Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass Paperweights => Topic started by: adam20 on April 17, 2012, 03:19:21 PM
-
Lovely quality paperweight - signed TVG - Teign Valley Paperweights - I like their paperweights but don't know much about them.
Adam
-
Adam. TVG is, as you say, Teign Valley Glass. This establishment is situated in Devon, (South West England for our overseas friends) just on the outskirts of the Dartmoor National Park at Bovey Tracey, 2 miles North of the town of Newton Abbot in Pottery Road where the famous Bovey Pottery was formerly where Bernard Leach's Son was based and producing up until the potteries were taken over by Cardew, now demolished, a couple of the old brick built kilns are still preserved there. The glass factory/studio is part of 'The House Of Marbles'. They have a marvelous visitor centre shop and museum and you can wander into the glass making area to watch the glass blowers and artists at work creating their masterpieces, you can also, for a fee and pre-book classes where you can have a go yourself. In the shop on the ground level you can buy all manner of glass but predominantly marbles, all sizes, shapes and colours from just a few pence for the little ones to just a couple of pounds for the 50mm 'whoppers'. Upstairs they have all the paperweight plus other stuff, here the weights on display can be several hundred pounds to buy and they do produce some really cracking pieces, such as your's. TVG glass, especially the paperweights are very hard to find here, and I only live 6 miles from the studio, this is because 95% of all that they produce is exported, mainly I'm told to the States. I have a small collection of TVG, some of which I have purchased direct and others found at car boot sales and in local charity shops. I have one of their weights very much like yours, same pattern of which is a sort of purple brown. Take a look at their website, you'll want some more!
http://www.houseofmarbles.com/
-
Thanks. I have another TVG weight posted somewhere here on GMB. Excellent info and well noted.
Adam
-
Adam. Their art glass large marbles are really nice, you've probably looked at them on their site, quite expensive though. I have a moderate collection of these marbles purchased from a chap I got to know who aquired them from the 'artists' who made them at TVG but I bought mine for a fraction of their price on the site as they are classed as 'seconds' but you can't really tell between them, any only slight minute imperfection that the makers consider they may contain then they are rejected, such is their commitment to absolute perfection in their eyes.
-
I believe that at one time one of their glassmakers was from the RCA. I can't remember the details now, but I bought 2 absolutely gorgeous perfume bottles as pressies and they were designed by him.
If I get a moment I will have a quick look through my notes and see if I can find the info.
m
-
The thing that surprised me most when we visited TVG was that no one made a complete object, it was a team exercise and the first guy in the line took a gather and passed it to the second guy who marvered it then passed it to the third guy who did something else until it reached the end of the line as a complete paperweight or bottle. We hoppe to go again sometime soon
Dave
-
That is their normal workaday practice as they then get more stuff done. They have odd days when the glass 'artists' are there making stuff but it's just by chance if you happen to be there the same time as they are.