For most collectors, a trip down the peanut butter and jelly aisle at the supermarket means picking up a Welch's jelly glass and wondering "maybe I should be buying these". A true collector can never have enough collections. But according to Mark Chase, author and collector, you should probably bypass the current Welch glasses and just watch for them at flea markets and garage sales! That way, you'll only spend a quarter or so and not feel guilty about all that jelly.
Chase is the author of several books on cartoon and glass collecting, he was also the founder and early publisher of Collector Glass News, six times a year newsletter, starting in 1989.
When asked what was the biggest area of glass collecting, Chase immediately said Pepsi glasses! The glass sets that were produced in the 1970s are the ones that usually draw folks into the glass collecting world. The glasses are fun, colorful and are relatively easy to find. Well, that is except for the rare exceptions -- but all collectibles have those coveted exceptions and make the collecting hunt more fun.
The first set of Pepsi/Warner Bros glasses had eighteen glasses each depicting a different Warner Bros. character. They started producing them in 1974, breaking it down into three series of six. A restaurant would sign on for the promotion of the first series and after that series was completed, had the opportunity to sign on for the second series, and then the third. Each successive series would have fewer restaurants signing on for one reason or another, which is why the first series is very easy to find and the most common.
These glasses were produced both by Brockway Glass and the Federal Glass company. Chase mentioned that the promotion was so successful that the original contractor, Brockway, could not keep up with the orders -- therefore Federal Glass company was signed on to help fill the demand.
Since this promotion attracted so much attention, it was decided to produce another set of glasses, the Pepsi Warner Bros interaction set. Instead of the static figures of the first set, these Warner Bros characters were busy doing "something" (e.g. Porky Pig with a fishing pole). The second set consisted of two series of twelve glasses each and was only produced by Brockway. The values on the interaction glasses are higher than the static characters in the first set.
