Tumbler: Hazel Atlas, State Map Souvenir Glass, Florida, Gay Fad, Vintage 1950s

A frosted Hazel Atlas tumbler that maps old Florida in lemon yellow, from Cypress Gardens and Monkey Jungle to the sand where stock cars once raced at Daytona Beach.

• Maker: Hazel Atlas Glass Co., with Gay Fad Decorating Co.
• Pattern: State Souvenir Map, Florida
• Materials: Frosted glass with raised fired-on color illustration
• Dimensions: 4.75″ tall, 2.6″ diameter
• Origin: USA
• Era: Vintage 1950s
• Condition: Very Good vintage condition, no visible flaws. Please review photos closely before purchasing, as all sales are final.

The map is printed in lemon yellow, a cooler shade than the canary yellow used on some of the other state glasses in the series, and lettered in black. It marks many cities like: Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Daytona Beach, Orlando, Miami, Miami Beach, and Key West, along with Silver Springs, Cypress Gardens and Monkey Jungle. "Florida" runs vertically down the side, above the Gulf of Mexico and Pensacola Beach. Small illustrations include a bathing beauty, palm trees, a leaping fish, and a sailboat towing a water skier. The fired-on design is raised. The glass is signed "GF" beneath a small flagged buoy and the base is unmarked.

A great find for the collector building a fifty-state set, for anyone who remembers the Florida road trip, and for racing fans.

On the east coast, the map marks the Ocean Beach Speedway near Daytona Beach, a nod to the beach racing that made the town famous. From 1936 to 1958, official stock car racing took place on the sand and the highway beside it at the Daytona Beach Road Course. NASCAR itself was founded in Daytona Beach in 1948. Crowds and traffic eventually outgrew the shoreline, and in 1959 racing moved inland to the new Daytona International Speedway. Cars can still drive on designated stretches of the sand at low speeds today. Monkey Jungle, established in 1933, is still there, where visitors walk through cages while the monkeys roam free. Others are gone: Cypress Gardens closed in 2009, and now Legoland has opened on the site.

That small "GF" is worth a look. It stands for Gay Fad Studios, founded by Fran Taylor, who started decorating glassware at home in 1939 because she couldn't find anything but heavy, formal, Victorian-style pieces for casual entertaining. She built that idea into an international company based in Lancaster, Ohio, that ran until 1962, she was one of the few women running a glassware company at the time. Gay Fad bought plain blanks from makers like Hazel Atlas and hand painted or silk screened them with whimsical designs. Collectors still celebrate the pieces, and the studio has been revived in Lancaster with a museum of original glassware.

The Hazel Atlas Corporation was founded in 1885 in Wellsburg, WV, by Charles N. Brady and C.H. Tallman. It began by making glass inserts for zinc canning-jar lids and grew into the largest glass-container manufacturer in the world. In 1956 it was acquired by the Continental Can Company.

Browse our shop for more Hazel Atlas state souvenir glasses to round out your collection.