Customer Reviews

Miller's Paperweights of the 19th & 20th Centuries: A Collector's Guide (Miller's Collector's Guides)

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This was a fine book in its day, but has been overshadowed by larger books with both better research and finer photography.

Glass paperweights, particularly those of the millefiori style are fascinating and in real terms are a recent addition to the glass making art. In fact they really only started to be made in any numbers in the mid 19th century, making their product span only a little more than a 150 years. When one considers that the ancient Romans and Egyptians had solved the problem of making glass over 2,000 years ago, it puts the time scale of glass paperweights into perspective.

A book on the subject is a must for the novice, or any other collector for that matter, as many of the earlier paperweights have nothing to aid the collector in establishing which factory they come from. How does one tell an old paperweight from a relatively new one. Well, experience and looking at as many different weights as possible, either in the flesh, so to speak or good quality photographs is the only way to get a `feel' for the different factories.

Some paperweights do in fact have `signatures.' Later Perthshire paperweights usually have a cane, normally in the centre of the weight with a P on it. Some of John Deacons weights have a cane with a thistle emblem and so on. The canes are the small coloured pieces of glass that are set into the base of millefiori paperweights.

This particular book covers the main factories of France, Scotland and the US. Some of the makers marks or the labels they place on their products are shown and full colour photographs of more than 150 weights are shown. The book also tells the beginner what to look out for when purchasing paperweights. If I may throw my own two penny worth here, like many things condition is everything. Small surface marks can be polished out but bruises (where the weight has been knocked, or dropped are difficult and sometimes impossible to remove). If you simply want the weight as a decorative piece of glass, these things are acceptable, but if you are trying to get a worthwhile collection together leave these pieces alone.