By null — A Comparative Study of Design and Craftsmanship Part I: (Editor's Note: Although glass paperweights have been collected in the United States for over a generation, and for longer than that in England and Continental Europe, certain obvious facts have not been included in what has been written on the subject. Most of these have been learned by studying and handling a great number of examples from the wide range of factories at which they were made. It is with no idea of...

U.S. Studio Art Glass, Before and After Chihuly

By Maribeth Keane and Brad Quinn — In 2010, we spoke with Seattle-based artist Benjamin Moore (1952-2021) about the origins of the American Studio Art Glass Movement and how it benefited from the combination of traditional European techniques and an American attitude of collaboration and experimentation. : Marvin Lipofsky introduced me to glass while I was getting a bachelor’s degree in ceramics at the California College of Arts in Oakland, California. One day I saw a poster there for the Pilchuck Glass School,...

Pinchbeck But Precious (Paperweights)

By Evangeline H. Bergstrom — An insurance broker picks up his telephone, and recognizes the voice of one of his clients, a woman who is a collector of old glass paperweights. She says that on Thursday of this week she will ship to New York a package containing a number of her weights, and she wants them "covered" for the period of time they will be out of her hands. She mentions a sum of money which she considers to be a fair valuation, and adds: "You may be a little surprised at the high value I have put on them, but...

Paperweights, Rare and Not So Rare

By Evangeline H. Bergstrom — "I have a number of books which belonged to my grandfather. They are very old, and I am quite sure they are valuable. Will you be so kind as to arrange with your friend, the rare book dealer; to look them over and let me know their value?" The books arrive. They are indeed old. The type is of an antique cut, the paper is brittle and streaked with brown. When I take them to my friend, the expert in old books, he examines them and shakes his head. "Not one in the lot," he says, "is...

Paperweights by Nicholas Lutz

By Ruth Webb Lee — More than one veteran collector of American glass, particularly Sandwich, will be surprised to learn that a workman at the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company made, among other things, artistic glassware of a type that for centuries had been associated with Venetian masterpieces. It is no secret that all our early factories, from Stiegel's to recent times, imported skilled European blowers to ply their trade here and teach native workmen. But for obvious reasons they worked on wares...

Paperweight Making as Done at Millville

By Edward W. Minns — Victor Durand, owner and operator of this Vineland plant, never owned a factory in Millville. He started in Vineland in 1895 with a tube shop, where he made electric bulbs and later X-ray tubes. In 1918, he tried again to make roses, but with no success. This was not because he was any less of a craftsman, but because Durand didn't have the setup of the Whitall Tatum wooden mold department. The proper colored cullet was not available; instead of ovens there were only annealing lehrs,...

Loetz Glass Collector Eddy Scheepers on the Pride of Bohemia

By Maribeth Keane — Loetz was a Bohemian company. It was a factory; and the region’s biggest and best glass manufacturer. There were other contemporaries like Kralik, Rindskopf, and Pallme-Konig that produced glass in the same style, made almost in the same way, but not always with the same quality. The glass is covered with vapors of metals, like silver, for instance. Most Loetz glass was not free-blown like most people think; ninety-five percent was blown in molds. Some people think some of the glasses...

Getting Lost in Strathearn Art Glass Paperweights

By Maribeth Keane — In 1998, while going through my parents' estate, my wife and I found some glassware made by Anchor Hocking between the 1940s and the 1960s as promotional items for laundry detergent and gas stations. My parents had recently been killed in an automobile accident, and my wife said, “Hey, it’d be a good idea to try to put this set together in memory of your mother,” so we started visiting antique shops to see if we could find more. We gradually put a set together and found others in different...

Reyne Haines Spills on Tiffany, Chihuly, and Loetz

By Dave Margulius — I started becoming interested in art glass when I moved from Texas to New York, and wanted to decorate my apartment with New York-type things, things I had never seen in Houston. I grew up in Texas, which is a relatively new state. While there’s a lot of money in Texas, we didn’t have a Tiffany’s, we didn’t have a Marshall Field’s, or companies that sold Baccarat or Lalique or Tiffany or Steuben or any of the bigger makers. Nobody in my family really collected anything, and I wouldn’t say...