Treasures in Trunks?

Americans had better start looking in the attic: grandfather's old glass paperweight is having a big boom in the art world. Rare old specimens fetch as much as $3,000.

The best weights were made in a single decade, from 1840 to 1850, in France. Among the many designs: the "candy" types, i.e., a scattering of diverse ornaments, like candies in a box; "millefiori," a glittering array of glass flowers; and "faceted overlay" weights, encased in opaque, colored glass, with tiny, cut-out windows revealing the bouquets inside. Rarest and most valuable: sprawling lizards, green and red salamanders, coiled serpents.

Eventually the weights went out of fashion until, before World War I, a tiny, tireless old British lady named Mrs. Applewhaite-Abbott began to collect them. By the time she died in 1938, she owned more than 450, and not one had cost her more than $125. Just before World War II, many collectors got interested and prices began to climb. By last week, Mrs. Applewhaite-Abbott's collection had been auctioned off in London. Total price: about $50,000. No one knows how many more weights were brought back by tourists to Britain or the U.S., or how many may still be tucked away in dusty old trunks.*

*One of the U.S.'s foremost collectors of glass paperweights, Mrs. Evangeline H. Bergstrom, 81, Neenah, Wis., author of Old Glass Paper weights (Crown, 1940: $7.50), gives some point ers on how to distinguish an ordinary weight from the real thing: 1) glass should not be too yellow, should not contain too many bubbles; 2) no scratches should show; 3) base should be smooth -- only modern weights have rough, frost ed base.

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