”

While she hasn’t yet acquired a bittersweet vase, Mozina has amassed enough differently colored vases (including persimmon, amber, red, purple and cobalt blue) in the smaller, $30 price range to create a rainbow-like window display.

“I just like them because of the colors,” she said.

Lynne Craig of Penn Township, manager at Yesterday’s RAVE, has been able to pick up a few swung vases for modest prices at thrift stores.

“I found a big blue one that was $15,” she said. “I paid $6 for another one that was opalescent.”

It’s anybody’s guess when the collectibles market pendulum may swing back downward for swung vases.

“It’s possibly something that will change five years from now or two months from now,” Carey said of the swung vase craze. “We never know.”

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