Vintage Glass Christmas Tree Toppers: Spires, Shiny Brite and Fakes

A vintage glass Christmas tree topper is usually a blown glass spire, a hollow point over one or more round bulbs. The earliest came from Germany in the late 1800s, and American makers such as Shiny Brite followed from 1937. Check the glass, silvering and base together, because reproductions of old designs are sold new.

What a vintage glass Christmas tree topper looks like

A vintage glass Christmas tree topper is most often a spire, which dealers also call a finial: a tall hollow point rising from one, two or three round bulbs, with a long open neck that slides over the top branch. Some have indents, hollows pressed into the bulb that catch the light, and Antique Trader notes that some Shiny Brite pieces were decorated with mica “snow.”

Stars and angels also top old trees, but this guide covers glass spires. Glass spires came from the same workshops and factories that made glass balls, so the clues for dating them are much the same.

Where glass Christmas tree toppers came from

Glass Christmas decorations started in Lauscha, a glassmaking town in the Thuringian Forest. Homes & Antiques magazine traces the first glass tree ornaments there to the late 1840s, and the town’s Museum of Glass Art says Christmas decoration making in Lauscha and the villages around it flourished from 1870. Homes & Antiques adds that after World War II the East German government nationalized the workshops and production switched to machines, and that handmade work revived after the Berlin Wall fell.

Spire toppers were part of that trade. The Weekly View, a community newspaper, reports that finial toppers date from the second half of the 19th century, that the most valuable are spun glass with silvered or lacquered spheres, and that the early imported toppers were so delicate that few survived.

In the United States, Max Eckardt founded Shiny Brite in 1937 and worked with Corning Glass Works to mass-produce glass ornaments, according to Antique Trader. Antique Trader lists tops and finials among Shiny Brite’s shapes, says the ornaments were most popular through the 1940s and 1950s, and describes 1950s crimped metal toppers marked “Made in U.S.A.” and “Shiny Brite.”

Vintage glass tree toppers (pre-owned)

Shop vintage glass Christmas tree toppers (pre-owned)→

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• Shiny BriteBrowse →
• Mercury glass spireBrowse →
• West GermanyBrowse →
• PolandBrowse →

How to tell a vintage tree topper from a reproduction

A vintage tree topper and a modern copy can look alike in a photo, so judge it in hand or from close, well-lit pictures. Old designs are still reissued: Christopher Radko has sold reproductions under the Shiny Brite name since 2001, which our guide to vintage Christmas ornaments covers in more detail.

Four practical checks help:

1. Silvering wear. A topper handled every December for decades usually shows it, most often at the tip and the neck. Perfect, even silver everywhere is a reason to ask more questions.
2. The glass itself. Hand and mold blown glass is rarely perfectly even. Compare the wall thickness and the shape of the bulbs with documented examples from the same maker.
3. Marks and boxes. A country stamp, a paper label or an original maker’s box helps, but missing marks prove nothing, and a box can be swapped.
4. Seller dating. Listings often name a decade or a country without saying why. Ask what the date is based on.

None of these checks is proof on its own. For a rare or expensive topper, an appraiser or a collectors’ club is the safer judge.

Using a vintage glass tree topper safely

A vintage glass tree topper is fragile, so fit and placement matter more than with plastic. Slide the neck over a top branch that fills it without forcing, and support a tall spire with a short, soft tie if the branch bends. Keep a glass topper away from heat sources and hot bulbs.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission advises avoiding sharp, weighted or breakable decorations on trees in homes with young children,. In a house with toddlers or a climbing cat, a sturdy topper may be the better choice until the glass can go back up.

Vintage glass ornaments to match your topper

Shop vintage glass Christmas ornaments (pre-owned)→

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• Shiny BriteBrowse →
• Mercury glassBrowse →
• West Germany glassBrowse →
• Christopher RadkoBrowse →

Why a secondhand Christmas tree topper is a good start

A secondhand Christmas tree topper reuses something already made. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency puts source reduction and reuse at the top of its waste management hierarchy, above recycling, and an old glass spire, stored wrapped in a sturdy box away from attic heat, can keep its place at the top of the tree for many more years.

When the tree comes down, see artificial Christmas tree storage for packing the tree itself. To decorate the rest of the tree without plastic, see wooden, felt and wool ornaments, blank wooden ornaments to paint yourself and natural Christmas decorations, or start at the eco-friendly Christmas hub.