Topic: Can you help and identify paperweights

[chopin-liszt]

You won't be retiring!
I'm fairly sure they're about £10, brand new, in the shop. Obviously, as soon as you walk out of the shop with your purchase, it's only worth what somebody else would give you for it - probably a good bit less.
But as already said, we don't really discuss "value" or prices of pieces here. This is not the purpose of the gmb.

[tropdevin]

***
I'd be delighted to get anywhere near £10 for a Caithness pebble! I think the going rate may be nearer £1.....

Alan

[chopin-liszt]

I'm sure it would cost the makers more than £1 to make it - in terms of paying the glassmakers, shop staff, rent, rates, materials, equipment and fuel.
Brand new in the shop and the secondary market are completely different things.

And if folk don't buy new, they will go out of business.

[tropdevin]

***

Agreed, Sue.

The problem is that there are already many, many Caithness paperweights in circulation: I don't know if anyone has calculated it, but I suspect approaching half a million...... and maybe more  So there is bound to be a considerable sized - and low priced - second hand market when that many are produced.

I do wonder whether the previous management of Caithness thought about this problem before they suffered all their problems.

Alan

[Derek]

Hi Alan and Sue

I think even 500,000 Caithness weights is an UNDER estimate!

At their peak say 1990 - 2000 they were running with 18 chairs and employed 160 on the glass side at Perth alone - this excludes the shop and cafe and were making in the order of 150,000 paperweights PER YEAR. And for the rest of the time - nearly another 30 years there were not exactly idle so even if we averaged these years out at just 50,000 per year thats another 1,500,000 - so a grand total in the region of 3 million paperweights!

As Alan says with potentially this number on the secondary market is not surprising that unlimited weights especially fetch only a tiny fraction of their issue price.

Best regards

Derek

[chopin-liszt]

One should also remember that the quality of Caithness weights is exceptionally high, and the variety astronomical.
The quantity does not signify lack of quality - there are enough to go around for different collectors all over the world.