Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass Paperweights => Topic started by: glasstrufflehunter on January 27, 2009, 01:56:10 AM
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I was browsing eBay and ran across a seller who was selling paperweights like the clear one pictured below. As part of his copy he said that very large paperweight (7 to 8 inches) were very expensive because they take 6+ months to anneal. Is this correct? I already have respect for any artist who can heft something that large around on the end of a pontil rod but six months to anneal? That would be rather amazing.
The clear weight is eight inches in diameter and the 'fish ball' is seven.
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The annealing time would be considerable but six months would be very excessive. Josh Simpson's 100 pound paperweight took only three months to anneal and it was the size of a beach ball.
http://www.joshsimpson.com/site/index.php?page=corning
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If true, perhaps, the artist was playing safe and just left it in the annealing oven for longer ;)
No doubt the more sophisticated organisations will be more careful due to the costs of running the facility.
Vasart weights were annealed in a tunnel and the time to anneal was variable at the rate of production. The fake PY weights had a relatively short annealling time of a few hours.
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''The fake PY weights had a relatively short annealling time of a few hours.''
How do you know this? :)
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Those two weights look like Chinese to me - I have no idea how long the Chinese factories anneal their weights.
As to the fake PY's - IIRC Frank was involved in discovering the fakes and the people behind them.
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Both paperweights had China stickers when I bought them. I think almost all of the extremely large paperweights one runs across these days are from China. I think it was Leni that gave the link in another thread about the Hong Bao factory in China. Their pages have photos of nearly all of the modern Chinese paperweights one runs across these days. They have pages and pages of stuff which leaves me with the impression that they are a very large operation. My question is; are they the only factory that produces paperweights in the country and they are distributed to other businesses or are there several glass factories? If it's just Hong Bao that puts a name on otherwise anonymous glass.
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A couple of years ago I was trying to find out about Chinese paperweights and I contacted Hong Bao and asked if they could tell me which glass-houses made the various weights they sold. The reply I received seemed to assume I wanted to cut the Hong Bao company out by approaching the makers direct. They said it was not their policy to identify the makers, but that they would do me a very good deal if I wanted to buy paperweights in large quantities. I wrote again, explaining that I only wished to be able to identify which makers made which weights, but sadly got no further communication from them.
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Who are the people behind the fake PYs?
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A dealer that was based in Scotland. I will not say more at this point in time.
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Hi,
At Caithness, Franco Toffolo used to make what we called "Treble Magnums" their weight was approx' 9kg, about the size of a football,They were annealed for 48hrs in a kiln.
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These paperweights I have are about that size. I would say six months is excessive.