Gary
Premium price, but nobody could tell me what I was buying
EDIT: Joe, the founder, replied and cleared up the confusion. I conclude the mix-up is because they're a small, scrappy company. Checked today and they've already fixed the mistake. That's a sign of a brand that really cares. Changing my review to 4 stars. --- I bought glassware from Fable expecting the considered, high-end experience the brand markets. What I got instead was confusion at every step. In store, I asked the staff to explain the difference between the regular glassware and the Pro version. The only answer I got was that the Pro is twice as strong. That doesn't clear much up, because Fable already markets the regular line as strong and shatter-resistant, so twice as strong as what? No one in the store could explain it. When the staff at a premium brand can't articulate the difference between two products, it's hard to know whether you're paying for better glass or just a higher price tier. It got worse at home. Opening the box, I genuinely could not tell which version I'd bought. It just said "The Coup Glass" despite purchasing the Pro version ($10 more per glass). I called the store again and was told to check for a small shield on the base of the glass. There was no shield. So I called again, and the follow-up explanation was that because the box had no green sticker on it, it must be the Pro. Despite having the same name as the regular glasses. So I paid the premium and I'm taking it on faith, on the basis of a sticker that isn't there. Nice-looking products, but the experience around them doesn't match the positioning or the price. Disappointed in the brand and expected more.
Response from fable.comSep 18, 2026
Hey Gary, I know I sent you an email on this, but I just want to clear it up on here to make sure we're on the same page. Short version: your coupe glasses are the tempered ones. We've never made a non-tempered coupe. The longer version is that when we launched, all our glassware was ion-toughened and just called by its product name. Enough people asked for the same shapes at a lower price that we later added an untempered line, and renamed the toughened range Pro to separate them. Anything produced before that change is tempered but carries neither the Pro name nor the engraved shield. Re-marking that existing inventory would have meant shipping it back to Germany, which we couldn't justify as a small business. For what it's worth, third-party batch testing puts the tempered pieces at 4 to 8 times stronger than untempered glass. Sorry this wasn't clearer in store. That one's on us to fix. Joe