Why is silver 104 glass so expensive?

[sosoft]

Hello,
I wish to ask a question about silver glass so I am starting a new thread.

Why does most of the 104 glass with a lot of silver in it cost so much?

$100 a pound seems to be a outrageous price for glass.
Most 104 colored glass sells for about $10 dollars a pound. Some 104 colors with gold or silver sell for $40 dollars a pound. Some special small batch104 colors sell for $50 dollars a pound.

What makes the 104 glass with more silver so much more expensive?

Is there that much more silver? Silver is not that expensive compared to gold.

I have used boro silver glass with so much silver inside the matrix that there is a line of pure silver running down the middle of the rod.
Boro takes twice the energy to melt.
Boro colored silver glass sells for $40-50 dollars a pound.and has for almost 15 years.
What's up with the 104 silver glass that costs $4 a rod?
Inquiring minds want to know.
HITK,
Kurt
Ps Since this is a new thread, please feel free to explain how you feel. No one will be judged for their comments

[NLC Beads]

http://lampworketc.com/forums/showpo...&postcount=219

[Firebrand Beads]

Thanks for posting that, Nikki.

Kurt, I can assure you that the headaches and expenses involved in making silvered glass, ESPECIALLY silvered 104, are high. If it was cheap and easy everyone would be doing it, and they are not. A few try and -- voila! have the same headaches as the rest of us who don't sleep well fretting over production problems. One way to cut costs would be to violate American OSHA standards, and we don't choose to do that, lol! Another would be to use sub-standard ingredients, or to take shortcuts in the process, and we don't choose that route either. Truth be told, if people didn't want to pay our price for glass (and BTW we sell our 104 for $60 - $80/lb, not $100) then we would not be selling it, and we certainly would not bother to make it. It's a pain in the ass. ;-D

Perhaps the better question to ask is why people are interested in high-cost materials? I suspect it is because when we all have the same tools, the same glass, and the same techniques, it is harder to make your work look unique. Some of us are just plain BORED SILLY with the Italian glass. Silvered glass is so highly variable that many people choose it so that their work is more distinctive, or because they like a challenge. That is the reason many people give for using PMC, which is significantly more expensive than sheet sterling. It allows an artist to make something that no one else has made, and it isn't as easy as buying the same old thing that everyone else uses.

So Kurt, I have been trying to figure out what the heck "HITK" means... FWIW! ~Jenny

[sosoft]

Originally Posted by Firebrand Beads

Thanks for posting that, Nikki.

Kurt, I can assure you that the headaches and expenses involved in making silvered glass, ESPECIALLY silvered 104, are high. If it was cheap and easy everyone would be doing it, and they are not. A few try and -- voila! have the same headaches as the rest of us who don't sleep well fretting over production problems. One way to cut costs would be to violate American OSHA standards, and we don't choose to do that, lol! Another would be to use sub-standard ingredients, or to take shortcuts in the process, and we don't choose that route either. Truth be told, if people didn't want to pay our price for glass (and BTW we sell our 104 for $60 - $80/lb, not $100) then we would not be selling it, and we certainly would not bother to make it. It's a pain in the ass. ;-D

Perhaps the better question to ask is why people are interested in high-cost materials? I suspect it is because when we all have the same tools, the same glass, and the same techniques, it is harder to make your work look unique. Some of us are just plain BORED SILLY with the Italian glass. Silvered glass is so highly variable that many people choose it so that their work is more distinctive, or because they like a challenge. That is the reason many people give for using PMC, which is significantly more expensive than sheet sterling. It allows an artist to make something that no one else has made, and it isn't as easy as buying the same old thing that everyone else uses.

So Kurt, I have been trying to figure out what the heck "HITK" means... FWIW! ~Jenny

Jenny,
OK, that is great. It answers a lot of my questions, but why is it that I have several friends who make small batches of 104 silver glass all the time and it does not cost them very much? The silver nitrate is not cheep, but you don't need much to get a good silver reactive glass. I am willing to bet that research into new boro colors costs at least double that of a 104 glass.
If you want to talk about keeping the COE right when adding metal to a glass matrix, how do the color bar folks do it?
There are silver opals and actually a new group of silver glasses in 96 COE that do the exact same color changes that the 104 silver glasses do. The frit folks will go nuts.
They cost $48 dollars a kilo, about $24 dollars a pound.
It's a soda lime base with silver and other metals in it, and they can make it in large quantities for commercial glass blowers.
The soft silver glasses are much easier to reduce in a torch and some of the paddles on a major color bar suppliers web site were actually made by lamp working.
I can't really buy the harder, we have to obey the rules line when toxic metals and chemicals are added to glass all over the world and some countries have a lot more strict rules than OSHA.
Heat is the key,
Kurt

[Firebrand Beads]

Kurt, if your friends are making silvered 104 all the time, for cheap, why are they not selling it on the open market? Are they able to make enough of it to sell? Can they make it consistently and limit the variables from batch to batch? And do they have the money to replace equipment if something goes wrong? If so, I know LOTS of people who would pay them what ever they want to charge for it. And a lot of them are on this forum, lol!

Clearly, we would sell more glass if we could make it and sell it cheaper. But we can't do that and meet our day-to-day costs. I am not really interested in going over the details of the expense reports, but rest assured we are NOT getting rich, lol!

And just how much do you want to wager on that boro research versus 104 research question? ;-D Corning spent a HELL of a lot of money researching clear boro during the cold war. Paul virtually "wrote the book" on batching colored boro, because NO one had ever done it before him, and he has logged decades of research. One of these days he'll have time to write the actual book, lol! However, people have been making 104 for centuries.

[lunamoonshadow]

*laughing* because Brad (striking glass color) makes small batch glass, & "we" as a group jump all over it every time he posts it, despite the fact that he doesn't seem to be able to make it the same from one batch to the next, gives it odd names with odd numbers, & only sells it in pound lots, which pretty well eliminates those of us on limited budgets.
Add to that Double Helix who has been pretty well unable after several years of trying to replicate the elusive "terra" despite much whining & begging from the glass community, & again, "we" as a group happily snap up every "not-quite-right" batch in the hopes it just might do something, anything, even *close* to what the original did...and some of them do their own wonderful things & even THOSE can't seem to be replicated

Me? I treasure every scrap of every short & bit of frit I get my grubby little hands on! The silver glasses are fantastic in that a teeny bit can be stretched a very, very long way in the form of stringer, frit & shards--that's one of the best things about them!

[Mermaid Glass]

If the people who make silver glass work even half as hard to produce it as I do to make something pretty out of it once I get it, then I figure I'm getting off easy at the prices I'm paying.

Besides, it's beautiful, it's fun to work with and I like it - so whenever I can, I'm buying it. I just consider it a little gift to myself as a lampworker and figure I darn well deserve it.

~Laurie

[Hayley]

Originally Posted by squid

Why is silver glass so expensive? Because it is a f&^%$ing conspiracy, that's why.

I just had to edit my post after squidly's priceless answer! lol!

[squid]

Why is silver glass so expensive? Because it is a f&^%$ing conspiracy, that's why.

[LyndaJ]

Originally Posted by squid

Why is silver glass so expensive? Because it is a f&^%$ing conspiracy, that's why.

snort!

[Carolyn M]

Originally Posted by squid

Why is silver glass so expensive? Because it is a f&^%$ing conspiracy, that's why.

I knew it!!

[DiamondLilGlass]

Squid strikes again, ROFL

[Elizabeth Beads]

At $10 per skinny rod of Terra, the going price is well over $500 lb. And yes, it is going.

As someone said (Judith I think), if you can take a $10 rod of something, add some clear and make a bead set that someone will pay $100+ for, it's worth every penny.

[bgurden]

just took a class with michael barley. he recommends taking moretti glass make a bead add silver leaf burnish melt in and then start playing with the colors.. silver makes some moretti glass change color. the fun is figuring what does what. he does not recommend spending 100 dollars a pound in this economy!

[Otter's Flame]

Bgurden,
I have played with silver leaf and most 104 COE glass for many years and there are amazing things you can do with it. I would recommend starting with transparent cobalt and silver leaf. Vary your flame chemistry and your heat and the amount of time in the heat etc. Just play and play and then add clear drops or encase what you have after you get your reactions and it will change further. Before the heavy silvered glass became widely, commercially available that is what most of us did. You can go pretty far with it.

However a little bit of the silvered glass can really go a long way and I would HIGHLY recommend you try that also. There is a treasure trove of information on L.E. about the different ways people are getting the colors to pop and how they work it. So you can start already armed with a ton of knowledge. Most of the silver glass manufacturer's websites have a lot of information to help you work their glass.

I also happen to know for a fact that Jenny will answer any question you have about the T.A.G. line. I have pestered that poor woman so much... she is infinitely patient. URL="http://www.taglass.comworking_ips_ricks.html"]T.A.G.'s website[/url] has a large amount of info on working their glass also. Use the small arrow on the right hand side of the page to scroll through the information on the T.A.G. website, I almost missed all the info because I didn't see that little arrow.

I do not use tons of silver glass in my work, but what I do use is worth it's weight in gold...... or silvered glass actually.

Otter

[elle]

I recently found a 1998 Frantz catalog in my stockpile. Northstar was nearly $100/lb, and there were only a handful of colors. Those same colors today, plus many many more, cost half of that or less. And it's not like people aren't buying silver 104 at those higher prices... who knows, those may drop in price over the next decade, too. But if they don't, you won't hear me complain. These talented glass makers have every right to charge whatever the market will bear for their fine products.

[Firebrand Beads]

Originally Posted by Otter's Flame

I also happen to know for a fact that Jenny will answer any question you have about the T.A.G. line. I have pestered that poor woman so much... she is infinitely patient.

Otter

Um... that was PESTERING?? LOL, I thought it was conversation!!
We should all be so lucky, to be "pestered" by Otter!!

[lunamoonshadow]

Hayley's silver glass bead exchange threads in the patio are a huge treasure-trove of information!

[AKDesigns]

You must have missed the other thread Luna.

[jamie lynne]

was there another thread? where? where?

[AKDesigns]

[NLC Beads]

Originally Posted by AKDesigns

You must have missed the other thread Luna.

Forum ignorance truly is bliss. Leave her be.

[jamie lynne]

[AKDesigns]

Originally Posted by NLC Beads

Forum ignorance truly is bliss. Leave her be.

kill joy.

[DesertDreamer]

Ya'll are getting off so easy!

Elselife I do calligraphy and illumination. I just learned the joys (and $$$) of raised gilding on vellum (real animal parchment). A book of patent gold is roughly $50. A sheet of vellum 8 x 10 is about $120. Plus labor (of love) for design, layout, gilding, painting and calligraphy.

I can live just fine with $25 for a glorious quarter pound of some of this glass.

[MagpieGlass]

The simple answer is:

supply vs. demand

As long as the people (us silver junkies) are willing to pay the price to get the awesome colors. The vendors can charge that price and make what they can. (I'm not negating any of the presumed "costs" expressed by Jenny at TAG).

Do you really think it "costs" $70,000 - $120,000 to build a Lamborghini???

Me ... I'd gladly pay $95 for Brad's awesome glass if he could just make enough that I could score a succesful hit in the StrikingColor glass scramble.

BTW. I also really only want a 1/4 lb or less ... so maybe a group of us "silver junkies" could gang together and split an order???

[betsymn]

Originally Posted by bgurden

just took a class with michael barley. he recommends taking moretti glass make a bead add silver leaf burnish melt in and then start playing with the colors.. silver makes some moretti glass change color. the fun is figuring what does what. he does not recommend spending 100 dollars a pound in this economy!

In this economy, if I can use $1 worth of silver glass in a set of 5 beads that sells for $60, I think that a darn good deal!

[Starrr]

I hope silver glass never goes down in price, if it does no one will make it anymore and we will all lose because I'm sure there are silver glasses yet to come that will make some of our old favorites pale in comparison. I have several pounds of the original Terra and Olympia Rain, plus a bunch of odd lots that I won't sell even for 15.00 for a skinny rod. The glass is worth more making beads out of it.

As for Brad of Striking Glass Color, his glass is amazing. I met him at a show and put a "bee in his bonnet" about making silver glass to sell and am glad he did but wish he had the time to make more. If he ever decides to make a clear glass, snap it up at any cost. You guys would die if you could see his veiled cane that I have,(I bought it all a long so don't email him, LOL). The color is rich, doesn't burn out and melts like butter. The man really is a wizard when it comes to creating glass and in my opinion that's what we are paying for. The same goes for all the other silver glass creators, the price of their knowledge, work and ingredients is surely worth at least 100.00 a pound for the end product that we receive.

[echeveria]

I don't know why it matters how much it COSTS to make it. Any vendor should be able to sell it for whatever the market will bear. Nobody is putting a gun to anyone's head to force them to buy it.