The Rummer
The word rummer comes from the word Roemer and was believed to derive from German word however is now believed to come from the Dutch word Roemer.
Early rummers were used for wine and came from the lowlands in Europe in the early seventeenth century. The glasses themselves had cupped shaped bowls with prunts applied on the stem with a hollow foot with trailed decoration and were usually green in colour.
Rummers were also imported from Venice and were colourless and were known as crystallo and made from soda glass.
George Ravenscroft invented flint lead glass and then started to produce drinking vessels from 1670 in England, however it did take him a few years to produce the correct formula with the right amount of lead oxide.
The English word Rummer has been used since the seventeenth century with a note from a writer at the time describing a lusty rummer filled with Rhenish white wine. Nathan Bailey’s dictionary from 1730 describes the word rummer as being a broad mouthed large drinking glass.
The word rummer refers to a group of drinking glasses produced from 1780 to 1880 with a large bowl, stem and a foot that is somewhat narrower than the bowl itself.
The early rummers would have had ovoid bowls that would concur with glasses such as opaque twist and facet stem wine glasses from 1770 as this was the fashion during the period. The ovoid bowl rummer remained in production until the Victorian period.
The Glass Tumbler
The Tumbler
The term tumbler refers to a drinking glass with a rounded or pointed bottom so the glass could not be put down until it was emptied. The glass could be of cylindrical, tapering or barrel shaped form with no handle or foot.
The Beaker
The beaker is described as a large drinking vessel with a wide mouth. The word beaker relates to the Latin name bicarius, Italian bicchiere and the German word becker
The shape of the rummer bowl did not change until around 1800 while early glasses were blown with thinner glass and the lead content in the glass being of a higher quality while the Victorian rummers tended to be blown much thicker and the quality and the proportions of the wine glasses were not refined as the earlier glasses and the later glasses tend be heavier due to the excise duties placed on glass had been lifted.