I got in with the plain old $10 entry fee for the museum, and spent almost 3 hours meeting dealers and makers and looking at lots of unbelievable weights!
People Highlights - let's see -
* met John Deacon.
* Bumped into Rick Ayotte (and we both said 'excuse me'!).
* Met Paul Stankard's daughters and his apprentice. (Paul was late).
* Met William Pitt - really nice dealer. He had offered at one time to buy my whole collection and congratulated me on how well I've been doing on Ebay.
* Met Paul Dunlop from Statesville NC and his lovely wife (whose name I've forgotten). Didn't get to talk much with Paul - once he heard his wife tell me that the Robinson's had a Pantin, he was on his way to their booth!
* Met a neat lady named Ethel - member of the Delaware Valley chapter of the PCA. She's 87 and has begun selling her collection because her kids "don't appreciate paperweights!" We were interrupted before I got to ask how/where she was selling the weights. Too bad, because she owns hundreds!
* Finally met Suzie Kaplan Jacobson (one of the NYC Kaplan dealer family). Missed Alan.
* Saw Jack Feingold (Gem Antiques) who enjoyed hearing the final outcome of the "Clichy made by Baccarat with Chinese Glass at the New England factory under the supervision of a crouching rabbit". He was one of the people who had thought it could be a St. Mande.
Paperweight highlights -
* I actually not only photographed, but HELD a Pantin!!! It's for sale for the bargain price of $15,500 by Harvey and Doris Robinson (
www.robinsonpaperweights.com). I did hand it back VERY CAREFULLY to Harvey once I saw the price tag!!!
http://i4.tinypic.com/1088qqr.jpg* Had a long talk with Katherine, a Stankard daughter, about a huge 22 pound globe. Turns out that it is not possible to make a globe that big, so they make it in pieces which they then epoxy together! (You can see the lines where they do the gluing.) I did not consider picking it up as the asking price is $40,000! Katherine is in the picture so you can see how big the globe really is.
http://i4.tinypic.com/1088rag.jpg