The Last Snow-Globe Repairmen

I found the following article, which I am including with excerpts below. I was not aware that it was so difficult to find someone to repair your snow globe. I wanted to post this article incase others who love collecting snow globes, came by and also were not aware of this man.  

I have one snow globe, a small one that my mother-in-law gave us, that had the glass part broken by one of our cats. This is why, now, I keep them in my office at home with the door shut. I suppose to a cat, it is like watching fish swim in a fish tank… just too irresistable not to touch.

I am still trying to work on getting my pictures to upload from my camera… my computer just doesn’t seem to want to see that there are pictures there to be uploaded. Once I do, then I will share my snow globes with you. So, for now, please enjoy this article and check back again to see my collection. 

Click here for Source article

    

 

Small piles of debris sit in a neat row on the counter. Once-tidy scenes under glass just a shake away from a magical blizzard are now no more than rubble. In one pile, a miniature pink fairy lay like a fallen soldier in the snow atop a black base; in another, tiny pieces of broken birds and snowmen. Some bases are disemboweled, their musical movements yanked out and set to the side…

…He reaches behind him into a recently arrived box from Oregon and pulls out a letter. “You know, every one comes with a letter,” says Heibel, 74. “I get the most wonderful letters.”

Each tells a story:

“My father was a pilot in the war…”

“My sister gave this to me…”

“It’s part of my dead son’s collection…”

“My mother’s wedding present 50 years ago…”

Many are confessionals about how the snow globes ended up here.

“Most of the time they’re dropped,” Heibel says.

He grabs a shattered hummingbird.

“I can’t remember what happened here, but I’m supposed to replace the broken bird with something similar,” he says. With twinkling eyes and a mischievous grin, he holds up a perfect duplicate.

“I had it…”

…”For years, I bought the leftovers of the San Francisco Music Box Company,” he explains. The company, which has since filed bankruptcy, had offered customers a lifetime warranty on their snow globes and music boxes. When they broke or stopped working, customers could return them for new ones. “I got all the returns,” Heibel says. The collection supplies the figures, scenery and movements to fix the pieces. He uses water that is specially treated and sanitized so it doesn’t turn green…

…Heibel is one of the last snow-globe repairmen in the country. His busy time runs through January because snow globes received as presents get broken, sometimes by visiting grandchildren.

“Snow globes aren’t toys, but it’s nearly impossible not to touch them,” he says.

~ by truthoughts on May 17, 2008.