Wow that’s great to know that the Quartz Quest uses painted glass
@divinetribe do you want to weigh in here. Please don’t use painted glass!
I look at my glass as art and appreciate it as art still doesn’t mean I’ll spend a grand or more for piece. I love my American slyme fab Dino and the purple kraken I got from CCG. To say that those pieces aren’t art would be idiotic. They are awesome I love them and I am able to afford awesome glass art. To get a kraken from wicked glass or mako glass is $3000+ I payed $165 from CCG for my kraken. The fab dino is the same it’s be $3000+ from Elbo and was less than $100 from CCG. I will never spend $1000-3000+ for a piece but I do love glass art. I had an American artist make me a kraken for $350 and i don’t like it. There’s no perc and all the arms are open inside so they get water in them. I have also bought a couple mini tubes from ig and one had a wonky joint and the other the horn broke off just barley tapping the horn. I have gotten better quality from China lately than I have from American artists.
The most I have ever spent on glass is $500 for a hand blown rig in the 90’s and I still have it. I had a couple of Jerome Bakers that were 350-400 and ended up breaking them. Now I really try to keep my glass purchases below $100 but I will splurge once in awhile.
I won’t go into a local head shop and buy China glass, you are right they do mark it up 5-10x what you can get it from dhgate for.
Edited to add pics: