Orrefors Kosta Boda Sale

Not a lot of English info on this recent sale, but here's a few blurbs about what sounds like an interesting and important archive being parted off from the Swedish glassworks. It was sold to a municipality in Sweden, Emmaboda, so perhaps the nonprofit, Glass Kingdom's Treasures didn't raise the money in time, but there's nothing written about that yet.

September 23, 2009 [NY Times ArtBlog] Eve M. Kahn:

"Next week the Swedish crystal manufacturer Orrefors Kosta Boda will start making arrangements to sell much of its glass-making archive, containing about 5,000 prototype vessels as well as sketches, photos and correspondence dating back to the company’s founding in the early 1700s. A Swedish nonprofit, the Glass Kingdom’s Treasures, is now trying to preempt the sale by raising about $1.7 million to fund museum galleries for the collection in the town of Orrefors, in southern Sweden.

Orrefors Kosta Boda was purchased in 2005 by the New Wave Group, a Swedish giftware and sports equipment producer that suffered an 18 percent sales drop this spring and has laid off hundreds of employees. It announced plans for a sale of the archive in June. “But we didn’t think it actually would go so far, and get to this critical point,” said Gunnel Holmer, a senior curator at the Swedish Glass Museum. She is also a director of the Glass Kingdom’s Treasures, which has raised about $1 million so far, from private donors as well as the New Wave Group."

Kahn, E.M. "Antiques: Efforts Underway to Save Swedish Glass-Making Archive." September 23, 2009. Accessed October 26, 2009. http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/antiques-efforts-underway-to-save-swedish-glass-making-archive/

October 7, 2009 NWG press release:

"Orrefors Kosta Boda has transferred glass collections and related paper archives linked to the company's glassworks at Kosta, Boda and Åfors to the Municipality of Emmaboda ("Emmaboda kommun"). The sales price amounts to SEK 10,000,000 and the sale is expected to have a positive effect on New Wave Group`s results during 2009 by almost SEK 10,000,000."

Jansson, Torsten (CEO). "New Wave Group: Orrefors Kosta Boda Transfers Glass Collections and Paper Archives to the Municipality of Emmaboda." Gothenberg, Sweden. October 7, 2009. Accessed October 26, 2009. http://www.nwg.se/read-news/article/press-release-orrefors-kosta-boda-transfers-glass-collections-and-paper-archives-to-the-municipali.html