1. Snowdomes date back to the Paris Exhibition of 1889. Tiny ceramic models of the recently built Eiffel Tower were encased in glass globes and filled with water and fake snow. They developed from glass paperweights for which French artisans of the 19th centure were renowned.
2. In 1927, American Joseph Garaja filed several patents for snowdomes and began their mass production. His company, Modern Novelty of Pittsburgh, supplied domes of every shape and size around the world. They were sold not only as holiday mementos, but as an advertising gimmick. One snowdome from the 1930s promotes Nacton, a product that promises to "turn off excess secretion of gastric acid".
3. Perhaps the most famous snowdome is the one that features in the opening scene of 1941 film Citizen Kane. Newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane holds out a snowdome of a bucolic landscape, utters his famous final word, "Rosebud" and dies. The dome rolls from his dead fingers and smashes on the floor. Throughout the film, the globe subtly reappears.
4. Devotee Lisa Crowe has set up an internet tribute page to the Australian snowdome, which she considers to be an endangered species... Her site contains images of domes from all the states and territories, with subjects including the Big Banana, the Melbourne Zoo and a snow-covered Uluru.
5. At last count, Sydney collector Denis Gojak has 730 snowdomes. He prefers older snowdomes because he says they make a real effort to give an experience of the memory of a particular place. Such is his passion that, as a surprise, his wife commissioned a special snowdome to adorn their wedding cake. - Fergus Maguire