Weathervanes

"LUCKY PENNIES"

During the 1880's, some of the Victorian weather vane makers began a tradition of putting copper pennies inside each weather vane they made. These were considered good luck and were always pennies from the year the year the weather vane was made Other vane makers put small brass plaques or other mementos inside the sculpture piece so it also functioned as a keepsake as well as a weather vane.

At West Coast Weather Vanes, we have decided to continue this century old tradition. We always include a penny from the year the vane is made inside each sculpture for good luck. However, because we build each weather vane to order, our customers are not limited to one penny. If you are purchasing your weather vane for a special occasion such as a birthday, in celebration of an anniversary, as a retirement gift or for any other reason that is special to you, we can include additional pennies for almost any year to commemorate the occasion.

One of my favorite examples of a customer's ingenuity in personalizing the vane ordered was a wonderful man who ordered one of our angel weather vanes for his wife's 50th birthday. On one wing we put the names of their six children. On the other wing we put the husband and wife's name. This was to be their guardian angel. He then went and found pennies from the year each of the children was born and had them make a wish on it for their mother's birthday. On one of the horizontal tube on which the angel sat, we put a 1946 penny (the year his wife was born) and on the other end we put a 1996 penny (symbolizing the year the vane was made and the year she turned 50). This is what her husband gave her for her 50th birthday present!

So feel free to use your imagination. If you are like most people, you will probably buy only one weather vane in your lifetime so you might as well have fun with the process. Anything we can do to personalize your weather vane so it can become a part of your family's tradition from generation to generation makes the process of creation more fun for us too.

Because we collaborate so closely with our customers, in many cases, we receive wonderful photos of their weather vane after it has been installed along with letters telling us how it was received. In a world as impersonal as ours has become, this is probably the most satisfying part of our creative process and it's always a treat for us to see where our weather vanes have gone and how our customers decided to display them.