A Saturday in West Virginia, from a stainless steel Mothman in Point Pleasant to a line of folding chairs outside the Blenko warehouse in Milton, where the state's monsters are now made in glass.
The short version
- Blenko opened its warehouse to 100 shoppers at a time for its Flannel, Fire & Finds sale on October 24, 2026.
- The factory's cryptid line began with a 16.5-inch Flatwoods Monster decanter in 2020. Today's Cryptid Critters sell for $39 each.
On this page
The Mothman stands on a steel plinth at the corner of Main Street, wings spread to about 13 feet, chest rippled like a bodybuilder's, red eyes catching the morning sun. Point Pleasant, West Virginia, has a population of a few thousand people. On a bright October Saturday, a good share of the visitors on its sidewalks were there to see him.
We came for him and for glass. My wife, Paige, is the heart behind Owl and Twig Vintage, and the plan for the day was hers as much as mine: the statue in the morning, then south to Milton for the Blenko Glass warehouse sale, where the factory clears out its overstock and, lately, its monsters.
A welder's moth in Point Pleasant
The plaque on the base tells the story in the town's own words. On a chilly fall night in November 1966, two young couples drove into the TNT area north of Point Pleasant and realized they were not alone. The couples were Roger and Linda Scarberry and Steve and Mary Mallette. The TNT area was some 8,000 acres of abandoned World War II munitions works, all bunkers and ponds.
Sightings ran for about a year. On December 15, 1967, the Silver Bridge between Point Pleasant and Ohio collapsed at rush hour and killed 46 people, and the legend has carried that weight ever since.
The statue came much later. Bob Roach, a retired welder from New Haven, West Virginia, built it from stainless steel in his garage over roughly a year, and the town unveiled it on September 13, 2003. Roach died in 2015. His Mothman did not.
Up close, the work rewards a slow look. The wings are cut sheet, veined with welded bead like the back of a leaf. The feet are talons, bolted to the plinth. The chest hair is a tangle of curled wire. It is a welder's monster, and it shows.
The Mothman Museum, opened by Jeff Wamsley in 2006, is a short walk away.
Prowl checks more than twenty vintage marketplaces at once for Mothman collectibles.
Three monsters, three counties
West Virginia keeps its monsters on a map. Three of them matter here, because they are the three Blenko makes.
- The Flatwoods Monster, Braxton County, September 12, 1952. A group of locals reported a towering figure with a spade-shaped head and a metal skirt after a light fell from the sky. Braxton County now marks September 12 as Braxton County Monster Day, and a museum in Sutton is devoted to it.
- The Grafton Monster, Taylor County, June 16, 1964. Robert Cockrell, a reporter for the Grafton Sentinel, described a pale figure seven to nine feet tall beside Route 119 near the Tygart Valley River, by most accounts without a head.
- Mothman, Mason County, November 15, 1966.
Skeptics have their answers. Joe Nickell of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry argued that both the Flatwoods Monster and Mothman were most likely owls. Nobody in Point Pleasant seems bothered.
Bigfoot has a West Virginia following too, with a festival in Summersville and a museum in Sutton. He has a Blenko piece of his own: a tangerine suncatcher from the 2025 Cryptid Series.
How Blenko got into monsters
Blenko came to cryptids during the worst year in its modern history. The factory shut for months in the 2020 pandemic, and the piece that turned that year around was a monster.
It was the Flatwoods Monster decanter, drawn by the West Virginia illustrator Liz Pavlovic after a visit to the factory. Blenko made it as a two-piece sculpture 16.5 inches tall: a Clover Green body, a pointed, spade-shaped stopper in Ruby Red and small eyes in the color the company calls Pawpaw. It was offered as a Special Edition only until November 1, 2020, and Blenko says it can no longer be made.
The company's own account calls it the piece that turned its pandemic losses around. The Washington Post covered the story in May 2021. That decanter is now the cornerstone of a modern Blenko cryptid collection, and the one to look for.
Smaller pieces followed, again designed by Liz Pavlovic Design and handcrafted by Blenko. The company announced them in a line that could serve as the collection's motto: “Three of West Virginia’s most legendary locals just stepped out of the mist and into glass.” The Cryptid Critters are palm-sized, and each comes in its own color:
- 2423C Mothman, Cerulean, 4 inches tall, $39. Blenko calls it a mini version of its Mothman bookends.
- 2523C Flatwoods Monster, Clover, 4.5 inches tall, $39.
- Grafton Monster, Citrine, 3.75 inches tall, $39. “The shy giant of Grafton’s backroads,” in Blenko’s words. Sold singly, or all three as the Cryptid Collector's Trio at $105 on sale.
- 2423 Mothman bookend, Heliotrope, 2025, cast-mold glass.
- Bigfoot suncatcher, Tangerine, 2025 Cryptid Series, listed at $25 on eBay in 2026.
When the Critters launched, Blenko also put a limited number of seconds-quality Cryptids on sale at its Visitor Center in Milton. Small flaws, lower prices. Factory seconds are usually sandblasted “2ND” on the base.
Prowl searches more than twenty vintage marketplaces at once for Blenko's cryptids.
The line at the warehouse
By the time we reached Milton, the line ran the length of the factory and out past the railroad crossing. People had brought camp chairs, rolling carts and insulated totes. A red folding chair waited beside the path for whoever had left it.
The building beside them is the factory itself, its long wall set with windows of colored glass in a grid: amber, olive, rose and blue. A glass factory, glazed in its own trade.
This sale was part of Blenko's Flannel, Fire & Finds event, which also launched its 2026 fall collection: pumpkins, a witch's hat and a set of Halloween suncatchers. Doors let in up to 100 shoppers at a time.
The warehouse sale is a recent tradition for a company founded in 1893 and settled in Milton since 1921. Garden & Gun reported that it began as a way to sell overstock that would otherwise sit, with most pieces marked 30 to 70 percent off the regular price.
Inside, by the shelf
Inside, the warehouse is steel racking and plain wood shelves, loaded by form and color. Whole bays hold nothing but the 384 water bottle, the pinched pitcher Blenko has made since 1938. Pale aqua, olive, plum, citron. Rows of them.
Seen this way, the 384 stops being a single object and becomes a color chart. The same shape in a dozen glass colors, shelf after shelf, makes the eye do what a collector's eye learns to do anyway: compare the tint, the bubbles, the weight of the color at the base.
For the full history of the bottle, and why it has barely changed in 88 years, see our guide to visiting Blenko Glass.
Prowl checks more than twenty vintage marketplaces at once for Blenko water bottles.
What went on the hold table
At the sale, finds wait on a hold table: a folding table with a printed sign, so you can go back for more.
Everything on ours came home with us, and it ran warm. A tall tangerine form, ribbed with optic swirls and topped by a twisted green stem, wore its foil Blenko Handcraft label and a $100 price tag. Beside it stood two pinched-spout pitchers, one tangerine and one a yellow so clear the sun came straight through it. In front stood the reason for the morning in Point Pleasant: two Mothmans in dark glass, a big one on the right and a small one on the left, with more dark cast pieces and a small clear block beside them.
Set in sun on a white table, the tangerine threw red light across the paper and the pavement.
Home in daylight, the dark glass turned out not to be dark at all.
The big Mothman is a bookend in deep teal, his eyes two hollow rings and his wings wrapped around him like a coat. Two small Mothman Cryptid Critters stand in front of him, one teal and one nearly black. The green figure with the spade-shaped head is the Flatwoods Monster. The yellow block is the Grafton Monster in Citrine, smooth and headless, just as Robert Cockrell described him in 1964.
We went to Point Pleasant to see one Mothman. We came home with three, and two of his neighbors.
Looking for warm Blenko colors or a Mothman of your own? Prowl searches more than twenty vintage marketplaces at once.
What the cryptids sell for
The cryptid pieces are new, so their market is young and mostly made of asking prices. Treat them that way.
| Piece | Year | Price | What the price is |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flatwoods Monster decanter, Clover and Ruby, 16.5 in. (Liz Pavlovic design) | 2020 | $129 | Original retail, announced by WCHS-TV in 2020 |
| 2423C Mothman Cryptid Critter, Cerulean | Current | $39 | Blenko retail, 2026 |
| 2523C Flatwoods Monster Cryptid Critter, Clover | Current | $39 | Blenko retail, 2026 |
| Cryptid Collector's Trio (Mothman, Flatwoods, Grafton) | Current | $105 (reg. $117) | Blenko sale price, 2026 |
| Cryptid Critter, Mothman or Flatwoods, resale | Current | $49 | Reseller asking price, 2026 |
| Bigfoot suncatcher, Tangerine | 2025 | $25 | eBay asking price, 2026 |
Two things follow. The Critters are still in production, so resale above retail depends on the buyer not knowing that. And the 2020 Flatwoods decanter is the scarce one: a single-season edition the company says it cannot make again. If a cryptid piece from Blenko is going to become a collectible in the old sense, it is that one.
- A Blenko foil label or a signature on the base is the first proof. Cast cryptids often carry neither once they leave the factory.
- For the 2020 decanter, check that the ruby stopper is present and matches. A body alone is half the piece.
- Turn it over. A sandblasted 2ND marks a factory second, which should sell for less than a first.
- Note the color names. Blenko sells the same figure in different colors, and the color is part of the identification.
Mothman still stands on Main Street, catching the sun. Three more are on our shelf now.
Sources
- "Legend of the Mothman" plaque, Mothman statue by Bob Roach, Point Pleasant, West Virginia, viewed October 24, 2026.
- Observed at the Blenko Glass Co. warehouse sale, Milton, West Virginia, October 24, 2026.
- Roadside America, "Mothman Statue," on Bob Roach and the September 13, 2003 unveiling.
- Legends of America, "The Mothman of West Virginia," on the 1966 witnesses, the TNT area and the Silver Bridge.
- Blenko Glass Co., Cryptid Critters launch announcement, 2025.
- Blenko Glass Co., "The Flatwoods Monster that turned Blenko's pandemic losses around," and product pages for the Cryptid Critters and Cryptid Collector's Trio, 2026.
- WCHS-TV, "Blenko Glass to sell annual birthday piece in virtual auction," 2020.
- Daily 304, State of West Virginia, "How a mythical backwoods monster saved a struggling West Virginia glass company."
- The Herald-Dispatch, "Blenko Glass releases new fall collection," 2026, and "Have yourself a WV cryptid Christmas."
- Garden & Gun, "A Southern Heritage Brand Cleans (Ware)house."
- Wikipedia, "Grafton monster"; WVNS, on West Virginia cryptid museums and festivals; Snopes, on Joe Nickell's owl explanations.
- More collector guides in the Field Guides index.
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