The 'mystery' of the statue within a statue

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A woman in Tennessee made a 'shocking' discovery when she accidentally broke a Gnome statue given to her by a friend as a joke. Inside the Gnome was another statue. News reports followed as well as thousands of comments across the country about the explanation. They varied from everything to 'it's made of smuggled cocaine!' to 'The Chinese are putting cursed and Satanic statues inside to kill us christians!'

This same story and the 'evidence' pops up every year or so in the news and I get so tired of it when the answer is easily found by a quick google on how this cheap crap is made. There is nothing sinister here. It's most likely a cheap counter-weight used to balance the thin skinned Gnome. You'd re-use a bisque fired statue that didn't make it through the kiln process intact. It would be cracked or otherwise imperfect and not sellable. Why waste money molding and firing counterweights when you could go find one the right size in the scrap or grind pile? Depending on the size of the pour hole in the mold, it could have accidentally dropped in there during the pour. These things are not solid, they can't be or they'd explode in the kiln. It's all poured in with liquid clay called slip (slip slop). Then it dries a little, but, the center remains liquid and is poured off forming a shell, which is actually the finished piece. The slip buckets or vats always contain pieces of 'scuptures' which have not poured right. They have pieces missing or are cracked. You toss them into the left over slip to liquify the clay and reuse it. You use that 'scrap slip' to even out molds, or you may use it exclusively, if you're cheap. If the pour hole on your mold is big enough, sometimes a scrap piece gets poured in the new hole because you forgot to stir the bucket. Then you say fuck it, because you can't fish it out, it's stuck and you know it will fire that way. No one will see it, so who cares?

Sorry, this story just grinds me every time it comes up and it's just ridiculous. Back me up here, people who do poured, molded ceramics. This stuff is mass produced crap. It can be fun, I own a couple of pieces myself, but, this is right up there with people who believe they own something valuable because it's 'Porcelain'. Porcelain is just clay. It's a less porous type, with chunky particles sifted out. But, it's clay. Saying Porcelain is valuable would be like saying cake flour is more valuable and rare than whole wheat flour. It's just fucking fired dirt, fecripes sake. By the way, your toilet is made the same way and it's porcelain too. People just don't need to be so ignorant in the day and age of Google. I personally, like the Gnome better this way. It's more interesting.