Tiffin Glass on display at business

One local business proudly displays its owner's Tiffin Glass collection for its guests. Eric Shook, of Engle-Shook Funeral Home, said when he was a little kid, his grandparents started collecting glass and they had it for a long time. He said he always was intrigued by it and, as time went on, he started to collect a few pieces in college. After his grandparents died, he was given some of their collection and Shook said it has "all been history from there." "Once I moved in here to the funeral home and started to work with Phil Engle and his wife, Rayella, they were big glass collectors also, and I learned a lot from them," he said. Shook said he continued to collect and he and his wife, Jennifer, really started buying glass to replace the collection and decorate the funeral home with it once they bought it from the Engle's and they took all their glass with them. "Ever since then, my passion just continues to grow in all facets of Tiffin Glass," he said. Shook said Ruth and Lyman Hemminger, who were big Tiffin Glass collectors, also were instrumental when he was just getting started with collecting and they helped lead him down the path of where, how and what to buy. "They were good people. They kind of guided me when I got started and really educated me, too. They gave me some of my knowledge in the beginning to not get taken," he said. Shook said his cabinets at the funeral home are separated into different eras of glass that was done and are set up in certain areas to show that. He said they've tried to display a little bit of everything in each of the cabinets, so they include a bunch of different colors and different styles of glass. Shook said the funeral home in Tiffin has a lot of the regular lead glass design look, which is clear glass that can be seen through, whereas most of his satin glass collection, that which is fuzzier and can't be seen through, is displayed at his funeral home in Bettsville. He said his passion is a lot of the unique pieces such as paperweights, swords and canes, and he really likes the unique handmade pieces. "I think it's a nice way to preserve the Tiffin heritage and history since the Tiffin Glass House is no longer in business," Shook said. "It's a great way to keep the Tiffin Glass going, to display it, and let people enjoy it as they come in for visitations and funerals. "It's neat to me to see when people come in and see the glass, to hear the stories … it brings back a bunch of memories to the families," he said. "It's amazing the amount of people that walk in that just look at it and go, 'Oh, my dad has that piece' or 'my mom has that piece' or 'my grandpa worked there and he made that for my grandmother' or for an anniversary or something like that." He said he has hundreds of pieces of glass in his house and at his funeral homes. One of his most unique pieces is called the "Rhodes Bowl," which was commissioned for Gov. Jim Rhodes and which sat on his desk. It now is displayed at the funeral home, Shook said. Most of the pieces have been purchased through auctions, sales, private individuals or the glass museum, he said. Shook said prices vary based on what people will pay for them and how rare they are. He said glass is the same as any collectible out there because it is only worth whatever someone can get for it. "That's the allure of it, it's hard to put a value on that. It's worth more to me than it is to you maybe, or maybe it's worth twice as much to you. That's the thing, there's no Beckett, like if you're into cards, you go to the Beckett to find out the Michael Jordan rookie card is worth this in mint condition, this in good, this in fair. There's no Beckett for glass, there's no standard," Shook said. Tiffin Glass went through many different phases from functional glass to some usable glass and then they went into kind of more art glass, he said. "The Empress line is more decorative, more art glass than functional glass, and it was one of the last lines they made and they didn't make much of it, so it obviously is more expensive than items that were mass produced," Shook said. "It's harder to find, they didn't make as much of it, for the main reason is they didn't make it as long." He said a lot of his pieces are "one-of-a-kind pieces" that are signed by the person at Tiffin Glass House who made them and some of them include the year they were made as well. Some of his favorites are the paperweights because they didn't so much have a huge line of them, but they were more artist visions of several different things, including animals, Shook said. He said people wanting to collect need to be careful because there is a lot of stuff out there for sale, and a lot of people are crafting items and calling it Tiffin Glass when it isn't true Tiffin Glass. "Just know the Glass Museum in Tiffin is probably the best source of knowledge out there. If there's any questionable pieces, I would recommend you take it there," Shook said. "They are the czars of Tiffin Glass and a lot of those people volunteering down there have been around it all their lives and they know Tiffin Glass." The museum has put together books that include most of the pieces made by Tiffin Glass, he said. Shook said he has several books of all the pieces that were made. "All those pieces (included) are pieces that were out there that people said, 'hey, I got a big cat and a little cat,' 'I've got a hurricane vase,' I've got a Rhodes Bowl,' so they're all in those books so people would donate it to take these pictures," he said. Shook said the books, which are available at Tiffin Glass Museum, help out drastically by categorizing and showing everything that was put out there. But, he said a lot of the paperweights and some other unique items don't make it in there. "It was kind of neat to get them all in the book in the era they were made and the progression from the start to the end of Tiffin Glass," Shook said. He said the thing about Tiffin Glass, too, is that a piece could be very rare because he may have not seen another piece like it, but there could actually be hundreds of them. Shook said while you see a lot of pieces, there are other pieces where there may only be two or three that were made. "With Tiffin Glass not being produced or made today, what's out there is out there," he said. "So much of it has gotten broken or has been lost or destroyed. So again, for us, we're just trying to preserve the heritage." Shook said he would say there is a big population of collectors in Tiffin because everyone has a connection to it. While some people have a few pieces, others have hundreds of pieces, but the heart of Tiffin Glass is probably in Tiffin, because it's a local company, Shook said. He said he plans to continue expanding his collection, but now, he is getting a pickier about what he buys and he searches for the more unique and harder-to-find pieces. "I think anybody that is serious about collecting has a wish list," Shook said. "There's always things that I know exist that I can't put my hands on or I can't get the person to sell them to me. So, yeah, there are things I'm still looking for more of the unique pieces, odd pieces, different pieces." He said he thoroughly enjoys collecting glass and it "is just a hobby that he likes" and he can't really say why. Part of it, though, is due to the history and connection of it. "I was born and raised here. It was just kind of neat. The Glass House was a big staple years ago in Tiffin, it was a big business back in the day," Shook said. "It's just kind of neat to carry on that tradition and not let it get lost." He said if anybody has questions or interest, they should visit Tiffin Glass Museum downtown, which he said is "just a hidden gem in Tiffin." "They've got lots of glass, lots of history, if anybody wants to learn more or get involved, the Tiffin Glass Museum is just a wealth of knowledge," Shook said. "The volunteers that work down there are very, very educated and really know the history and the line of the pieces."