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15 November 2009
Hello
Everyone
I
hope that you all had a very merry Christmas and a safe and happy New
Year, and that perhaps Santa found that special piece of carnival glass
for you. I heard one of my (non-carnival) friends recently describe my
collection as ‘festive glass’ and I thought that was quite an appropriate
term.
The
end of last year was quite busy for the CGCAA with our display at
historic Linnwood House at Guildford in November. The displays looked
really excellent with some stunning pieces of carnival on display. My
thanks to all the members who generously loaned glass from their
collections, and who came to Linnwood to support us.
I
had only expected a few enquiries about identification, and perhaps a few
modest sales. But all my expectations were exceeded. We had a constant
stream of visitors (there were 180 people through the House), especially
in the morning, with some spectacular pieces of glass brought in, and
very healthy sales.
There
were a number of Crown Crystal master bowls and a superb amethyst ‘Lustre
Rose’ centrepiece bowl – the owners were very happy to find out what they
were. Our sales were over $1,200, so the club made $60 in commission.
Our
current commission on sales is 5% and I would like to suggest that this
be increased to 10%. I know not everyone will agree, but I think it is
still a very modest amount and the extra income would greatly assist the
club’s finances.
Linnwood
House has kindly invited us back to their open day on Sunday, 14 November
2010 and we will be planning for this soon, to make it even better than
last year.
At
both Linnwood House and the meeting at Lesley and Bob’s you would have
seen the new CGCAA banner (photos on the Linnwood Exhibition page) – and
doesn’t it look fantastic! My thanks to Lesley (and Bob) for arranging
the design and production.
My
thanks also to Lesley and Bob for graciously hosting the Christmas
function at their home. It was a very festive occasion around the
Christmas Tree, and Mother Claus did a great job dispensing the presents
from under the tree.
As
well as our Christmas decorations, we were also able to wear our new name
tags, and thanks to Wayne for managing and printing these for us.
One
of the issues that arose from the Linnwood planning was the extent of our
insurance cover. While CGCAA is covered for public liability and damage
to club equipment, the insurance does NOT cover members’ glass at any
time. This means that any glass you loan for exhibitions or bring to
meetings is at your own risk. Several members have arranged individual
cover for their collections or through their household contents cover.
Members may want to follow up with their own insurance company to see
what options might be available.
Jerry
and Carol Curtis from HOACGA (Heart of America Carnival Glass
Association) have undertaken an ambitious project to catalog
as many carnival miniatures as they can. You can see the extraordinary
results of all their hard work on the Flikr
photo web site at www.flikr.com/photos/hoacga_project
[there’s an ‘underscore’ mark between hoacga
and project] - there are nearly 800 items!
I
would also urge all members to give Lesley their e-mail address, if they
have one. This will make it much easier, faster and cheaper if we need to
send out any information in between meetings, or if we have to change the
location of a meeting at the last minute (because of fire or flood, for
example), or to let you know of great glass available for sale.
In
terms of carnival hunting, I picked up a very attractive large comport
(which I’ll bring to the next meeting) in the back streets of Macau – the
last place I’d expected to find carnival glass. I often wonder about the
interesting stories that must be behind some of these unusual
discoveries.
Finally,
a reminder that our next meeting is being kindly hosted by Cindy and
Kevin at Tumbi Umbi
on the beautiful Central Coast on 21 February, with the theme of covered
jars, though I’m sure we can extend that to any covered container.
Safe
and happy carnival hunting.
Andrew
Mitchell
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Some of the beautiful carnival glass
on display at our last meeting
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Club members enjoying the convivial
atmosphere at the last meeting
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