Vintage Drinking Glass Collection
I’m excited to share my vintage drinking glasses display! By grouping like colors together and varying the heights, you can create a unique look to show off your collections. I’m also sharing some fun history behind my glasses which will hopefully make you a much savvier shopper when it comes to finding the best deals on vintage drinking glasses.
I love to collect and have too many collections to count. I wanted to display my collection together for maximum impact so I gathered up all of my thrift store glasses that I’ve collected over the years.
I have a confession because I know this is a judgement free zone. I hate this built in desk in my kitchen! I designed the desk and cubbies when we renovated our 1903 house over 10 years ago and we never, ever use it! But I do love the open cubbies for display and I am really loving the fun pops of color the drinking glasses add to this space.
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Back in March, before the world came to a screeching halt, I was thrilled to find a set of cranberry and gold drinking glasses at the thrift store (in the bottom, middle cubby) and scooped those babies up! As you can see, I have three sets of glasses with gold accents and I displayed one set to each level, put all the pink in one cubby, and mixed and matched the more colorful glasses until I was satisfied with the result.
Cake plates are the perfect way to elevate the display so they don’t look lost in the cubbies. Stacking the goblets in the top left cubby also created height.
Remember the “Love Is” kids? Back in the 70’s, a sour cream company packaged their product in these adorable “Love Is” glasses with artwork from Kim Casali. You can find a variety of colorful art on vintage sour cream glasses here.
I found this never before used set of eight mid century collins glasses with a pink spaghetti string pattern in my mother-in-laws house (thanks mom) and the vintage state glasses were a gift from a fellow hoarder!
The Garfield mugs are 1978-1980 promo glasses from McDonald’s (I have two of the set of eight). Don’t you wish McDonald’s still gave these out instead of the cheap plastic toys in Happy Meals!
You will have a guaranteed hangover after drinking just one Screwdriver or Bloody Mary from these huge goblets!
The blue and gold doves are my favorite glasses in my collection and the colorful jockey shirt glasses are from a local racetrack.
My Bugs Bunny glass broke but I have Tweety, Daffy Duck and Yosemite Same to console me. I would love to get every single character in this collection.
There are 18 Glasses in the 1973 Pepsi Collector’s Set: Bugs Bunny, Sylvester, Tweety, Pepe Le Pew, Cool Cat, Henery Hawk, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck, Beaky Buzzard, Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner, Speedy Gonzalez, Porky Pig, Petunia Pig, Yosemite Sam, Tazmanian Devil, Foghorn Leghorn, and Slow Poke Rodriguez which is the most rare glass.
All the colors in the glasses are picked up in my Try a Little Kindness needlework. Mine is vintage but you can recreate the look with this vintage inspired crewel kit!
I love the way they brighten up my kitchen.
Almost all of my vintage glasses were thrifted but I try to limit the amount I spend on each one. Sadly, I had to pass up some vintage state glasses a few months ago because I refused to pay $10 each!
In case you were wondering, we do actually use these glasses to drink from! They are not everyday glasses because they have to be hand washed but they are fun to use for nice family dinners and cocktail parties (remember those things called parties where people would get together)?!
I hope you enjoyed a peek into one of my favorite collections.
See more of my collections here
What an awesome collection Kelly! I love the pink glasses and I love how you used stands. Try a little kindness, so true! Love all of this! 💕
Thank you so much Lisa! I love seeing my entire collection together!
Enjoyed seeing your collection. I just gave away my “old glasses” to my son and my niece. Had many of what you have. My son also “had to take” his old Happy Days lunch box. My niece also claimed my original vintage Fiestaware. It was time to let go. It was fun scouring the antique shops ( years ago before eBay) searching for auditions to my collections. Have a great week!!
I’m sure your son and niece will cherish your glasses Shirley! I wish I still had my Donny & Marie lunchbox!!
Hi Kelly. Your collection looks sooo good grouped together like that! The whole wall turns into a giant piece of art!
We’ve always had scotty dogs for our family pet and I have a big collection of scottys. They became very popular beginning with FDR, so there’s a lot of cool vintage ones out there.
A few years back our second scotty passed and we were devastated and it didn’t take long before we found a cute pup. Our friend found out we had gotten a new dog and asked what kind/breed. When my husband told him another scotty and he replied, “Oh I thought you might try a different type of dog“. To which my husband quickly replied, “Are you kidding… We’d have to redecorate”! 😂
Anyways, I been working on my overstuffed basement and wondering how things are coming on your end? I am too finding a lot of cool things I forgot I had and I’m trying to work things into my decor or out it goes! Or preferably my daughter who is looking for a house takes some things for her new home! As a young girl, she never liked the “old stuff”, but now she is as crazy about it as I am! I feel sorry for her new husband. Lol
I love Scottys and I’m glad you decorate around your dogs! My basement is at a standstill because charities are not accepting donations right now. But when they do, they will wish they never met me because I have so much stuff to get rid of!
Me Too! But then I thought, you know how great the thrift store treasures are going be when everyone starts donating their old stuff?!?! I’m so bad! Lol But I’m missing the hunt!
I know! I’ll be first in line in my hazmat suit and gloves and mask!
Oh my goodness!!! I love your collection!! I have a collection and keep them stored in the cabinet… now I want them on display too!! Those blue and gold glasses are gorgeous… I remember all the looney tunes and McDonald’s glasses.. wow… what an awesome post to inspire..
I had mine in a cabinet too Jamala but nobody puts vintage glasses in the corner!
I love your collection, also it looks great. Thanks for showing it
Thanks so much Debbie! It’s fun to display such a cheerful collection especially nowadays!
That’s a really fun display. Brought up some nostalgic memories just seeing your groovy collectios.
Right on Laura!
I love them all! I have a few of the looney tunes glasses that I collected back then. I have never seen the Love is… glasses before, I used to cut the cartoon out of the daily paper to save! Thanks for sharing your collection!
I could not believe when I found those Love Is glasses at the thrift store! They are in perfect condition too! Hope you find some Karen
Love love love! Thank you for sharing such a wonderful variety of vintage glasses! Maybe under your desk could be a custom little house for Sushi or a simple diy custom bar cart that rolls out? Fun stuff!
God bless and happy belated Mamas Day!
Janet M
I thought about putting Sushi there but she’s happy near the back door so she can watch the comings and goings! But you had me at bar cart Janet!
Great collection, it’s so nice to remember when companies would give away glasses with a drink and you would try to collect the set. My favorite are those Love Is and Cartoon glasses, so cute, and of course the Crewel work sign. Thanks Kelly and have a great week!
If fast food places gave these away now, I’d line up every single day Marlene!
we had some of those collector sets growing up… I can’t remember which but I feel like maybe the Smurfs. Such fun collections!
Why was there only one female Smurf is the big question!
Love your collection, especially the blue/gold birds. Thanks for sharing. I, too, collect drinking glasses from rummage/yard sales/junk shops, etc. I have a great collection of Ohio/Michigan glasses as I am from Ohio and my husband is from Michigan! My collections tend to focus on the seasons. I tend to change them out every month and I use them on a daily basis. Thanks for sharing.
I love that you actually use your glasses Nancy! Keep on collecting!
I used to have all of the Garfield glasses as well. But we broke a few and not sure what happened to the rest. We have some star wars and taller Garfield glasses from Burger King I think. We hardly ever use them because the glass is so thin. We broke one getting ice from from our icemaker. Hit the edge just right. You have a great collection. Thanks for sharing.
We’ve broken some too Hope but I’d rather use and enjoy them and take my chances!
Awesome collection Kelly !! My friend also collects those Pepsi Glasses, and there is one with Boris and Natasha , as well !!! I just gifted it to her for her bday !
Yeah, parties with friends and families…………. I miss everyone, this is hard , no hugs , no dinners, no celebrating special things , like a new grandbaby born on my birthday in March …….. boo hoo … thats the saddest thing ever ………. ( well , I know , not ever, but it felt like it ) .
Thank you for sharing your collection , its lovely.
Stay well !!
I’m a March birthday too Lynn! When is yours? You’re a good friend who gives vintage glasses as gifts! Wishing you a belated happy birthday!
Hi Kelly, my birthday is March 6th.
Happy belated birthday to you !
I could not believe the baby was born on my birthday , that is the coolest thing to me.
I knew her due date was March 9th, and my best friend said “it will be born on your birthday” , I said , that would not happen, ha ha !
I missed that super short new born phase … it goes by so fast ……..
I keep an eye out for those glasses and have gifted my friend 12 of them so far , she uses them all the time, they work great for Prickly Pear Mojitos … oh how I would love one right about now, with some guacamole , salsa, and chips …. 🙂
Happy belated birthday my fellow Pisces! My nephew was born on my birthday, a few hours after my grandmother passed away! Now I’m craving a mojito!
Very nice, you did a great job displaying these glasses. The colors are so cheerful and bright. I remember the Love Is…, I won $5 when I was a child completing a Love Is sentence. It was in our local newspaper. I thought that was so cool. Fun to see it again…
That is very cool Kelly! Do you remember the sentence?
Something very silly, of course, like sharing a milk shake with someone special. Those were the days of simple endearments. I suppose it holds true today if we just look for them.
So true!