Paperweight Collectors Association, Inc.

ARTIST OF THE MONTH: THOR WALKER / HERAKLES — MORE

2013 PCA CONVENTION REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN! — MORE

	The Paperweight Collectors Association, Inc. (PCA, Inc) is a non-profit organization dedicated to appreciating and collecting glass paperweights. For a half-century, the PCA, Inc has championed the study and collecting of antique, vintage, and contemporary glass paperweights. The mission of the PCA, Inc is to promote education: to increase knowledge about paperweights, their creators, and the astounding glass medium from which they are created.
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The PCA, Inc. consists of a convivial group of contemporary artists, dealers, collectors, libraries, and museums from around the globe. The interest in glass paperweights is the common thread that binds the membership: many of our members are just starting out with a few paperweights while others have established collections numbering in the thousands. There is something for every collector in terms of taste and budget. It is the variety and diversity of glass paperweights that make them so interesting to collect!

	Benefits of Joining the PCA, Inc.	Paperweights

	Collecting Paperweights	Artist of the Month

2013 PCA, INC. CONVENTION

The 2013 CONVENTION will be in NEW ORLEANS. It opens on Wednesday evening, June 5 with an artistic reception, and closes on Saturday, June 8 with a banquet. The Convention hotel is the Astor Crowne Plaza, located at 739 Canal Street. This location is at the corner of Canal and Bourbon Streets. in the French Quarter.

Looking out at Bourbon Street
from the balcony of the Astor Crowne Plaza

The special PCA Convention room rate is $165 per night, and is available from May 31st to June 11th, with the Convention opening on Wednesday June 5th. One night's deposit will be required when you make your reservation. The rate includes the use of the gym, outdoor swimming pool, and Internet connection available in each room. You can make your reservations online by clicking the RESERVATIONS button:

The group block code is PCA. Reservations may also be made by calling the hotel's in-house reservation department at (888) 696-4806 or (504) 962-0500/Ext. 8030 and ask for the 2013 Annual Conference group rate (group block code PCA). Reservations may be made from 8:00 AM - 8:00 PM (Central Time) Monday-Friday, and 8:00 AM - 4:00 PM Saturday-Sunday. Members needing accessible rooms are encouraged to call the hotel for reservations. If you encounter any difficulties when making reservations, please let us know by using the Contact Us form on this website. Check this website and the PCA, Inc. Newsletter for the latest information about the hotel and pre-convention opportunities in New Orleans.

The program committee has created a program that is both educational and enjoyable, and that will also enable the attendees to explore the wonders of New Orleans. As offered in past conventions, there will be an optional activity -- a bus tour around New Orleans -- offered to early arrivals (who are also PCA members).

2013 Convention Program (pdf flyer)

CONFERENCE REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN!

We offer two kinds of online registration, based on choice of payment:

If you would like to pay by check or money order, either:

Fill in our online registration form, print it out, and mail it to us.
Print out our pdf registration form, fill it out, and mail it to us.

We encourage you to read some of the materials on this website about paperweights and paperweight collecting. We also encourage you to join this organization.

THE BENEFITS OF JOINING THE PCA, INC. INCLUDE:

Receive the annual PCA, Inc. Bulletin. It is a hardback publication with special paperweight articles and beautiful color illustrations of antique and modern paperweights and paperweight objects. It is one of the definitive publications in the field and is itself a collector's item.
Receive four newsletters per year, each containing a calendar of events, and news about developments in paperweight making and collecting and news about regional paperweight collecting associations. There is also a classified ad section for both the purchase and sale of paperweights and publications by dealers and collectors.
Being able to attend the bi-annual conventions. These conventions bring together the collectors, dealers, and experts who provide identification clinics, workshops, and tutorials on various aspects of the hobby. They are often held in proximity to a world-class collection or are the motivation to assemble a once in a lifetime world-class collection.
But most of all, it can help you connect with others with similar interest in collecting antique, vintage, and contemporary glass paperweights.

PAPERWEIGHTS:

Paperweights evolved from the functional to the beautiful during the early part of the industrial revolution. As the economic engines of commerce began to generate bills, letters, and other business paper something had to be provided to hold them down during the breezes that were common when offices had windows and air was allowed to waft through the workplace. Early paperweights were simple, functional items of metal or glass. By the 1840s, a whole industry emerged in France that would transform the simple paperweight into a glorious work of art for every desktop.

The French glass factories of the 1840s stood on the shoulders of the Italian glass workers of Murano (Venice) who continued the artistic traditions of ancient Rome. While the Italians utilized and retained many of the ancient processes, the French were the first to capitalize on the optical characteristics of glass. They enclosed their decorations motifs within glass spheres and made the magnification part of the total effect. Their paperweights of the late 1840s stand as the artistic pinnacle of the classic period. The Crystal Palace Exhibition in London in 1851 showcased the French and German/Bohemian paperweights and they were subsequently emulated and 'improved' by the glass houses in the United Kingdom and slightly later in the United States.

Paperweights of interest to current collectors can be divided three periods:

The Classic Period

The Folk Art and Advertising Period

The Contemporary Period

The Classic period starts in the 1840s and runs through the 1880s and was centered in France (Clichy, St Louis, Baccarat, and Pantin), England (Walsh-Walsh, Bacchus, and others), and then America (Boston & Sandwich, New England Glass Company, and Pairpoint).

The Folk Art and Advertising period began in the 1880s and continued into World War II. Some of the most original American contributions to paperweights were made in Millville New Jersey, including the crimp rose and the frit weights (decoration made with powdered glass). This period saw the decline of the major glass factories (as mechanization changed how glass was made) but saw the advent of small, family-run glass factories that continued paperweight making.

The Contemporary period started after World War II when Charles Kaziun almost single-handedly reinvented the processes and mechanisms used to create the classic paperweights and introduced the "studio glass" artist - an artist effectively works alone in a studio to create glass paperweights and other glass objects using the techniques first popularized by the classic period.

COLLECTING PAPERWEIGHTS:

Collecting paperweights began almost as soon as they began to appear on the market. There are many ways to collect and to enjoy the beauty of antique or modern glass paperweights.

Four general approaches include:

type collecting
theme collecting
in-depth or creating a study collection
'I like it, so I have it' collecting

Probably the most common collecting style is the type collecting where the collector accumulates one good example of each major type of paperweight style (millefiori, lamp-work, sulphide, etc) from one or more of the glass factories. This collecting style provides a broad spectrum of weights in a single collection.

The theme collector tends to collect paperweights that have a unifying theme or common thread. For example, a theme collector may collect paperweights that contain birds or specific flowers. There are some interesting collections that only contain paperweights that are purple or sulphides of politicians.

The in-depth collector likes to specialize on one type of paperweight and often have the "definitive" collection of a specific type of paperweight. The depth and breadth of this collection style makes it easy to study the variation in manufacturing techniques and can be useful in identifying "mystery weights" that occasionally appear in the hobby.

Probably the most fun collecting style (and the style most people use when they start collecting) is I like it so I have it. This style is perfectly acceptable and a lot of fun - although going to the other collecting styles eventually makes keeping track of what you already have a little simpler and makes your collecting universe a bit easier to manage.

As important as the books on paperweights (and they have been being issued in rapid succession in the past few years as more and more people start collecting) is the paperweight collecting community, which is best represented by the Paperweight Collectors Association, Inc. and the website: www.paperweight.org (which you are viewing). This organization publishes quarterly newsletters, annual bulletins containing a wealth of paperweight information, and sponsors a major gathering of collectors, dealers, and contemporary paperweight artists every other year.

ARTIST OF THE MONTH:
THOR WALKER / HERAKLES


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Thor Walker is a French-American designer of luxury items. In 1995 he founded the New York-based company Herakles, with its workshop based in Paris. Partnering with master craftsmen from around the world, Herakles is known for exquisitely made luxury products and more recently vases and paperweights.

Thor Walker graduated Master of Law from the University of Paris in 1994 and is the founder and President of the French-American Cultural Center of New Jersey (FACCONJ).

Shown here are two magnum lead crystal sulfide paperweights, diameter 3.7", height 2.67". (The photo on the right includes a side view.) Each Herakles Dragon cameo paperweight has 117 scales, 5 eagle claws, tiger legs, and small flames and is hand-modeled to contain incredible detail. The low- relief coloured cameo is then fired and hot-worked and encapsulated by the Herakles glassworkers into an hemispherical paperweight.

Building on the pioneering work of Bohemian glassworkers in the late 18th century and the exquisite craftsmanship of the French cameo makers at Baccarat, Saint-Louis and Clichy, Thor Walker and his team have added colored cameos to their lead crystal paperweights. No other crystal maker has attempted to include a colored sulfide cameo because the color was lost as soon as it came into contact with the hot crystal. The master porcelain maker at Herakles has overcome the problems to contribute to these beautiful paperweights.

By tradition cameo portraits on medallions commemorated an important public figure. Rather than representing a historic figure, the Herakles dragon paperweight evokes both the Asian myth as well as medieval dragon lore.

You can contact Thor Walker at (646) 797-1044 or e-mail him at walker@heraklesparis.com.

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"The Paperweight Collectors Association (PCA, Inc.), a nonprofit organization, was founded in 1953 and has members throughout the world. The PCA, Inc. became a §501(c)(7) organization in 1988, a §501(c)(3) organization in 1996, and was incorporated in the state of Pennsylvania in 1995. The PCA, Inc. is a mutual organization for the benefit of its members. It does not discriminate against applicants or employees on the basis of age, race, sex, sexual orientation, color, religion, national origin, size, disability, socioeconomic background, or any other status protected by state or local law."