WARWICK -- One of the more exquisite offerings at the biennial Paperweight Collectors Association convention incorporated a fanciful bird surrounded by traditional fruits and animals of the paperweight world: miniature snakes and strawberries, butterflies and a dragonfly, all richly colored and forever preserved in a glass plaque.

Asking price: $75,000.

But even the $25 paperweights at the Crowne Plaza hotel dazzled the undiscerning eye.

Like the red polka-dotted snake with aventurine, or a glistening feature that lit the snake like an underworld fantasy creature. Or the “spirit people” tangled in tiny glass tree roots. Or the Italian scramble millefiori and flume art glass daffodils. Paperweight doorknobs and perfume bottles. Sunflowers, ladybugs, blueberries — all stunningly rendered.

“Do you see how real the blueberries look?” said Dr. Ed Sheldon, longtime collector and a walking compendium of paperweight lore, as he pointed to blueberries that looked ripe to bursting within their glass house. Walking from table to table, Sheldon noted the artistry required for each color-saturated world.

“These flowers are produced one petal at a time,” said Sheldon, a California family physician. “And then each petal is connected with a tiny torch, with tiny glass rods, and manipulated with simple tools.” Once a bouquet is assembled, the artist encases it “by pouring molten crystal over it.”

Sheldon said he was introduced to the world of glass early on through his father, who worked as a researcher at Corning Glass.

He and his wife became enchanted with the “gorgeous, beautiful, exquisite objects,” and began collecting.

“We started out with art on the walls,” Sheldon said, “but now paperweights have taken over the house.”

Some 250 collectors and dealers are attending the convention, which includes a dealers’ fair — open to the public — tomorrow from noon to 5 p.m. in the Crowne Plaza Grand Ballroom.

Sheldon, a spokesman for the group, said the mission of the nonprofit association includes education.

The program for conventioneers had included educational sessions and trips to the Sandwich Glass Museum, on Cape Cod, and the Rhode Island School of Design’s paperweight exhibit.

This year’s New England venue was selected because production of glass paperweights in America began in this region in the middle of the 19th century, “inspired in part by the work of European glass houses a bit earlier,” according to a statement by the collectors association. Also, a New England glass artist’s efforts in the 1940s contributed to the rebirth of the art form that was temporarily lost in the early 20th century.

Among the conventioneers is Skip Churchill, of Cincinnati, who has collected paperweights for 25 years, primarily antique crystal. During a break from a lecture on 19th-century Massachusetts glass factories, Churchill described the benefits of her paperweight passion.

“They never require dusting or watering. They don’t take up a lot of space, and they’re always so bright when you come home.”

Artist Jim D’Onofrio traveled from Cave Creek, Ariz., where he makes contemporary paperweights.

“There’s no place too far [to go] for people who collect paperweights,” said D’Onofrio, who was formerly an assistant to renowned glassmaker Paul Stankard (many Stankard paperweights were on display at yesterday’s dealers fair). “We’ll go halfway around the world to see a paperweight we’ve heard about, or want.”

D’Onofrio said he prefers to depict “narratives.”

“My departure is, I make little scenes in the glass,” he explains. “Here’s a boy with his dogs on a raft … and floating by is a lost sandwich” that fell off the raft.

Paul Lewis, of Sioux Falls, Idaho, said his collection of some 250 paperweights concentrates “on fruits and vegetables,” both antique and contemporary.

His favorite is from the French factory, Pantin. “I have about half a dozen — mostly pears and cherries. I think the quality is better than any of the other factories.

Of paperweights in general, Lewis says, “The beauty and the artistry is pretty astonishing.”

Tomorrow’s fair from noon to 5 p.m. is open to the public for $5.

For more information about the Paperweight Collectors Association Inc., visit the Web site www.paperweight.org.

kziner@projo.com