The AEAA is very pleased to present this next group of valuable Vaseline / Opalescent Vaseline glass from the respected Loren (Butch) Morse collection. This lot represents a scarce & gorgeous 1920s Houze yellow Vaseline / Custard slag glass ashtray, finished in the special Houze & Akro Agate style eccentric Caramel banded agate pattern. This great ashtray features both a round bowl, as well as a prominent cast metal & well patinaed French bulldog on watch. Our scarce example is in excellent condition, and weighs 1#, measuring 3.75 x 3.75 x 3 inches tall. Our collectible ashtray is definitely from the depression Era, as the U.S. government seized the Houze Uranium Oxide in 1942. Due to the drafting of the Hazardous Materials Act, which banned any and all use of rare earth and radioactive materials, reserving them specifically for the U.S. Government / Defense Department, production was never resumed in Houze yellow & green Uranium colors (see history below. In early 1959, the act was rescinded, and U.S. Vaseline / Uranium Oxide production was resumed initially by Fenton Art Glass (Topaz). xxxxxxxxxxxxx. Loren Morse was a respected family man and Vaseline collector, and his untimely passing a year ago was a blow to everyone. The Morse family gratefully appreciates your participation in this Estate sale. xxxxxxxxxxxxx. The 102 year history of Houze Glass production began when Leon Houze came to the United States in 1879 at age 22 and worked for Day William Window Glass Co. in Kent, Ohio. In 1881, Leon Houze and his brothers Luke, Ulguisse, John and Vital started a glass factory in Meadville, Pa., called Houze Brothers Glass that made window glass. The factory burned, was rebuilt and then burned again. At the insistence of their wives, the brothers went their separate ways, with Ulguisse Houze eventually ending up in the state of California, where he brought an orange grove, although his son Noel J. Houze eventually went to work for his uncle Leon Houze in Point Marion, Pa. at the confluence of the Monongahela and Cheat Rivers, just above Morgantown, West Va.Before starting his business in Point Marion, however, Leon Houze built glass furnaces in Olean, N.Y., where John Houze said his ancestor built the first glass furnace powered by natural gas. Leon Houze also produced numerous inventions for the glass industry, including putting glass on cast-iron forms and running them through a heating oven to soften them into convex glass used for pictures, clock faces and instrument dials. All this was accomplished in 1899, when Leon Houze came to Point Marion and built the Jeanette Window Glass Company, following that with the building of the Federated Glass Co. in 1902. History records that Leon Houze built two more glass plants in Point Marion, including Houze Portrait Glass in 1902 that was eventually renamed Houze Window Glass, and the L.J. Houze Convex Glass Co. in 1914. Eventually, he bought out both Jeanette Window and Federated Glass lock, stock, & barrel, and incorporated all of the plants into L.J. Houze Convex Glass Co. in 1923.Leon Houze had three sons: Armand Sr., Roger and Leon Jr., who all worked at the factory. Armand was the glass chemist who started working for his father when he formed the convex glass company and became vice president of the company. He was in charge of coloring the glass and chemicals. Roger Houze took care of sales and was plant manager, overseeing the production of a wide range of Houze products. John Houze showed off a Saturn lamp the company made for the 1939 World’s Fair in Chicago. The company also made children’s toy glass dishes, lamps, lamp shades and figure lamps. There apparently was no end to the colors they Houze could produce, reputedly being the steward of well over 700 glass formulas, which were used in making ashtrays, cigarette containers, lamp parts, novelties, whimseys, desk pen bases, and contract gift items for private manufacturers. The approach of WW II had a profound effect on Houze, as exportation of colored glass for goggles and sunglasses was stopped, and in 1942, the war department came to the factory and took all the uranium that was used in making glass, ending the company’s production of yellow & green Opaline (Vaseline) objects. We are extremely grateful to the Houze Glass Museum (http://www.houzeglassmuseum.com/) and family members, for sharing their fine historical data.

Excellent condition - some tarnish, small anomaly in center