introduction..
On this page, I am simply going to relate what happened and the order in which it happened. What you should do is read exactly what happened without any preconceptions and without the metaphorical rose-tinted-spectacles Peter McDougall would have you wear when talking about him and his product. At the end of this page I offer my opinion based on the actual events of 2001/02. If anyone can offer a more plausible conclusion than the one I offer, please email me with both your own conclusion and how you came to it; I'd love to hear it!
There are also two maxims you should apply
First is Occam's Razor, which says:
"The simplest theory that fits the facts of a problem is the one that should be selected".
And the fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes:
"Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth".
Read what happened, how it happened, when it happened and who was responsible, then, make your own mind up.
I want to emphasise something first!
If Peter had had the guts to quit Perthshire Paperweights and start on his own when Neil died, no-one, including me, would have been too bothered. He didn't though and the question is, why didn't he?
He had made it clear to me previously that he intended starting his own company if he ever left Perthshire, this was during a conversation when he said that his loyalty was to Neil and NOT Perthshire Paperweights At the time, it didn't really bother me as I knew even then that Peter was not the best maker at Perthshire. Starting a new factory could be difficult though as Perthshire would provide stiff competition and it would be very expensive setting up a new glass works.
Of course, if Perthshire Paperweights was no longer trading, things would change dramatically in his favour.
But that couldn't happen, would it?
I believe that as soon as Neil Drysdale died, Peter McDougall made every effort to make sure Perthshire Paperweights would not continue trading, and there is plenty of evidence to support this!
exactly why did perthshire paperweights close?
While it is somewhat accurate to say that Perthshire Paperweights closed in January 2002 because there were no orders, what is much more important is, why were there no orders?
The actual cause of the closure of Perthshire Paperweights started nearly nine months previously, coincidentally, in April 2001, immediately after Neil Drysdale died.
what really happened to perthshire paperweights
When some people heard that Perthshire Paperweights had closed they may have been surprised because there were no signs of things being that serious before April 2001. Sure, sales might have fallen a bit but not so much that the firm would close as suddenly as it did. Then when they heard that Peter had started his own firm they might have thought, good for him, making the most of a bad situation.
Had things actually happened the way many people think they happened, I might have agreed, unfortunately, they didn't and I don't!
I believe that if the Perthshire management (Peter was manager) had actually bothered to produced samples in 2001, and there had been photographs and a brochure of these samples sent out, Perthshire Paperweights could still have been trading today.
Peter once said to me that his loyalty was with Neil Drysdale and not Perthshire Paperweights; this was about a year before Neil died. That statement didn't really mean much until Neil Drysdale died, from then on it was obvious at least to me, that Perthshire Paperweights was going to close very soon.
Neil Drysdale died in April 2001, Perthshire closed its doors nine months later. Was this because of coincidence, bad luck or were there other forces at work? All I will do is relay events as they happened, you read on and decide for yourself...
Although the Perthshire factory didn't close until January 2002, it was doomed from April 2001.
If Peter McDougall had had the courage to leave Perthshire and start P McD Glass when Neil died, no one would have minded, in fact I for one would have been glad to see the back of him! He didn't though, and why he didn't, only he can say.
At the same time he made the statement about being loyal to Neil, Peter had told me he would start his own studio if he ever left Perthshire. However, if he were to start on his own, I thought there were two options facing him. He could either leave Perthshire and start up his own company and take the chance that it would be successful in the market at that time, like John Deacons had done many years earlier. Or, he could wait until Perthshire was out of business to start his own company; but the problem with that was that surely there was no real way of knowing when, or if, Perthshire Paperweights would close - or was there?
In one of the biggest coincidences I have seen, after trading since 1968 and without any signs of major problems, Perthshire Paperweights was to close only nine months later! but how could such a thing happen?
I thought it was inconceivable that after trading since 1968, Perthshire would just happen to go out of business immediately after Neil Drysdale died and at the same time as Peter wanted to start on his own. Perthshire continued to make paperweights well into 2001, so it was clear that there was still a market for them.
If Peter were to start his own factory, he was going to need to establish a decent customer base. He would also require a fair amount of the expensive, specialist equipment which was needed to make paperweights.
With Perthshire still in business, both of these could be potential problems, but with Perthshire closed, it would be an awful lot easier!
I am not suggesting for one minute that Peter did anything illegal. What I am saying is that immediately after Neil Drysdale died, no samples were made for the following year; how long can a manufacturing business keep going if it doesn't make anything?
The precise chain of events were as follows...
- Prior to Neil's death - Perthshire Paperweights was viable for 33 years
- Perthshire Paperweights was NOT about to close
- April 2001, Neil Drysdale dies
- April 2001, Peter McDougall's loyalty dies with him
- May 2001 onwards, no samples are made for the following year
- June 2001 onwards, there are no plans to do a brochure for 2002
- Sept to Dec 2001, things really wind down because there is nothing new to make
- January 2002, Perthshire closes, around 20 jobs lost
- January 2002, Peter plans his new business
- January 2002, Peter will require specialist equipment for his new business
- Later in 2002, lots of specialist equipment becomes available
- August 2002, Peter registers his new business
- 2002- 2003 P McD Glass starts up using much of the equipment which was no longer needed at Perthshire
- WOW! Who would have thought that would happen?! - Oh Yes, I did!
Let me make it perfectly clear right now, I am not linking the closure of Perthshire Paperweights, and the start of P McD Glass with a some of the equipment which was now obsolete because of that closure, I am simply telling you how things happened, and using the maxims at the top of this page, you should make up your own mind and decide for yourself if YOU think there is any possibility of a link; although I suspect a blind man with a stick could see the connection.
The simple fact is, Perthshire Paperweights did not continue making paperweights into 2002, which meant that a lot of the pontils, moulds, kilns, machines, wheels, tools etc. etc. were now lying unused.
Anyone who has started up a new business - and I know because I have started a new business because Peter put me out of work - will be aware that you do need certain items, and the making of paperweights requires some very specialist tools indeed, including pontils, blowing irons, and moulds for holding the designs, furnace, kilns, as well as others, many of which can be very, very expensive; you cannot just walk into your local hardware store and ask for paperweight moulds, pontils and blowing irons! And to have them made would cost an awful lot of money. It was surely one of the biggest coincidences ever that such specialist items became available just when he Peter needed them; The problem I have is that I don't believe in such coincidences.
But why were there no samples made in the summer of 2001?
If Peter McDougall is reading this, and he can explain why immediately after Neil died in 2001, there were no plans for a new brochure, then please email and let me know; I am sure there a lot of people out there who would like to know your reasoning!
As manager at Perthshire Paperweights, Peter McDougall was one of the main people who decided which samples would go on to be editions and which would not. As manager at Perthshire, Peter was ultimately responsible for the overseeing of new pieces. For unknown reasons, nothing was prepared for 2002. I say again, if there is no new product, how can Perthshire paperweights possibly survive; this is not complicated stuff here, Peter wasn't clever enough do this subtly, therefore a blind man with a stick could see what was happening.
After Neil died, either Perthshire was still going to continue as a business and produce weights for 2002 or it wasn't. If it was why were there no samples, photographs or brochure produced in summer 2001? If, on the other hand, it wasn't, why continue to pay the wages of around 20 people for a further nine months, costing somewhere between £130,000 and £180,000? That makes no sense at all; at least not to me it doesn't!
There were four or five craftsmen making weights, apprentices, three lampworks, two cutters and several people assembling the millefiori moulds. Even if it was thought that the future could not support all of them, the workforce could have slimmed down, yet there was no mention of this as an option at all. Why not?
Peter obviously thought there is a market for paperweights, or he wouldn't have started his own factory! (and please, let's not pretend it's a studio!) Of course, the market was a little easier now that Perthshire Paperweights is no longer around to provide competition!
It is also not a valid argument to now say that since Peter's business is done-and-dusted that there isn't a market; There would still have been a market for quality pieces like those previously produced at Perthshire Paperweights. What Peter produced was substandard rubbish and the buyers obviously saw that, although it seemed to take them long enough to realise it!
I was responsible for all of the photographs taken at Perthshire - although according to the photo credits in the book written by Mahoney and McClanahan, Peter McDougall is credited for pictures from the factory (I wonder how Peter managed to relay the wrong information to them) - anyway, the pictures for the following year's brochure were taken between June and August each year, after all the samples made in May, June and July had been finalised. In the summer of 2001, there were no photographs taken, because there was nothing to photograph, and if there are no samples and no photographs, there can be no brochure, and if there is no brochure, how can they sell the product? It's not rocket science! If you have managed to make the logical conclusion by now, use that conclusion to stop yourself buying any of the rubbish produced at P McD Glass.
After a few months of doing very little, the factory finally closed in January 2002.
Ultimately, Perthshire Paperweights closed because there were no weights designed or made in the summer of 2001, which obviously meant there was nothing to sell in 2002; had there been, I believe Perthshire could have continued!
Why, as manager, Peter McDougall didn't oversee the making of samples in 2001, only he can answer; and I for one would love to hear the explanation! and given that these pages have been here for a long time now, Peter has had plenty of opportunity to send me corrections to anything I have written. If he can send corrections, ones which actually fit the circumstances, no just more lies he has made up, I will include them here. Go on, I dare you! Make my Day
why do people think peter did everything?
When Peter went abroad or showed people round and was showing them paperweights, he would often say, "I made this". I am not saying he deliberately claimed to have made every part of the weight, but when people did think that, he didn't correct them. They would assume, and he let them think, that he had done everything; lampwork, making the weight and cutting it. I still have a picture of a bottle he took to America which he tried to facet prior to leaving. He made such a mess of it, it took me hours to fix it and when he came back from the States, I asked him if had told people he cut it and said he had. This was his way of getting his name out there and associated with quality paperweights.
Peter McDougall also managed to get his own initials in a cane which was put into several Perthshire Paperweights; no one else was given this privilege. There were some really nice lampwork pieces and also some very nice pieces which involved many hours of cutting on my part, but somehow, only Peter McDougall managed to get his initials in weights. This helped to propagate the myth that he was responsible for much of the process than he actually did. Apart from him simply being a big-head, why would he need this? I think it could have been to prepare for the time when he was ready to start his own factory.
Just for the record, he didn't do everything, I think he was an average maker, his lampwork was less than mediocre at best and he was really bad at cutting.
Some makers did have an inflated opinion of themselves and their abilities, and Peter was no different. This is reflected in the prices he used to charge for one-off pieces. If it were some piece which he had made, he would put a huge price tag on it, but if it were one which had really nice lampwork or something I had spent many hours cutting, the price would be a lot less.
On his last trip to America, he took a few one-offs and one was what he called a double torsade. It simply had two twisted rod canes which had been made into a circle, and between them were some really roughly cut canes. The canes were nothing special nor was anything else to do with the weight, yet he was going to charge several hundred £s for it. I asked him if it took a while to make, or if anything in it was actually complicated and to both he said "No!". "Then why was it so expensive", I asked. "Because no one has done before" he said! I doubt anyone has tried to put a turd into a weight before but that doesn't make it a good idea or worth anything!
Yet, I pointed out that pieces taken on the same trip with a complicated bouquet or really complex cutting were around half the price and involved a lot more work.
If you look at the pieces he produces today, I think he still appears to assign a price to a weight without any regard for the fact that it is neither complicated nor time consuming; just look at the weights on the P McD page to see an example of this; if you can look at them and see why one is priced at around £800 more than the other two, please tell me, because I can't see it.
In my opinion, Peter McDougall's abilities were nothing special. Many of the web sites which carry his product mention that he used to work at Perthshire Paperweights which demonstrates that P McD weights are still being traded, partly, on the reputation of Perthshire Paperweights. Surely, if his weights are that good, it shouldn't need mentioning every time that he worked at Perthshire?
Most of what he produces today are very similar in style, shape and design as those made at Perthshire before it closed; is the reason for that similarity because the moulds in which they are assembled used to belong to Perthshire Paperweights?
I think if you are interested in quality Perthshire Paperweights, you should concentrate on finding REAL Perthshire Paperweights; you can see a very small sample of what Perthshire used to produced by going to this page.
What is produced by Peter McDougall is NOT Perthshire Paperweights, it is PmcD Glass.
a small selection of Perthshire Paperweights
What was produced by Peter McDougall was NOT Perthshire Paperweights, it was PmcD Glass.
real PP weights V P McD glass
If, you have been looking at Peter McDougall's weights for so long, you can't quite remember what a quality Perthshire Paperweight looks like, which I think would be understandable, have a look at The Pictures Page of this site to see some weights made at Perthshire, and compare these to the sub-standard dross Peter produces; examples on the P McD Page.