Minutes of Chapter Meeting
April 1, 2000

The Spring Meeting of the Delaware Valley Paperweight Collectors Association, our second meeting of the Y2K year, took place at Williamson Restaurant, our usual venue, 500 Blair Mill Road, Horsham, PA on Saturday, April 1, 2000, with 51 in attendance. The meeting opened officially at 10 AM with a Paperweight Fair, this time featuring the collection of Harvey and Doris Robinson, of Needham, MA. In addition, throughout the room there were: displays of antiques newspapers Free for the Taking, selections from the Chapter’s Paperweight Lending Library, three Members’ Tables of weights, books, advertising weights, jewelry and paperweight related items for exhibit and sale from Stan Kruger, Ethel Henry, Andy Dohan, Boyd England, Ken Brown and Marty Mikelberg, two Silent Auction Items, two volumes of the Chapter Memories Photo Album, 15 Today’s Raffle Prize Items and a table of local area recreational brochures for distribution. Also, coffee, tea and Danish were available as members gathered and socialized from 10 to 11 AM.

At 11 AM, the meeting was called to order by President Stanley Kruger, who recognized new or recent members Teresa and Jack Sullivan of Havertown, PA, Paula Kamison of Wilmington, DE, Joel and Phyllis Firestone of Wallingford, PA, and the family Lohr, Greg, Janet and Ginny of Westfield, NJ. The Morning program, “The History of Flight in Glass,” was to be presented by Martin Schindler, who, with his wife Beverly, is a member of both DVPCA and the MD/DC/VA Chapter. As was common for boys growing up in the 1930’s and 1940’s, Martin’s heroes were the men and women who set records in flight. While working with NASA and the US Navy, Martin learned through his wife’s passion for paperweights that there were weights with images commemorating significant persons and events in the history of flight, such as Lindbergh and the American astronauts, and he began collecting them. On a separate table at the front of the room, Martin displayed about two dozen of his collection. These included: a Val St. Lambert piece celebrating the French invention of hot air balloon flying; an Italian weight, found in 1986, commemorating the 200th anniversary of a manned hot air balloon flight in 1786; a glass kaleidoscope in the shape of a post-WWI biplane; a D’Albret overlay sulphide weight of Charles Lindbergh commemorating his May 1927 solo flight from New York to Paris; an Ed Rithner frit weight of an Army Air Corps bomber, circa 1930’s; a Japanese piece resembling Chuck Yeager’s X-1, the first plane to exceed the speed of sound; a decanter, probably British, showing a Spitfire fighter plane, famed in the Battle of Britain; an unknown maker Sputnik (July, 1957) commemorative; an intaglio portrait of Commander Alan B. Shepard, the first American in space, from the Kosta factory in Sweden; three Val St. Lambert weights about the Apollo 11 Moon Landing, July, 1969; another unknown maker piece commemorating Neil Armstrong’s walk in space, July, 1969; a Gentile Glass weight on the same subject; two more Gentile Glass weights about the Apollo 15 and 16 missions, July, 1971 and April, 1972; the D’Albret overlay sulphide of the four astronauts who walked on the moon, Aldrin, Shepard, Armstrong and Collins, a Caithness impression, “Terra Nova”, of how the earth looks from space; a Correia weight containing a small section of the Skylab’s skin; and a marble from Josh Simpson’s “Planet Inhabited by Intelligent Life” series. Simpson’s interest in space and planets led him to meet and marry a female astronaut who shared these interests. His wife commanded the last shuttle flight! When Martin concluded, he invited the audience to examine these weights and was surprised that the women in the audience were the first to respond! This was truly a fascinating paperweight sideline.

After a delicious noontime luncheon, President Kruger began the Business Meeting by confirming what he had suggested two months before, that Ann Miller had dissolved George Kamm Paperweights, leaving DVPCA without a resident dealer. However, Harvey and Doris Robinson have agreed to be Guest Dealers at our Spring and Fall meetings for the foreseeable future. The Greenblatts sent a note thanking the Chapter and individual members for sending 60th anniversary cards in February. Joan and Bill Schmidt had written that they were still “snow birding” in Florida but would attend the Summer Meeting. Two new paperweight books were coming out from Schiffer Books this spring. Leonard Kornit, reporting as Chairman of the Nominating Committee, announced that we had nominees for all four offices at the Fall elections: Stanley Kruger, President; Lee Kvalnes, Vice President; Don Formigli, Treasurer: Sue Sutton, Secretary. Marty Mikelberg displayed two authentic Booze bottles and Ethel Henry exhibited a weight that is disintegrating because of too much alkali in the metal, according to Paul Hollister. Ken Brown promoted Wheaton Village’s “Glass Break 2000” on April 27, with Paul Stankard as Guest Artist and John McChesney as Guest Speaker. He also reported that Arthur Greenblatt is doing well on oxygen therapy. The Chapter’s next meeting is July 15, followed by a Garden Party/Catered Cookout at Don Formigli’s house in Levittown, PA. The membership voted to pay $10 a person to defray party costs. Raffle prize winners were chosen: Sara Dierolf (twice), Judy Crawley, Eugene Styles, Leonard Kornit (twice), Teresa Sullivan, Jim Lefever, Toby Kruger, Frank Gardner, Sue Sutton, Dorothy Shaddinger, Martin Mikelberg and Ginny Lohr, among others.

The Afternoon Program was presented by Gay LeCleire Taylor, Curator of Wheaton’s Museum of American Glass and an internationally known authority. Her topic: “Six Paperweight Research Projects On Which Gay Taylor Is Currently Working.” First up-Belgian Weights and South Jersey: Several large weights with colorful internal frit designs and scalloped designs on the edges were attributed by Paul Hollister to New Jersey weight makers in Port Elizabeth and looked to have Belgian antecedents. Hollister asked Gay to find the Belgian connection to South Jersey. She performed the research and, sure enough, there were quite a few Belgians in South Jersey. Gay found one glass factory catalog from Belgium showing pedestal and conical weights resembling weights attributed to Millville. Currently, attribution for these presumably South Jersey pieces is in doubt. Second-Argentinian Weights: Around 1953, Frank Wheaton, Jr. traveled to Argentina where he ran across weights resembling Bohemian products with names in them. During the 1950’s, a factory in Buenos Aires that made ovenware, blownware and bottles was licensed by Wheaton to make bottles for Wheaton Glass. This factory is still operating but has not yet responded to questions about the possible existence of a weight maker there 45 years ago or so. Third-Eduard Dressler: An unusual weight in the Wheaton Village Museum collection, consisting of three clear glass balls with another perched atop the three, was unidentified until Gay saw it illustrated in an Eduard Dressler catalog dating from 1886. Dressler was not a maker but an agent and most likely the weight was Bohemian, but further research is indicated. Fourth-Durand/Koering Sulphides: In the late 1940’s, several sulphide weights of poor quality glass were made in Vineland, NJ by Eustacius and Ursula Koering, father and daughter. She sculpted the sulphides and likely he made the weights. They were offered for sale at the time for $4.95-$8.75 per piece. Fifth-Hazel Atlas Glass Company: Ms. Taylor identified several weights made with decals under glass domes set into glass bases with plaster, signed “H.A.,” as coming from the Hazel Atlas Glass Company. It was founded in 1902 in Wheeling, WV and made commercial ware such as tumblers and pressed glass items. The company was sold in 1956. The bases of these weights looked like glass chair casters; the tops looked like bridal rosettes put together with the decal in the middle to create the weight design. Attribution is not definite as yet but the company certainly did not make these weights as a production item. Sixth-Arthur Gorham: The Wheaton Village Paperweight Shop is named for this early South Jersey paperweight dealer and collector. When he died of cancer in 1973, his collection became the core of the Wheaton Village Museum collection, while his shop inventory was sold to provide for his wife. Very little is known about him. He was born in 1901 but we don’t know where or what he did for a living before he collected and sold paperweights. He himself said he began collecting after an early breakdown, later becoming a dealer in Millville and a charter member of the PCA. In the Museum’s collection is a weight made by Alex Steltzer at Libby in Ohio with “A. Gorham 19—45” in glass rods. Mr. Gorham nurtured many South Jersey weight makers including Paul Stankard, Jack Choko, Pete Lewis and the Banfords. According to Ms. Taylor, Wheaton Village has a paperweight shop strictly because of Arthur Gorham, and this has led to Wheaton’s bi-annual Paperweight Weekend and weight production at the Village.

When Gay finished her slide talks, she invited the audience to view and handle the unusual weights she had brought from the Museum of American Glass to illustrate her lectures. Then, President Kruger announced that Ms. Taylor is already committed to return for DVPCA’s Spring Meeting in 2001 (April 21) to speak on South Jersey weights and makers. The formal program ended at 2:30 but the Paperweight Fair continued until the room cleared at about 3:30 PM.

Respectfully submitted,