Collecting Glass Ornaments
by *butterbloom*dot-com*
eBay Community Member

I fell in love with blown glass ornaments a few years ago. Not the spun glass ones, but the ones that look like the mercury glass of days gone by. These are the ones that Christopher Radko is famous for and, depending on what brand, they may cost a small fortune. They are shiny and bright, usually quite colorfully painted with various metallic paints and can be found in every imaginable shape. If you look in Grandma's attic, you might find some wonderful old ones she used to decorate her tree.

I don't like spending a lot of money on my ornaments, so the Radkos on my tree are outnumbered by far by those made by lesser-known artists. In fact, most of the ones I own are not even made anymore, at least not under the name they were produced.

The Calik factory produced a couple of lines of ornaments for Ivana Trump and for Enesco around 1994. The Enesco ornaments were sold through a subsidiary, "International Collections", and were packaged in reddish-purple boxes and called "Calik's Artistry". Ivana's were in fancy red and gold boxes and sold through her company "House of Ivana". They were sold in finer department stores at a hefty price.

Sadly, the Caliks were forced to shut the factory down for a time. This also forced the "Calik's Artistry" line and the "House of Ivana" line to be discontinued. As a result, the ornaments ended up in closeout stores selling for a fraction of their original value. That's how I found them.

My love and curiosity for the Calik's ornaments energized an urge to research the Internet to discover what I could about the Caliks and their factory. After researching the ornaments, I found that the Calik's line had many pieces that seemed to be of the same theme. There were many storybook characters and the like. This started a trek to find out what pieces in the series were produced. I found the Calik's website and emailed the factory. I was very delighted to be emailed back by Ewa Calik herself. Unfortunately, I was not able to find what all the pieces were that they produced for Enesco. The language barrier presented a bit of a problem as Mrs. Calik has limited English and I know no Polish.

There are a variety of ornaments being produced now by many factories and under many names. Popular names are Patricia Breen, Mia, Slavic Treasures, and Polonaise. Many ornaments adorn my tree from Poland, Russia, Hungry, Checzloslavkia, Germany, Italy, and yes, even China. Ornament quality differs among manufacturers.

As I try to put together the pieces of the puzzle, I stay intrigued and always in search of the pieces I'm missing and tidbits of interesting information regarding the Caliks. It is my hope to someday go to the factory in Krakow and see first hand these wonderful ornaments being made.

Until then, I keep hunting for those elusive treasures to add to my collection.