YasudaCollector

Here are the paperweights I found in Snohominsh:

Here are some other photos (of a nearby glass factory in operation):

Here are some photos from the museum's collection:

I've been doing some internet sleuthing today about my growing Chinese paperweight collection (maybe I've fallen down a rabbit hole 😆), and thought i'd share this even thought its only kind of marble related. I think it might be of interest to anybody who has any really old, handmade marbles from China i.e transitionals and millefiori marbles. Apparently, there's this big huge glass museum in Boshan, China (now called Zibo). Among other things, the museum, called the "Boshan Colored Glaze Museum", has a boatload of very old glass artifacts from China (including a ton of paperweights that look exactly like the ones in American antique stores). On the museum website, it says that Boshan has been producing colored glass crafts since the Yuan dynasty (1300s). Apparently, "colored glaze flower balls" were produced since the Ming dynasty (1368 to 1644). "Colored glaze flower balls" are what the website refers to as a paperweight. (Glass is called glaze for some reason). I think this information is pretty incredible since it corroborates what Robert Block found, that Chinese marbles could have been produced in Shandong. I feel like this would make sense (at least with the millefiori and painted sulphide marbles) since they are the exact same glass as the Boshan paperweights. Also, the website said that until very modern times, Boshan was really the only town in China producing colored glass (because of acess to a bunch of minerals for glassmaking).

Woah! Akro made corks like this?! 🤯

Interesting!!! I don't think I've ever seen one like this (whatever it is). 🙂

Nice ones! 😎 I'll have to have my brother post a white brown and blue one he found last weekend. It's absolutely enormous (probably like an inch an a half).

Cool find! 😎

Yeah, unfortunately these look like a lot of newer imported marbles from the 1980s and 1990s (probably from either Mexico or China). The large white and purple one (has a purple patch on each end) is a little older (like 1960s) and from the US.

The paperweights I found had been sitting in a display case for so long that the tags had faded completely. (One of the employees had to get out a magnifying glass just to read the prices).

Man, so are there just not as many sellers as before? Or did everything get kind of picked over? I still find a lot of various Asian stuff out there (older pottery, lacquered boxes, bamboo baskets, and a few Chinese paperweights). However, these antiques don't seem to be sought after by a ton of really avid collectors like marbles are.

Oh my gosh, what a coincidence! I was just in Snohomish today! 🤯 I'll have to have Alec (my brother) post some pictures of what he found. As for me, I found some really old looking Chinese paperweights. One is the regular round type, but 3 others are birds with a layer of Millefiori in them. The birds look more like seals though, they're very gloppy and misshapen. 🤣 Nice finds by the way! I love the deep blue/teal color of the Blenko lighter. The mibs look awesome too (it looks like there might possibly be some older Akros in there).

Interesting 🤔

Wow! Maybe there were several companies that made them? Or are the bags mostly from jobbers?

Here are some of the more colorful ones I've saved over some time. I think it's really cool how the Taiwanese used recycled glass to make marbles. There's so many color combos, and no two really look the same (up close).

Ooh, the color of the veins (that creamy, rusty orange) almost reminds me of Peltier windshields.

It does look kind of like a Peltier (based on the general seam lines).

Hmm, this looks like a type of Cat's eye marble. Not sure of the manufacturer though. It does look a little later than 1930s. American companies made a lot of Cat's eyes starting in the mid-1950s.

😱😱😱 That looks like marble heaven!

The blue one is gorgeous!

Awesome find!!! 😎

🤣🤣🤣 It's always so incredibly funny to see how AI thinks of us! Last year, my Chinese history professor asked Chat-GPT to imagine a Chinese history teacher, and it came up with some guy with a long beard and robes who looked just like Confucius!

Ooh, nice one! That's definitely a Taiwan cat's eye (based on the bubbles, green base and wrinkled glass). I heard from Elizabeth Kempski's book that the Taiwan marble makers used recycled glass.