Mike's Vault

This is a photo of me in St. Marks square where for a euro you can purchase a bag of corn and get attacked by hungry birds. The last time I went there I bought a bag, but the bird population was about 10% as large as I usually see it. I wondered why and was told that they began putting birth control in the feed and now there are less birds. My question is I though the Catholic church was against birth control. What is the problem?

This is my first attempt to use photos on my blog. If you have suggestions like picture too small picture too big or picture too boring.......let me know cause I got hundreds of more pictures to post.


Another few racks, each of those bags has 5 kilo gram (11 pounds) of millefiori





This is the first building at Effetre. The bags on the left and the bags in the back and the cane to the right are all millefiori, and there is another room filled with more bags and more cane!

Another nice photo

There are hundreds and hundreds of bridges in Venice and I am standing on a bridge just like the one in the picture.

This is the fish and chips and the green stuff is mushy peas!

Oh yea, here is proof that we were both in the gallery at the same time!

While most of the food was veggie, they did make a fine duck wrap

This is a photo in a resturant in England and the name of this resturant is PULP KITCHEN!

This murrini was made in 1892 by Luigi Moretti. This is a portrait of Christopher Columbus who discovered America ('s) in 1492. The Libby Glass Company and the Murano Glass Company worked together to gie these slices away at the Chicago World's Fair in 1892 to commemorate the 500 years since C.C. discovered what is now America. My friend who is in the picture with a newspaper was standing in the same gallery as I was, but he was talking to the owner of the gallery and I never heard his voice or saw his face. When I asked the saleslady if she would like to see my murrini, my friend heard the word MURRINI and walked over and focused directly on the murrini collection and pointed to the C.C. murrini and without looking at my face to see who he was talking to said "did you buy that from Mike Frantz?" at that point I looked at his face, he looked at mine and we both screamed! Over the past few years I have sold or given away 6 of these murrini and my friend bought one from me a few years ago. He lives in Florida and was in London for the day and he and me both ended up in the same spot within the same hour.....now tell me how wierd that is!

This is a photo of a friend who I had no idea I would run into while in London. After my fish and chips my hosts asked me if I would like to go visit an glass gallery and I was up for another new experience. We walked through London with my rolling suitcase and up stairs and finally came to a gallery that was all glass and very nice. This gallery also had another room where actual art was being produced. I was shown around by a salesperson and when we were finished I asked her if she would like to see my murrini collection. I had brought with me a dozen DeRossi murrini as well as Virgin of the Rocks by L. Stump. I also had one of my 1892 Christopher Columbus murrini.

After a brief lesson I am ready to get down to posting pictures of my trip to Europe. I am putting these pictures not in the order that they were taken, but in the order I pick them from my computer. I will tell you as much about each photo as I remember. This was a Latte in London where my fish and chips were around $26, wow pricey, but very good and I want to thank my host for this meal along with so many other wonderfull experiences!