Juice Glasses: Davy Crockett The Backwoods Boy, Libbey Glass, Vintage 1950s

Young Davy Crockett in his coonskin cap looks out from this clear Libbey juice glass, framed in red by Tennessee mountains, pines, and a gnarled old tree.

• Maker: Libbey Glass Co.
• Subject: Davy Crockett, The Backwoods Boy
• Marking: "L" on the base
• Materials: Blown glass with fired-on color print
• Dimensions: 4.75″ tall, 2.5″ top diameter
• Origin: USA
• Era: Vintage 1950s
• Condition: Excellent, with no flaws. Please note: the glass has a bright red color but looks deep burgundy on the pictures.  Please review photos closely before purchasing, as all sales are final.

"Davy Crockett" is printed in yellow across the top, with "Born 1786 – Limestone, Tennessee" in smaller yellow letters beneath it. A red portrait shows Davy in his coonskin cap, holding a rifle, set against mountains, pine trees, a split-rail fence, a creek, and a twisted tree. "The Backwoods Boy" is lettered in green near the base, along with a small green powder horn. The design is printed in red, yellow, and green and stays crisp across the whole glass.  Please note: the glass has a bright tomato red color but looks deep burgundy on the pictures.

A great find for the Davy Crockett and Disney-era Americana collector, for a Tennessean, and for anyone who loves frontier and Western nostalgia.

The words on the glass point to where the legend began. Davy Crockett was born on August 17, 1786, near Limestone in what is now Greene County, Tennessee, on the Nolichucky River. In the mid-1950s, the Disney television series starring Fess Parker set off a national Davy Crockett craze, and children and adults alike wore coonskin caps. Glasses like this one were promotional ware made to ride that wave, often sold as the container for jelly or peanut butter so a family kept the glass once the jar was empty. It belongs to a set of biographical glasses that also includes "Indian Fighter," "Hero of the Alamo," and "Coonskin Congressman," and this one tells the Backwoods Boy chapter. Around the same years, the Davy Crockett Birthplace Association bought the birthplace property and built a replica of the family cabin from the logs of the original, and the site is now a Tennessee state park.

The Libbey Glass Company traces back to 1818, when the New England Glass Company was founded in East Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1888, Edward Drummond Libbey moved the firm to Toledo, Ohio, and in 1892 it took the name Libbey Glass Company. It was acquired by Owens-Illinois in 1935 and was spun off as a separate company again in 1993. Libbey became known for fine cut glass and grew into one of America's major makers of tableware, and it is still based in Toledo.

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