What is Fadenglas?
Faden: string, cord, fiber, filament
Glas: glass
'Fadenglas' is the German term for glass that
has colored filaments of glass fused into it.
Many glass blowers prefer using prepared glass
rods of Fadenglas when making their lamp work
creations so that the colors will be permanent,
and neither wash off nor fade over time. These
glass umbrellas were individually mouth-blown
using differently striped rods of Fadenglas, so
each ornament is unique and one-of-a-kind.

About these antique ornaments ~
First featured in our Holiday 1998 catalog, we
were delighted to offer these genuine antique
Christmas decorations to our collector friends.
Unfortunately, we misplaced a quantity of the
umbrella ornaments during the move in 2006
to our new atelier and offices. But last week,
while organizing storage in the attic, we found
the missing ornaments, and are happy to share
this final quantity of these rare holiday treats.

Rare "Country of Origin" labeling ~
Acquired in their original boxes and untouched
for more than 100 years, all of these umbrella
ornaments still wear their original "Germany"
stamped mark!

More about the "Germany" mark:
The McKinley Tariff Act of 1890 mandated
that all goods entering the U.S. be individually
labeled with its "Country of Origin." However,
marked glass ornaments have never been
found, and thus were thought to have just had
the boxes labeled, or perhaps to have had
paper labels that were lost over time. But we
may have solved this mystery! All of these
umbrellas are rather smudgily stamped with
a non-permanent, circular "Germany" mark,
thus leading us to conclude that this form
of labeling on other antique glass ornaments
simply wore off through handling. For this
reason, we recommend that you handle the
ornament by its handle only to preserve this
interesting mark of Christmas history.