Bob Banford talks about Robert Hansen and his father, Ron, a well-known paperweight pioneer. Oral history interview with Bob Banford by Barb Elam, conducted via telephone, December 19, 2019, Bard Graduate Center. Clip length: 01:07.

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Clip 1: Bob Banford discusses Robert Hansen and his father, Ron. Clip length: 00:46.

Bob Banford: Yeah. Bobby Hansen. He, I knew his father Ron, and became friendly with him and Ron had passed away at this point and Bobby was going to try and make paperweights himself. Was kind of out of it because Ron and Bobby had never made a paperweight using what we called glass slugs, that was the crystal that we got from the Schott Optical Company, and we used—they’re almost like double thick hockey pucks. They were just slugs with glass that we would preheat and use that to make our paperweights out of. But he learned on glass rod that was made by the Conlon Glass Company in Hicksville, Long Island.

Time stamp: 00:48
Clip 2: Bob Banford talks about Robert Hansen. Clip length: 00:18.

Bob Banford: Yeah, Bobby just started, I would say, oh, that was Bobby’s maybe first convention or maybe second convention. He might’ve came to one—came to with his father beforehand. But he hadn’t been involved very long and I don’t think he stuck with it a long time either afterwards.