Glass saga 2020, 2 new bricks February 26

Goldfish are unreliable, and not to be trusted.

Me and Denise went to the glass shop/warehouse in the industrial district and bought four 2'x2' sheets of colored glass yesterday. Cost $125. expensive.
We have a ton of scrap but she insists on buying more for her compositions and that is fine w/me because she has certain talent.

The office manager said they had some discontinued glass back in the warehouse. I was guessing it was a few hundred pounds.
Escorted me to the back room and there was enough 6000 pound crates of mixed colors to fill up a tractor trailer.
One particular crate was open and had a fine mix of color so I inquired about it in particular - "COE 90 fusing glass from China"
(MrP, we were talking about difficulty in finding color.)

The sheets measure 39" x 39" which makes perfect sense being imported, 1 meter X 1 meter. About 300 sheets. Up beat colors.
Along with a enough boxes of compatible frit and stick glass to fill a pick up truck.

It sounded like the quote ended up being more like "do you have a big truck and can come up here and get it out of the warehouse ?".
(I get into some of the damnedest situations, I was in deep shock on this one) "Ask and ye will receive" falling true here.

Then there was about a dozen more crates in the 'tons' weight of discontinued glass.
I just questioned the import crate because it was open had such a fine mix of colors.

I live on a farm and have deep pit where trash glass from the glass blower is being dumped into.
It is just glass and non-pollutive. I would eventually bury it with the tractor. So it can be gotten rid of easily if it fails.

So they are going to let me bring home some samples and test melt it first.
The import glass seems to have less pollution restrictions on it. So wilder colors.
The US has shut down manufacture of several colors because they don't allow high temp melting of cadmium(red glass) and some other metals without expensive air cleaning apparatus.
Red in particular and yellow glass seems to be in shortage.

Looks like a trip back to the glass store today to pick up samples. wish me luck.

Love unaffordable but usable scrap stuff. May have hit a home run on this one Jean.

This is the retail store in the warehouse.
The stock is in the back.

They have a forklift and I have a lift on my tractor Beth. I have a 7000 pound capacity trailer.
They are only 10 miles from the house. I can do this in shuttle trips.
Looks like I can get just one crate which may be way more than I need.
It had all been sitting in the Chicago warehouse for years, now been in Atlanta for years.
Looks like they are in no hurry...

They called it discontinued. How do you discontinue such fine colors ?

I loved Spectrum in my stained glass years. Such beautiful patterns. The quality was unmatched, at least for what was available to me in SE WI.

Know all about those Chicago warehouses, sitting full of amazing material. CEO of a Human Services company in SE WI, I worked with for many years was all into them. Very much a hands on CEO. We had a side business of packaging small hardware. Lots of contracts for that, nation wide. He would often spend days taking our small delivery panel van to Chicago, loading up, returning, and making multiple trips.
Seems like Chicago is the dumping grounds for lots of good materials, just waiting to be found.
Last I heard, the SE company I worked for, now has over $10 million in business for the packaging part. That helps to fund the underfunded human services part.

Glad someone near you grabbed stuff from Chicago.

The worker bee took me back there and showed me that glass.
I had been pondering 'the approach' to the management about making offer.
I knew it was in disarray and totally dangerous for employees to handle.
I can't believe they let me raise some of those big sheets out of the box.
Serious liability, hate to pay their accident insurance.
I have seen 2 customers get cut and require serious stitches in the few times I visited that store.
Big plates like that give me goose bumps thinking how quickly it will lacerate you.

It is amazing how much gets thrown away.
Manager said they had already trashed half the glass that was sitting back there. Meaning many tons.

About half that scrap is discontinued Spectrum stained glass, useless for fusing.
I looked at it and compared it to the glass in their stained glass area and could not see one reason why it should not be on the shelf for sale.
Maybe Spectrum discontinued it and paid their distributors for it.
Corporate policy never fails to amaze me.
Bet I am getting ready to reap a windfall due to corporate stupidity. Stupid tattooed on their forehead.
I would rough estimate all those crates at over 2 million dollars.
If a younger man I would buy the whole lot.

I have strong plant tables in a relatively new green house. 4' X 90' on each wall of greenhouse. 75 amp power, full irrigation.
May end up being "The Glass Greenhouse".

Sitting empty with nothing to do: