fossilfly
08-03-2007, 03:07 PM
Fenton Art glass, very popular with collectors has had its share of difficulties due to market forces and changes in taste, similar to Murano.
Heres some news on the company for collectors:
Fenton Art Glass: A Proud Company Fights On
Posted Thursday, August 2, 2007 ; 06:00 AM
For me, the story of Fenton Art Glass today is about more than taxes and adverse market conditions. It has to do with the lifeblood of a community that has seen from generation to generation the value of a good business. Story by Dan Page Email (dpage@statejournal.com) | Bio (http://www.cbs59.com/bios.cfm?func=viewbio&bioid=64)
It was 1968, and Tommy Armstrong gently ushered the visitors through the Fenton Art Glass Co.'s gift shop doors, asking them to stay together on their plant tour.
A retired glassmaker, Armstrong would show his guests how the now century-old Williamstown company made vases, lamps and collectibles of all sorts that dress up the living rooms, parlors and bedrooms of America.
Armstrong first led his small pack of visitors into a room where glassware was stacked high on shelves. Just feet away, an annealing lehr, a kind of conveyor system, moved handmade glassware through a heat treatment, giving it strength and durability.
With well-earned pride, Armstrong gave the visitors an insider's view of just what Fenton did and how it did it. As a new tour guide and gift shop employee 39 years ago, I learned from Tommy Armstrong.
"Pure white silica sand, soda ash and lime" -- I remember Armstrong's words to this day. Those were the ingredients that would become the molten glass that Fenton workers used to make the company's products. He talked about gold that made the glass cranberry in color, the iron that turned the glass green.
Then Armstrong took his cluster of tourists into the hot metal department. Blowers, pressers and finishers toiled by the gas-fired tanks, where skilled craftsmen dipped long rods to gather globs of molten glass.
Rapt in their work, a crew of Fenton craftsmen fashioned a ring of molten crystal glass around the lip of a milky white dish in the Silvercrest pattern. Another worker stood above a mold, blowing into hot glass that soon would be a handsome vase.
I remember the roar and heat of the gas furnaces. I marveled at the workers' attention to detail. And people have come to see it all. Tour buses and travelers from all over the eastern United States made Williamstown and the mid-Ohio Valley a destination.
But most of all I remember how important and how good the Fenton factory and Fenton family were to Williamstown.
After starting the business in Martins Ferry, Ohio, in 1905, the Fentons moved the operation to Williamstown in 1907. It's been there ever since, each generation of Fentons and each generation of workers making glassware that has almost a cult following among collectors.
If ever a happy union existed between a business and community, Fenton Art Glass and Williamstown were the partners. The company has provided generations of local residents with jobs -- from engineers to skilled craftsmen to the sales and office support people. Fenton has been a good company, one whose stylish and popular glassware has given Williamstown and West Virginia a reason to be proud.
The Fenton family has been generous. It has given to schools, hospitals, their church and the community at large. It practiced the kindest form of capitalism. It was a part of the community, and most everyone believed the Fentons to be good people and good citizens. And that's who they are.
But the glass business is tough. One by one, glass companies in West Virginia and the United States are lost to the past. The list of shuttered West Virginia glass companies includes Seneca, Fostoria, Pilgrim and Viking.
In the face of that trend, the Fentons have fought changing consumer buying habits, high natural gas costs and overseas competition that undercuts price.
A few years ago, the company paired with QVC, the televised home shopping service that frequently invited Fenton family members to sell the company's wares on air. It seemed to work. But market forces are unforgiving.
A business that one time employed more than 400 now has about 150 on the payroll.
George Fenton, the company president, has said in media reports the business hopes to restructure. It appears to have a number of problems. In addition, Wood County tax officials reported the company owes more than $230,000. The lion's share of that tax bill is personal property taxes -- a tax that hits manufacturers squarely between the eyes.
Down state Route 14, a little more than a mile away, Toyota-owned Hino Motors Manufacturing is about to start building trucks. It's good news for Williamstown -- a great world company sees merit in Williamstown and West Virginia. Through an arrangement with the state, Hino won't pay personal property taxes on the equipment it will use to build the vehicles.
While we all celebrate Hino's arrival, its tax arrangement brings to light one of the problem areas that economists and tax experts have pointed out. The tax is not good for a new company or a century-old company that is part of a community's fabric.
For me, the story of Fenton Art Glass today is about more than taxes and adverse market conditions. It has to do with the lifeblood of a community that has seen from generation to generation the value of a good business.
Tommy Armstrong was a good man who told a good story. I wonder what he would have thought about today's turn of events.
Heres some news on the company for collectors:
Fenton Art Glass: A Proud Company Fights On
Posted Thursday, August 2, 2007 ; 06:00 AM
For me, the story of Fenton Art Glass today is about more than taxes and adverse market conditions. It has to do with the lifeblood of a community that has seen from generation to generation the value of a good business. Story by Dan Page Email (dpage@statejournal.com) | Bio (http://www.cbs59.com/bios.cfm?func=viewbio&bioid=64)
It was 1968, and Tommy Armstrong gently ushered the visitors through the Fenton Art Glass Co.'s gift shop doors, asking them to stay together on their plant tour.
A retired glassmaker, Armstrong would show his guests how the now century-old Williamstown company made vases, lamps and collectibles of all sorts that dress up the living rooms, parlors and bedrooms of America.
Armstrong first led his small pack of visitors into a room where glassware was stacked high on shelves. Just feet away, an annealing lehr, a kind of conveyor system, moved handmade glassware through a heat treatment, giving it strength and durability.
With well-earned pride, Armstrong gave the visitors an insider's view of just what Fenton did and how it did it. As a new tour guide and gift shop employee 39 years ago, I learned from Tommy Armstrong.
"Pure white silica sand, soda ash and lime" -- I remember Armstrong's words to this day. Those were the ingredients that would become the molten glass that Fenton workers used to make the company's products. He talked about gold that made the glass cranberry in color, the iron that turned the glass green.
Then Armstrong took his cluster of tourists into the hot metal department. Blowers, pressers and finishers toiled by the gas-fired tanks, where skilled craftsmen dipped long rods to gather globs of molten glass.
Rapt in their work, a crew of Fenton craftsmen fashioned a ring of molten crystal glass around the lip of a milky white dish in the Silvercrest pattern. Another worker stood above a mold, blowing into hot glass that soon would be a handsome vase.
I remember the roar and heat of the gas furnaces. I marveled at the workers' attention to detail. And people have come to see it all. Tour buses and travelers from all over the eastern United States made Williamstown and the mid-Ohio Valley a destination.
But most of all I remember how important and how good the Fenton factory and Fenton family were to Williamstown.
After starting the business in Martins Ferry, Ohio, in 1905, the Fentons moved the operation to Williamstown in 1907. It's been there ever since, each generation of Fentons and each generation of workers making glassware that has almost a cult following among collectors.
If ever a happy union existed between a business and community, Fenton Art Glass and Williamstown were the partners. The company has provided generations of local residents with jobs -- from engineers to skilled craftsmen to the sales and office support people. Fenton has been a good company, one whose stylish and popular glassware has given Williamstown and West Virginia a reason to be proud.
The Fenton family has been generous. It has given to schools, hospitals, their church and the community at large. It practiced the kindest form of capitalism. It was a part of the community, and most everyone believed the Fentons to be good people and good citizens. And that's who they are.
But the glass business is tough. One by one, glass companies in West Virginia and the United States are lost to the past. The list of shuttered West Virginia glass companies includes Seneca, Fostoria, Pilgrim and Viking.
In the face of that trend, the Fentons have fought changing consumer buying habits, high natural gas costs and overseas competition that undercuts price.
A few years ago, the company paired with QVC, the televised home shopping service that frequently invited Fenton family members to sell the company's wares on air. It seemed to work. But market forces are unforgiving.
A business that one time employed more than 400 now has about 150 on the payroll.
George Fenton, the company president, has said in media reports the business hopes to restructure. It appears to have a number of problems. In addition, Wood County tax officials reported the company owes more than $230,000. The lion's share of that tax bill is personal property taxes -- a tax that hits manufacturers squarely between the eyes.
Down state Route 14, a little more than a mile away, Toyota-owned Hino Motors Manufacturing is about to start building trucks. It's good news for Williamstown -- a great world company sees merit in Williamstown and West Virginia. Through an arrangement with the state, Hino won't pay personal property taxes on the equipment it will use to build the vehicles.
While we all celebrate Hino's arrival, its tax arrangement brings to light one of the problem areas that economists and tax experts have pointed out. The tax is not good for a new company or a century-old company that is part of a community's fabric.
For me, the story of Fenton Art Glass today is about more than taxes and adverse market conditions. It has to do with the lifeblood of a community that has seen from generation to generation the value of a good business.
Tommy Armstrong was a good man who told a good story. I wonder what he would have thought about today's turn of events.