When Cambridge Glass closed, Tom decided to continue in the glass business, building a company of his own. It took a while for a young man just starting in life to assemble the elements necessary to do that. He spent five years buying glass moulds, searching for affordable used equipment and saving money. In 1959, he was finally able to begin manufacturing glassware in an abandoned chicken coop. From humble beginnings, Tom was able to leave the coop within two years and form Variety Glass, producing glassware for the pharmaceutical industry. The first plant produced glass articles for medical and pharmaceutical purposes only. It wasn't long before Tom was dreaming of having a plant for the sole purpose of producing art glass in opaques and crystals.
In 1971, Tom established Mosser Glass. He started with a few moulds and a gaffer's bench (the bench on which the worker makes the paperweights and finishes off the pressed pieces). Colors were not difficult to achieve because of the working knowledge acquired from originally working at the Cambridge Glass Co. Armed with books of formulas originally from Cambridge Glass Co., the imagination, and the ability to work long and hard hours, Tom started with paperweights of magnum size. He already knew how to gather the glass on the punty rods. He also knew the methods of blowing and working in the blowpipe department. So the building of furnaces, installing presses, and working out the formulas were the important parts of his beginning.
Starting a glass factory isn't for the faint of heart. It can be a truly difficult feat. The fact that Tom already knew how to mix a batch of glass from scratch using a formula was something great in his favor. Along with building the plant, there needed to be furnaces built for melting the glass. Lehrs and a polishing table must be bought and properly installed. A polishing table (or Glazer) is a round ring with numerous turntables about six inches wide. As the glass is placed on the turntables around the ring, they rotate against a gas jet, burning off the hard or sharp corners and melting off the very outer layer of glass, leaving it with a smoother, shinier finish. This important part of the process is polishing the glass.
In a period of four years, Mosser glass grew substantially. By 1975, they had two day tanks capable of turning out hundreds of pieces of glass in a single day. The employees were knowledgeable, and each movement was carefully planned and precise. The lehr at the Mosser Glass plant was one of the longest ones for a smaller glass house. It was bought and installed in 1974. In an interview from 1975, Tom said the following: "To make fine glass, one must use fine ingredients, and we have yet to sacrifice quality for quantity. Some of our wares are reproductions, such as the swan salt dip, slipper, and other small salts. But part of our moulds are of our own imagination and choosing."
There was not a large selection of colors initially, but Tom was more interested in building his business around worthwhile glass. According to an article from 1975, the glass colors available ranged from electric blue to cobalt and several shades of green, amber and amethyst. Along with Ruby, Amberina, Crystal, milk and some opaques. Mosser Glass continued to try and introduce at least two moulds per year. These moulds are a blend of new designs along with timeless classics moulds acquired from Viking, L.G. Wright and of course, Cambridge Glass.
A series of images from the 1982 Mosser Glass Catalog.
