Topic: is this mark for Maltese decorative glass ?

[WhatHo!]

Clearly some people who have replied are not aware of the scale of the MDG production and should go to Malta glass section and read my previous research. It was substantial factory (not a glass studio) situated at A36 Industrial Estate, Marsa, not in the craft village. It was big building with offices at the front, factory at the rear with a 120ft chimney. IMO MDG was the biggest glass producing company that has been on Malta, bigger than the present Mdina glassworks and certainly employed a lot more workers (I have been to Mdina glassworks and Joseph Said gave me a tour).
I hope this pic will help you understand the size of the place.

[Baked_Beans]

The Wikileaks link above talks about the concern from the private sector over 'marketing' issues associated with Chinese owned or perhaps  part-owned companies/factories based in Malta in c 1974. I wonder why there was so much concern over 'marketing' from the locals in Malta at that time , which was a very difficult period , economically, in Malta  ? Were they, perhaps, concerned (with respect to MDG  ) about the possibility of Chinese glass being sold in Malta ? ...The factory hadn't been completed at the time of the Wikileaks article .

Why, also , would they raise these concerns, if it wasn't for an economic reason ....i.e.  glass items could be produced a whole lot cheaper in China ?  If the glass was produced in Malta, then it  would have had the same unit cost as any other glass produced on the island...so no reason to raise concerns , perhaps ?

[glass newbie]

for me as i said previously, i think the mystery has solved , because , i think the weight was made in malta by chinese workers with chinese skills, therefore obviously chinese styling and influence will be present, they may have returned back to china once the factory closed and made all the other weights we see with chine labels on . i did not think this is something particularly special chris, but often i see in the other place i know you from, when people do not have a clue what the item is i am posting i get the same pre-rehearsed response " it's chinese, worth a fiver"  ... after several times of that you lose faith in what you are being told. hense why i brought it to a wider audience of experts, even here the opinions differ . so to conclude i think this was made in malta by the chinese workers.

[tropdevin]

Hi.  Thanks (WhatHo!) for flagging up your research into the factory under the Malta Glass section.

It seems that MDG did have a lot of employees for 4 years or so, but how many were glass workers, and how many were in that large office block dealing with admin / sales / marketing / export / and maybe import?  I suspect the Chinese saw Malta as a means of gaining access to the European market, as Malta had signed a treaty with the EEC in 1970.  So goods could be imported into Malta ( as 'raw materials'), processed (put in boxes and labelled), then exported to EEC states as products of Malta, with commensurate tax advantages.  Maybe the flower paperweights arrived by that kind of route.  It is similar to the process that brought so much Chinese glass through Murano a few years ago.

In respect of 'It's Chinese, worth a fiver'....if only! I give most of the Chinese paperweights I get (and for that matter, Maltese too) to the local charity shops.

Alan

[chriscooper]

And of course Alan these Chinese weights were around long before the MDG factory

[m1asmithw8s]

Just to clarify, none of the paperweights posted in this long thread were made using a crimp.
The flower petals are applied individually.