Paperweights are beautiful handmade items that are often used for decoration in a home or office, or for their original purpose of holding letters or papers to make sure they don’t fly away, but there are many other interesting facts about paperweights. glass you may not know, so here are some interesting facts.
Paperweights can sometimes be a fire hazard, hard to believe I know, but a combination of different circumstances can lead to disaster. In June 2010 a £750,000 family home was destroyed due to a simple paperweight, no one was injured. Firefighters fought for five hours to put out the flames, and on inspection they said the fire had started due to a simple paperweight. The paperweight had been displayed on a windowsill and, during a heat wave, magnified the sun’s rays onto a stack of books, causing the fire, a highly unfortunate series of events.
In addition to this, you might be interested to know that in September 2008 a paperweight caused the evacuation of the huge JFK airport. Airport officials thought they saw a suspicious device which led to the evacuation of the entire terminal and no flights were allowed in or out of the terminal. Once the officer checked the ‘suspicious’ package, he discovered that they were actually paperweights.
Paperweights were also used in the 1800s by royalty as decorative objects, and indeed a paperweight purchased for the untimely death of Paul 1st, Tsar of Russia, who reigned from 1754 to 1801. The tsar, or king, as he could more commonly be called. today was killed when a manhunt broke out in his bedroom after a conspiracy was established against him. The men chased him around the room until he tripped and fell, causing a bronze and gold paperweight to fall on him.
As we all know, paperweights come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, and even the world famous jewelers Tiffany’s create specialized paperweights, such as the limited edition Star Wars Death Star engraved paperweight, released to coincide with the highest grossing film. In this sense, paperweights are often collector’s items and come in a variety of themes, from movies to world cup-style paperweights; there is surely something for everyone.
So, as you can see in these interesting news stories, paperweights are not only beautiful and decorative objects, but they also have a lot of history and can be a great conversation starter. Plus, they make the perfect gift, as a corporate paperweight for a colleague.
