Schafers bring rare Peoples Vase back home
Holmes County natives Jim and Deb Schafer have been avid collectors of Millersburg Glass items over the years, but little did they know when they left their home on Saturday, Oct. 10, to attend the Holmes County Antique Festival’s Millersburg Glass Auction on the courthouse lawn in Millersburg, that they would leave with the auction’s signature piece — a rare Purple Peoples Vase which sold for $31,000.The vase, formerly owned by Stacy and Desiree Wills of Columbus, who had the vase on consignment for the auction, now returns home to the place where it was made one century ago, at the Millersburg Glass Plant. The famed glass plant was only in operation for three years, but managed to create some of the most mesmerizing, collectible carnival glass on the planet.
And the Peoples vases have been the coup de grace of collectibles, bringing in up to $100,000 per piece.
“I never dreamed that we’d leave here with that particular item,” said Jim Schafer. “I figured it would go for a lot more than it did. It’s exciting for us to have it come back to Holmes County, where it all began. There’s just nothing else out there like this, anywhere. I figured I’d bid while the bidding was low and get out. Then at least I could say I bid on it. I guess now I can say a little more than that, can’t I?”
Perhaps there are no vases identical, but there are a few similar vases out there. Just ask Stacy Wills, who purchased a similar Peoples Vase several years ago for $100,000. That one was in pristine shape. This particular one had a very slight hairline fracture in it, just enough to bring down the value some.
Despite the slight fracture, Wills told Schafer that he had purchased an excellent piece of his hometown’s history.
“You now have the most spectacular piece of glass out there, and believe me, I have seen them all,” said Wills to Schafer following the auction.
The Wills’ actually purchased the vase 11 years ago on eBay, when the gentleman from Kansas who sold it recognized a similar vase from a story in the newspaper, and remembered that he had one like it in his garage.
The vase sold on eBay for $8,101, so the $31,000 price tag this time around was a pleasant surprise to the Wills’, who have been collecting carnival glass together for years now.
“We’re very excited, and happy, and sort of sad to see it go,” said Desiree Wills. “Sometimes these pieces become a part of you. But we feel very honored to be selling it to someone who is going to bring it back to where it first began.”
“The crack definitely kept the price down,” said Stacy Wills. “If that had been perfect, we’d still be here bidding tonight. It was fun and very exciting to see it go on the auction block.”
The Wills’ said that they have had close to 700 pieces of glass at different times, and have bought and sold it for years. They estimate their current total to be around 250 pieces, but they only deal in the high-end glass.
The piece came to roost at the auction when auctioneer Jim Wroda, himself well versed in Millersburg Glass lore, talked to festival coordinator Georgie Cool about how neat it would be to have a vase of that caliber on the auction block for the 100 year anniversary of Millersburg Glass.
Wroda contacted the Wills’, who agreed, and volunteered to put the vase up for auction.
“If it had been anywhere else but Millersburg, we never would have done it,” said Stacy Wills.
Wroda said at the auction that this particular vase has been voted as the prettiest one of the existing Peoples Vases for its color and iridescence, and said that there are so few Peoples Vases left that they have become the carnival glass to collect for avid collectors.
Now, the vase is back home, which is amazing, since Schafer grew up right beside where the plant was located in Millersburg.
“It’s home now,” said Schafer, who added with a chuckle when asked where he was going to put the vase, “I’ll probably hide it somewhere safe.”
If he does have problems figuring out what to do with it, Chris Sieverdes, proprietor of the Millersburg Glass Museum, said he can think of one place to showcase the piece to the public.
“We would love it if he decided to allow us to display it as part of our museum,” said Sieverdes. “It’s a beautiful piece, and part of the amazing legacy left behind by John Fenton and Millersburg Glass. It would be awesome to be able to show people how wonderful his vision and ability to produce carnival glass was, even a century ago.”