What type of glass is moulded or pressed with a pattern with a shiny, iridescent shimmer?

Carnival glass is moulded or pressed glass, always with a pattern and always with a shiny, metallic, iridescent surface shimmer.

The keys to its appeal were that it looked superficially like the much finer and much more expensive blown iridescent glass by Tiffany, Loetz and others and also that the cheerful bright finish caught the light even in dark corners of the home.

A wide range of colours and colour combinations were used but the most common colours accounted for a large proportion of output, so scarce colours can today command very high prices on the collector market.

Carnival glass has been known by many other names in the past: aurora glass, dope glass, rainbow glass, taffeta glass, and disparagingly as 'poor man's Tiffany'. Its current name was adopted by collectors in the 1950s from the fact that it was sometimes given as prizes at carnivals, fetes, and fairgrounds.