Simply Berry question
 

When the heck did this glass get so expensive, and why is the batch I just bought so much darker than my previous one? I haven't tried it out yet but worried it's going to come out basically black - even when I hold it up to the light I can barely see colour. Luckily it was on sale at Frantz but the retail price is $75-95/pound depending on where I look???

Also curious about my opal yellow. Batches I've bought lately don't have the same striations through the glass (like "rings")... not as pretty on its own but still a good base for frits etc...

Consistency seems to have become difficult to achieve in glass production. I don't know if it has to do with raw materials or processing, but I have noticed it as well. It's especially noticeable with CIM because they used to be so precise (or else would stick a Unique label on it), but now several colors have changed (chalky Gelly's Sty, bluer Mermaid, different hues of Linen with the same label). May have been reformulated?
It is a bit confusing that they do that when they go through the trouble of marketing such similar colors under different names (say, Hazelnut Mousse and Oyster Mushroom or Lichen and Dried Sage, for instance).

I agree with Flonche ... I've stopped buying the CIM limited colors all together. What's the point ... fall in love with a color that you can only get 1/4lb of or not get at all. Plus, several of my new order of CIM (not new colors but new order....ie. Marischino, Peace and several others) are huge chunk makers. The pieces that fly are not frit but actual 1/2-1" pieces flying through my studio. And some, not from the beginning of the rod but half way through when I've been lulled into a feeling of safety. Makes me jump even higher. Such a shame cuz the colors are beautiful!!!

I love the CiM colours as well. I am mostly shocked at how expensive some of them have become. I'm curious why a transparent purple would be so expensive, because I don't think the "ingredients" are all that expensive, I mean that price is close to what we pay per pound for the silvered glasses! And that it is not even a consistent colour and may be useless to me unless I layer it over clear (and it is one of my popular colours for spacers, so that won't really work). I'll have to see how it comes out once it's worked.

The Simply Berry I got in my last order was the super dark stuff. Very disappointed considering what it costs. The previous batch was good for encased florals, but I don't know what I'll do with the current one.

I did not even reorder it because it was so expensive. China owns the mines that supply most of the coloring agents so the prices should not be going up that much!

Well, precisely! They're good at domestic capitalism too!

Yep!! :waving: They learned that really fast. It is interesting that Jack Ma came to the US to go public with Alibaba and didn't do it in China!

PS Beads came out basically black. $95/pound black glass???

Sad!

http://www.twoglassyladies.ca/tgl/wp...rk-300x214.jpg
New batch

http://www.twoglassyladies.ca/tgl/wp...06-300x174.jpg
Old batch

:~(

OMG, that is a drastic difference. Oh how disappointing.

Karen

ripzz

Not to mention when I used to buy it, the price was probably half what it is now! It's sad because it was such a pretty colour.

I would send a message to Kathy about this if I were you, Amy. That is a perfect illustration of unacceptable variation.

Is there any possibility that you were sent the wrong glass?

I don't think so, it had the proper CiM stickers on it. I think I will let Kathy and Frantz know though just like as an FYI... I'm not looking for restitution as I only bought a half pound and it was on sale. I feel bad for other people who might have bought more and been disappointed.

Or could you have gotten the -1 in error the first time?
http://www.creationismessy.com/unique.aspx?id=14

Nope I don't think so. I'd bought it a few times before and it looked like the paddle of the regular Simply Berry, not the lighter odd lot. And it was consistent between batches before.

Then I agree, they probably would probably like to know about it.

Kathy has already responded to me and is going to look into it :)

Nice! I've always heard that they are very responsive to customers.

Wow Amy. That is a huge difference.Hope Kathy can straighten it out. They are supposed to know what leaves the factory but I guess it is tough when the owner is in the U.S. and the manufacturer in China. Sure glad didn't pick up any more. It was mostly because the price was too high. I wonder what could possible make glass that expensive to buy???

I asked Kathy about the price jump too - she said all the purples are more expensive right now cause of materials costs going up. It still seems pretty high to me though. I mean, that's getting up there with the silver colours (higher than some of them actually!) It becomes a question of whether or not it's even worth stocking a colour anymore. I already gave up on the CiM pinks for the same reason - very pretty but just not worth the price, to me anyway.

Yeah I gave up on those also. I don't understand how Lauscha is so much cheaper. And I think that they have to import all of their colorants (called rare earths) from China which owns 90% of the mines in the world.

Agreed, I posted about this earlier, it's more than silver glass. What will I buy, some DH or purple? I love simply berry...er the old batch, but not that much!

http://www.twoglassyladies.ca/tgl/wp...st-300x170.jpg
Effetre 044 Dark Amethyst

http://www.twoglassyladies.ca/tgl/wp...st-300x175.jpg
Effetre 042 Med Amethyst

Both are currently $12/pound at Frantz and 40% off. So I don't understand the "purple is expensive" thing. I'm just switching to using these instead of Simply Berry from now on. Sad to say because I like to support Creation is Messy I do like them a lot :(

I remember reading that some of the pinks contain gold & that's why the price jumped up so much.

I had a talk with Kathy today and she was super nice. She seems to really value feedback from glass artists so I'm really glad I contacted her! Her thought on the batch that denser colour was a good thing - more bang for your buck I guess. And I explained that maybe for some people that's a good thing, but not for my purpose for the glass since I mostly use it for spacers. She doesn't know either how some of the other manufacturers can do the pinks/purples and even other colours for as cheap as they do. Anyway overall she was very supportive and is sending me some of another batch of Simply Berry to test out. This batch probably would be very pretty over a white or clear base to dilute it some so that's what I will probably end up doing with it...

Bottom line is, Kathy does want to hear feedback from us and she cares about glass artists and making them happy. Which are major pluses for CiM as far as I'm concerned!

Manganese (the main colorant in purple glasses) costs around $2.25/kg and hasn't changed much on the world market in a long time. The pinks that have gold in them have only about 10ppm (that's 0.001%) gold so even with high gold prices that's probably not what's really driving the glass price. Energy costs of production are more likely to be the real driver over materials. IMHO.

Robert

And the cost of fuel has been tanking lately.