He calls them Fauxberge.
They’re blinged-out Christmas ornaments that had their height of popularity half a century ago and have become a passion of collector Patrick Hubert of Mt. Pleasant Township.
Hubert employs the punny term to describe the holiday decorations because some of the finest examples pay tribute, in their sparkly detailing, to the bejewelled Easter eggs Peter Carl Faberge created for the Russian royal family from 1885 to 1916.
During 35 years living in New York City, Hubert was captivated by some of the genuine Faberge eggs on view in the collection of millionaire publisher Malcolm Forbes — and intrigued by the fact that several of the original 50 prized eggs are unaccounted for.
Haunting flea markets, Hubert thought, “All I have to do is find one of them, and I’ll be good.”
”I never found one, but I would find these,” he said, pointing to a sampling of the more than one thousand “Fauxberge” ornaments in his collection.
One of his largest and most favorite ornaments is the size of a globe, covered in golden brown satin and bedecked with lace, a crown and strands of beads and patterned clusters of Czechoslovakian crystals.
“It’s way over the top,” he said. “They’re not just plastic beads.
“Czechoslovakian crystals were big in the ’70s, for ladies’ necklaces or rosary beads.”
That ornament was commercially fabricated. But many others Hubert owns were made by individual crafters, sometimes by assembling mail-order kits from companies such as Leewards Creative Crafts.
Also known as pin ball or beaded ornaments, they all have basic elements in common: a Styrofoam core — many in the shape of a ball or egg — clad in a colored covering and intricately decorated with beads, sequins or embossed foil paper affixed by a multitude of pins.
For many collectors, Hubert said, the ultimate in Christmas ornaments are glass ones created in Germany a century ago.
More recently, he said, interest in home-grown pin ball ornaments dating from the 1960s and ’70s has taken hold. They’re of particular interest to those 50 or older who can remember receiving them from family members or making one themselves to hang on the holiday tree.
“Mid-century modern is where it’s happening,” said Hubert, who belongs to a Facebook group formed for pin ball ornament enthusiasts. “It’s a nostalgia trip.”
Hubert, 76, attributes his interest in Christmas keepsakes to his grandmother, Rose Sieber Hubert, who told him of her German yuletide traditions and sang “Stille Nacht” to him as a child.
He received his first pin ball ornaments in 1968 when a family friend was clearing out her late mother’s home. After serving as a Navy linguist, beginning in the Vietnam War, Hubert started to build his ornament collection in 1980.
“It’s just been great fun,” he said.
“These ornaments used to be 50 cents or a dollar in the church bazaars,” Hubert said. Now, as vintage collectibles, “They’re more like $5 to $12, depending on the complexity and the skill of the person who put them together.”
His collection includes “eggs” that have hollow centers occupied by Nativity scenes, angels or other miniature Christmas images.
More elaborate figural ornaments come in the shape of Santa and his reindeer, birds, bells, train engines and even a teapot with a tuft of cotton representing steam escaping from the spout.
Another of his favorites is a model of St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow that doubles as a music box.
“I had this fascination with Russia,” he noted.
In 1980, Hubert joined a newly formed group for vintage Christmas collectors, The Golden Glow of Christmas. He said its more than 2,400 members are interested in “the preservation and historical value of antique Christmas, so the way people celebrated Christmas is not forgotten.”
According to its website, GoldenGlow.org, the nonprofit group focuses on “the education and history of vintage and antique Christmas ornaments, lights and decorations,” specifically, “Christmas items made or manufactured at least 40 years prior to the current year.”
Hubert hosted one of the organization’s annual conventions in 2011, welcoming 750 fellow members in New York’s Westchester County. He’s also delivered several lectures on pin ball ornaments, most recently on Nov. 2 in Franklin, Venango County.
His presentations have mostly been attended by women 50 or older. He said, “They admitted they did this (ornament craft) when they were young, but they would never do it now because of the bloody fingers” — inevitably pricked by a pin or two.
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Making the ornaments also can be time-consuming, he said.
Hubert, who has never made any pin ball ornaments himself, acknowledged the process seems daunting,
“It’s like putting together a model airplane,” he said. “I guess you had to be a crafter.”
In 2018, Hubert moved back to the family farm in Mt. Pleasant Township where he grew up and brought his ornaments with him. A neighboring farmer grows crops on the land, allowing him time to devote to refining his Christmas collection,
“Now I’m very selective,” he said, searching for better-quality ornaments among area antique shops and vendor stalls at the seasonal Historic Hanna’s Town antiques and collectibles market.
Pin ball ornaments aren’t his sole interest. He’s also collected pre-World War I Christmas postcards created by artist Ellen Clapsaddle. He’s contemplating a possible display of them at the next Golden Glow convention, slated for August in Chicago.
“For us in this (Golden Glow) organization, it is pretty much Christmas year-round,” he said. “The Christmas hobby is ever-continuing.”