The ownership of The Cybis Archive was transferred to the Museum of American Porcelain Art on October 1, 2025. The text below was uploaded in September 2016 by the original creator and owner of the site, and has been left intact as written.
The Cybis Porcelain Archive was actually born (in a manner of speaking) in 2010 as an adjunct to my online shop selling vintage jewelry, glass and porcelains, some of which were Cybis sculptures. Because I wanted customers to know more about the items I was selling, I decided to create an associated blog and write informational articles to which I linked from my listings. Thus, my earliest Cybis posts were more of an introduction to their work than a production overview.
I closed my shop in January 2015. By that time I had written more than a dozen Cybis blog posts and discovered that there was definitely a need to have accurate information available for collectors, shoppers, and sellers to access. There was absolutely no single information source covering the entire timeline of Cybis production, either in print or on the internet! There was clearly a need for a comprehensive ‘one-stop’ resource. My blog posts were relocated to WordPress and thus, here we are: The Cybis Reference Archive, or “The Cybis Archive” for short.
About ‘The Cybis Archivist’
I purchased my first piece of Cybis purely by chance during the early 1970s, in the giftware department of an upscale department store (Bonwit Teller) across the street from where I worked. I was just a lowly clerk-typist but would often spend half my lunch hour there, wish-shopping the lovely things I couldn’t yet afford to buy. One day I came upon an adorable little porcelain owl, made by a company I’d never heard of, and on impulse decided to buy him despite the $50 price tag which represented almost half of a week’s take-home pay. This was, of course, the ‘Baby Owl’ which was a staple of the Cybis line continuously since 1957.
Well, one thing led to another and over the next 20+ years that little owl acquired a lot of company! An entire bedroom in our house was converted into space for commercial-size display cabinets, and there was a boxful of Cybis brochures, advertisements, and catalogs.
Fast forward to the late 1990s when that entire boxful was lost in a house move. However, the collection itself remained intact — until the early 2000s when the majority of it had to be sold in order to pay for cancer treatment. However, even though only a very few most-favorite pieces remained, my appreciation for Cybis continued. What better way to put my experience to use than to establish an online encyclopedia of Cybis?
What the Cybis Archive Is, and Isn’t
I’m proud to be able to say that the Cybis Archive has become the only comprehensive single source of information, either online or in print, about the Cybis porcelain studio. It draws data from reliable sources: actual Cybis catalogs and advertising brochures, newspaper interviews of the Cybis directors and reporting of special events, advertising by authorized Cybis retailers from 1960-1990s, and conversations and correspondence with people who actually worked at or for the studio.
When I first created this site I obtained permission from the surviving owner of the Cybis studio to use their copyrighted photographs as illustrations, if needed, and those images are identified by a Cybis Inc. watermark. All images on this site are watermarked with the name or identification of the photographer (as or when known) and are displayed here in accordance with the provisions of fair use, as defined by Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act. They are not intended for commercial use.
The Archive is not and has never been associated with the Cybis porcelain studio in any legal or commercial sense. It is a personally-owned site that provides education, commentary and information about the studio’s history and creations.
I have no affiliation with any other Cybis-related content that may be on the internet or in print.
Absolutely no revenue is generated by this site, and no advertising is permitted.
As related in this early 2020 post, the Cybis studio itself no longer exists.
How to Use the Cybis Archive
In an effort to group sculptures together in what I hope is an interesting fashion, the Archive posts typically have a theme which falls into one of the general Categories shown in the sidebar (when viewed on a computer) or lower portion of the screen (on a mobile device.) Thus, under the People category you will find links to the posts showing the Shakespeare characters, characters from mythology, ballerinas, and so on. Sometimes a Cybis item will fall into more than one category (e.g., both Holidays and Giftware/Home Decor) and so it will be accessible from both of them. The Search function can also be used, although to be honest, it works less well than utilizing the Categories.
The Useful Topics category contains all the posts that are not an overview of sculptures themselves. In this category you will find posts on such topics as signatures and marks, identification, and advice on selling, buying, cleaning, packing for shipment, etc.
The Archive now has several different types of indexes. The most extensive is the Name Index, but if you don’t know the name of a human figure or bust, the Visual Index for that genre is where to look (it is the only visual index in the Archive, because the non-human figures can be easily found via their Category.)
There is also a Design Number List and an Introduction Year List.
A new addition in January 2023 was a Recent Selling Prices page that records the prices paid for Cybis limited edition sculptures, thereby providing a continuing real-time snapshot of actual market values.
I hope that you will enjoy browsing through, and utilizing, this online encyclopedia of Cybis porcelain! :-)
THE CYBIS ARCHIVE 