Tiffin Glass Museum

The Tiffin Glass Collectors Club operates this museum, located in a downtown building in Tiffin Ohio,

This is the largest sign that I noticed for the museum, but the displays inside were very well done, and nicely organized.  We arrived here with barely an hour till closing, and the volunteers were eager to share their knowledge with us.  Tiffin was started in the 1880s and continued until 1980, and has made fine leaded glass of many colors and designs.  This tour was a guided tour, with the first volunteer telling us about the history of the plant from the 1880s to the time of the closing in 1980.  There was a natural gas supply from a local well, and the gas was used to fire the furnaces, and at some point in time, the local gas supply ran out, and with rising expenses, the plant couldn’t compete and closed.

These were the first two displays that we saw upon entering the museum.  The display with many colored items, has a glass blowing tube, and many tools used in working the molten glass.

These two wide pictures show two types of displays, the one on the left is the museums displays, and the white shelves are items for sale.  The museums displays were well organized by years of productions, styles, and colors.

Anne-Marie with our second volunteer explaining style and colors of the different patterns.

This display shows how different colors were made, and their reaction to different types of light.  The top shelf purple glass in natural light turns a light blue under a florescent light, and the yellow glass that is made with uranium to have the strong yellow color glows green under the ultraviolet light.

The ladies of the Tiffin Glass Collectors Club are very knowledgeable about the factory and the different styles and ages of the glass, and even the chemical composition that makes up the different colors.  I had the feeling that if chairs were available, we could have spent hours in front of each display, listening to the guides sharing their knowledge of this very special glass.  I just can’t understand how something this nice fell out of favor with the consumers, and the plant had to close.  Back home in Hood River, Oregon, Franz Hardware had a section of glassware, and Anne-Marie believes that they carried this company's glass.

We have spent a week here in Sandusky, Ohio, and we have signed up for another weeks stay.  There is just too much to see and do with the time that we allowed, and there will be more for us to do when we return in a year or two.