coin glass

coin glass, glassware usually in the form of wineglasses, goblets, or tankards enclosing a coin either in the foot, or in the hollow knop of the stem, rarely in an interior bulb. A Venetian specimen of coin glass dated 1647 is known, but the principal occurrence is in English glass from about 1650 onward. It was a useful device for expressing Jacobite or anti-Jacobite sympathies with either a Stuart or a Hanover coin. Early 19th-century loving cups and similar pieces in Boston glass generally had hollow stems enclosing coins.