Blenko Glass Company’s West Virginia Day piece goes on sale Saturday

MILTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) – West Virginians are getting ready for one of the most competitive days of the year. Blenko Glass Company is preparing to roll out the 160th West Virginia Day Piece.

West Virginia Day is Tuesday, June 20, but the big sale of this year’s piece kicks off at 12 p.m. June 17.

For the past five weeks, their team of artists has been spending a lot of time by the fire, creating some of the most sought after pieces in the Mountain State.

James Arnett designed the annual West Virginia Day piece, for West Virginia’s 160th birthday. It’s called ‘Specimen’.

“The inspiration for West Virginia Day this year has been West Virginia’s coal,” Arnett said. “We’ve had 43 years of West Virginia Day pieces, but this is the first one that explicitly enshrines coal as the topic for our piece.”

Only 160 of them have been made, and West Virginians know the demand of getting your hands on one of them. For many years, people would camp outside to get one, but now the queue is virtual.

A COVID protocol that’s kept going to give people throughout the state a chance to get a piece if they can’t come in person.

“There are so many supporters and collectors out there waiting in line virtually, now to get ahold of a piece that celebrates West Virginia’s heritage,” Arnett said. “It’s a really big deal to be able to design something that’s going to sit in museums as a representation of this moment in West Virginia time.”

At least 30 pairs of hands work on each piece, with locally sourced materials.

“Our wood plinth is hand carved by our veteran mold maker Daniel Chapman,” Arnett said. “He’s been with us for 45 years. The trees come from the factory campus from a tree that fell over.”

The coal in the center of the piece is a dark piece of glass, frosted to have a shimmer. It’s all closed off with a tangerine dome.

“Altogether they come together like a museum piece thinking about how coal is central to West Virginia’s heritage and thinking about how we preserve and talk about coal as part of our heritage,” Arnett said.

Each piece is carefully packaged with the help of the shop cats, and sent off to homes to spread the history of the state’s birthday.

The first 50 ‘Specimen’ pieces will be auctioned off, and the rest are first come first serve. Last year, they sold out in two minutes and 30 seconds.

There will be another piece available at Blenko Saturday for those who can’t get their hands on the limited supply, known as the Companion Piece. Artists will make as many of these pieces as long as there’s a demand for them.

Copyright 2023 WSAZ. All rights reserved.