glasshouse Bulletin 4, vintage Blenko and Empoli glass dealers

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selling vintage Blenko and Empoli glass since 1998

Bulletin No.4

I Love My Competition
Vintage Blenko and Empoli Dealers

But can they do this?	Or this?

All Winslow Anderson designs.	Left and Center, Wayne Husted designs, Right: Joel Philip Myers

I love you. I just can't get enough of you. I find myself checking you out regularly - y'know, just looking over the goods. I love you in spite of your flaws, your embarrassing mistakes, your awkward youth, in fact, I find these things endearing. When you grow up I know you will be fantastic. I wish I could multiply you by 10 so that you were around more. Perhaps I shouldn't admit it but one of the reasons I love you is that, frankly, you make me look good.

I bet most of you know about my competition, but did you know that I love them? I can afford to say that of course because I know well that I leave them choking on my dust (I mean that in the friendliest way possible). No one else always stocks over 200 pieces of vintage glass, no one else regularly sells the incredibly rare and important pieces I offer - not to mention layout, photos, service, reputation, etc. Without being immodest, I've worked hard to provide this quality for you so I am very conscious of it. But I don't want to be the only game in town; monopolies are boring and get stale. So, I want you to be sure to check out my competition - I do!

Let me first tell you who I do consider to be my competition and who I don't.

Do: other stores or websites that specialize in comparable vintage glass to what I sell, or stores or websites that regularly stock a reasonable selection (more than just a few pieces) of comprable vintage glass.

Don't: I do not consider a store or website competition if they clearly do not know what they are selling and either don't identify things or incorrectly identify them - they must have at least basic knowledge of the glass. I absolutely do not consider group sites or auction sites to be competition - I consider them dangerous junk yards. Rarely do those venues with their multitude of part-time hobbyist sellers actually know what they have or correctly identify them. Despite sometimes having a few good dealers, they tend to be hideouts for scammers and a haven for unreliable sellers (particularly in tough times, like now, when everyone is trying to make a buck).

That being said, I do have real competition and I would like to introduce you to them. This is different from me endorsing them - patronize them at your own risk. I really don't know most of them so I can hardly endorse them. But what they all have in common is passion and dedication enough to regularly sell Blenko, Empoli or other mid-century blown production glass.

To accompany this newsletter I am also opening up a new dedicated section on the Links page called "Competitors." If you know of any other dealers who handle my kind of glass regularly (or if you are one) please email me to let me know and I will add the website or store to the page.

Who else can offer this?	Or this?

All Wayne Husted designs fromt the Rialto Specialty Line	Empoli cased glass, circa 1950's-1960's.

While I'm at it, because I know the competition is reading this (checking out why so many hits are coming from my site to theirs no doubt) I have five important suggestions for them to help them do a better job of competing with me:

1. Be knowledgeable
I shouldn't even have to say it: Know what you are selling beyond a shadow of a doubt. Do not guess. Prove it and Guarantee it. It's just embarrassing when dealers list items as Blenko when they are not. There is no excuse for it. Buy the catalog reprints and do your research, but for decency's sake, don't just guess or fake it, you undermine the market in doing so. If it is Blenko then you should be identifying it by its design number. Know that I'll identify glass for anyone for free at any time and so will the Blenko Archive at www.blenkoarchive.org

2. Have a well defined point-of-view and product
Are you selling on the low (entry level), middle or high (connoisseur) end of the market or trying to cover all the bases? Are you prices commensurate? For instance I have a healthy number of mid-level but my focus is on having a large selection of high-end items. Regardless, never try to sell your "mistakes" to your customers; you are better off throwing them out and writing it off as the cost of business. Never, ever, ever sell similar new items beside old items! That cheapens your product and confuses your audience. Are you saying old & new are the same? I'm sorry but new stuff has not been proven by the test of time, has not been colored by the luster of history and hindsight, new stuff is still being made and can't be rare, new stuff has a quantifiable retail price. Even worse, selling reissues is like cannibalizing your own market, and is sure to leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

3. Realize you are not selling products, you are selling service
The more service you provide, the better service you provide, the more you genuinely care about your customer's comfort and satisfaction, the better you will do. I personally don't believe in "hard sell," my role is not salesman but caretaker, trying to find the best possible home for important items of cultural value.

4. Look good & work well
If you are selling online your layout and navigation is HUGELY important. If it's ugly, slow to load or (this is my weakness) involves too much scrolling then you are losing business. Also remember the 3-click rule; a customer has to be able to buy their product within 3 clicks of the mouse or they get frustrated & leave. If you have a shop, please dust and spruce-up regularly and display glamorously, if it looks like the inside of a hall closet or a warehouse you are in trouble.

5. Do your own thing
What's the point of having your own website if you also list your items on a group or auction website? Double your work for what? Plus you get all the negative associations of the group site along with the additional exposure. Of course this means you have to build your own customer base and do your own advertising - I do. If you are good enough it's worth it; a small but serious and dedicated audience is far better than a big, casual and unfocused one.

And now, dear valued customers, please meet my competition:

JaxDeco
www.jax-deco.com
• Two dozen Blenko items
• Quite a few nice Higgins & Heaton pieces too
• Qualified Hot Tip: well, the Raindrop bowl is lovely but seriously overpriced by a third (make them an offer of $600?)
• I take issue with selling new reissues alongside vintage and with having non-Blenko for sale on the Blenko page. I wish that would change.
• I think a comprehensive standardization of the website layout would be a great improvement.

The Purple Moon
www.thepurplemoon.com
• 5 pieces of Historic Period Blenko and a number of other types of mid-century glass too
• I'd say their identifications are correct most of the time; about 80%
• Hot Tip: someone buy the bird vase already!

Retro Gallery
www.retroglass.com
• I include them because Retro Gallery is one of the very first - if not the first - dealer in the country to regularly sell a large selection of mid-century production glass, including Blenko. They did a lot to pioneer the market and I really appreciate that.
• I have heard that the store in LA is worth a visit
• I don't believe this website is active; the inventory has not changed for a long time
• I also have to say that there are far too many incorrect ID's; Of the 26 items in the Blenko section alone 3 are not Blenko, 6 are new within the last 15 years, and 2 are missing stoppers (and on the American page, only 2 are American. Oops!)

Objects In The Loft
www.objectsintheloft.com
• about 10 vintage Blenko items but it sure is a lot of clicking and scrolling to get to them! (Update; website fixed... much better!)
• Hot Tip: the Charcoal 7118 looks good to me

Boom Modern
www.boommodern.com
• 5 pieces of Historic Period Blenko
• Hot Tip: the Teal 551; great piece, great color, super price

ModCats
www.modcats.com
• 30 pieces of Historic Period Blenko (and a few later ones)
• Hot Tips: 7225X Charisma decanter for one, but there are at least 5 other great pieces - nice selection!
• I've heard that customer service could do with some work.

hi+lo modern
www.hiandlomodern.com
• about 10 pieces of Historic Period Blenko, and another dozen pieces of cased glass
• Hot Tip: 5427L architectural gurgle decanter, nicely priced!
• One easy-to-fix suggestion: too much scrolling for too little product

Pachuco's Cadavers
www.pachucoscadavers.com
• 74 pieces of Historic Period Blenko- winner for quantity!
• The only other dealer I know of with a significant selection of Empoli cased glass online
• A+ for effort here, some work went into this site
• One complaint; too may redundancies of very common Blenko shapes (how many 939 pitchers can one have?). Let's see some rarities please!
• Again, very BAD to mix in new reissues
• PS: as oddly memorable as it is the name is, um, odd

Vetro Collections
www.vetrocollections.com
• 63 Historic Period Blenko items
• Hot Tip: helloooo! 6732L in Olive!! Buy buy buy!
• Misidentifed pieces can be a real problem here...
• Yet again I frown upon selling new reissues alongside vintage.

Neptina
www.neptina.com
• this is not an e-commerce site, it's more of an online ad for the shop
• I am not sure if this store qualifies for my idea of "competition." I understand they regularly have a very good selection but not of a particular company or type of glass, I believe they are generalists and interested in "a look" but I could be wrong. Perhaps if they updated their website we'd all have a better idea.

The End of History
http://theendofhistoryshop.blogspot.com/
• no e-commerce website but this NYC shop's blog site gives you a good idea of the inventory
• huge selection on cased glass - in fact probably the biggest anywhere - and a significant selection of other mid-century production glass including Blenko and an even bigger selection of ceramics
• if you are in NYC you must stop in
• full disclosure: I am good friends with the owner

Damon Crain

Please email me with your comments!

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