1st Paperweight

This paperweight is from Bohemia (have a look on wikipedia if you do not know where that is).

Almost 100 years old (according to the inscription) this was one of the first weights I ever bought. I got this at the Naschmarkt in Vienna, where a flea market is held every Saturday, loads of glass and related items, but beware of all the fakes and high prices!

Back to the weight:

As can be seen, on the left, it has four flowers surrounding a central one. Each flower has a bubble in the centre making a stamen.

It is about 8cm high and the same in width and weighs about 1,1kg which is heavy for its size. The top has a flat facet and the base is polished and flat. Towards the top of the weight it is engraved with a date "1908" and on the flat facet it is engraved with "IM" or maybe "JW" (dependant on which side you view it from).

A word of warning:

Faceting and engraving can be added long after the weight has been made so it is easy to make a weight seem older or more than it is!

In this case the date could easily have been added to ensure that the weight seems to be a 100 years old when in fact it could have recently been produced. I took this weight to a professional engraver in Vienna to have a look at the engraving and he concurs that the engraving is from the period it says, and obviously the faceting was done at the same time as the engraving. A second point to confirm the age is that typically these type of "flower weights" are multi-faceted and this one is not; if somebody wanted to copy the Bohemian weights they would most likely have faceted it!

OK that's the first weight. Most of the others would be millifiori type weights and mostly Scottish but with the odd other weight thrown in.

Please let me know what you think!