Shot of the Week



		Shot of the Week	Item number: 6223605932

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Hush.

Do you hear that strange little popping sound? Could it be the sound of the pre-pro bubble bursting?

That's what I've been wondering this past few weeks.

As is typical at this time of year, a proverbial truck-load of pre-pro glass has been dumped into eBay to feed the frenzied bidders in their hunt for a rare crystal beauty to add to the showcase shelves. Except the bidders aren't there this year. True, a few auctions are provoking spirited bidding wars but they're few and far between. Meanwhile, other collectors are walking off with wonderful glasses for pennies, literally, and there are many more auctions closing without a bidder. Take the glasses offered recently by Pam Hadley (itsnfs8): Pam well knows the power of silly season on eBay and always turns up with some great glasses that usually sell at a premium. But this year, she's had to re-list about half of her sales stock for want of a bidder. Plus, we're now seeing some of the old timers cashing in their collections. So have the soaring prices and competition we've witnessed here over the past couple of years made people rethink their ability to grow their collections? It'll be interesting to see what happens in the coming months, but personally I celebrate the opportunity to add to the collection at a bargain price. Pre-pro's are only going to increase in value in the long term.

On to business. This month we officially launch The Golden Hayner award to recognize bidders who are willing to spend massive amounts of cash on relatively pedestrian pre-pro glass. The award is named in honor of " baloo8750 ", who outbid " mikem5253 " by $1 to take home the world's most common (by a factor of 2:1) pre-pro, a Hayner Distilling cylinder, for $76.

Insodoing, baloo smashed a three-year old record that had been held previously by " bubbs34 ". The old record was set on March 10, 2002 when Howard Currier was the gleeful recipient of $41 for an identical glass.

Not about to rest on his/her laurels, baloo went on to spend $41 on two more of the same.

Given that this bidder has bought everything with the "Hayner" name on it that's appeared on eBay over the past month, we have to conclude that this is a relative, but it's a remarkable achievement nonetheless.

The Golden Hayner will be awarded with every issue of SOTW: the Glass Poobah will accept nominations and votes via the chat room prior to making the award.

With so much glass on offer, it's sometimes difficult seeing the trees among the forest of activity, but here's a run-down of some truly great and rare glasses that you may or may not have seen come under the hammer.

This one closed just hours ago at an eye-brow raising $181.30. You may have noticed that there are many different Cutter glasses in circulation. Cutter was a Louisville-based wholesaler but the brand became connected with San Francisco and hence competition for such glasses is usually fairly keen. This particular glass is unlisted which, given that Barb Edmonson was collating glasses from the finest left-coast collections available to her, is something in itself. churncreek took this one home without much effort.
Here's another San Francisco glass, from Barner & Kehlenbeck. This one is listed in the old testament of the shot-glass bible, page 141. IS this a gorgeous glass or a gorgeous glass - strong etching, richly antiqued gold rim? Many of the usual suspect (including yours truly) were chasing this one but ultimately it fell to arky joe lakerdude33 for $126.99. Nice going Joe! [ damn your eyes :) ]
Here's another nose-bleed glass. The label reads "Mc's Reputation J. L. McCarthy sole owner Ponca City, O.T.". OT, as we now know, stands for Oklahoma Territory, so the glass dates back to before the time when Oklahoma made itself respectable by joining the union. We saw Ralph Van Brocklin set new records for an etched glass when he took another OT shot off eBay a couple of months ago, so we knew this one was going to sell big. Ralph ended up getting it for a bargain basement price of $511.00!
Here's another wonderful glass, this time from the right coast. There are several Spring Dale variants available but they don't show up too often and so I thought this one would probably sell well. Not too well, I hoped, since I had happy thoughts of it sitting in a certain display case in Philadelphia. As always happens when I get too excited by the prospect of owning a great glass, my snipe didn't even register a bid among the scrum pile that featured Joe Swafford, Bill Armstrong, Ed Sipos, and Bob Ford (what, no Joe Lais on this one??!!). Ultimately rwbeem glommed on and took it for $97.99

So did you see this one come and go? WWW Rye is a Phildelphia brand: from Angelo Myers. Your glassmaster, who has a Philadelphia connection, missed an identical glass that showed up a month ago and was featured in the last edition of SOTW. It is listed in OASG (and on the cover) but it's not a common glass so when a second one appeared with an opening bid of only $9, I contacted the seller and expressed surprise at him having two. To make a long story short, he made me an offer I couldn't refuse and it's now back at home in Philly. It's an interesting glass - looks almost like a modern rocks glass. I hope there isn't someone applying enamel to Libby glasses in their basement!

So how about a SOTW?

There really was only one candidate, at least in my mind. It appeared at the beginning of the month and listed under Brewerania, which is a little off the beaten path for shots. It was billed as a "shot beer glass" , reflecting the seller hedging their bets on a Milwaukee name that is famous as a distiller and brewer. It was labeled "DRINK FINE MOUNTAIN KING S. JUNG & CO. MILWAUKEE".

The glass appeared to be in minty-mint condition, the label crisp and the glass clear. The style of the etching suggested George Truog and I instantly fell in love with it. It sat relatively unmolested for several days and I thought it might be sufficiently hidden from general view that it might be had for a song. Then bluroc found it and hence within hours everyone and their uncle was paying attention. But ultimately the winner was a big surprise (my snipe didn't even register on the bidder list, sad to say). Bob and Debbie Markiewicz, Wisconsin-based collectors who are usually selling glass under the pinetreeplace handle, let Kevin have both barrels and walked off with it for $127.50!

Congratulations to the winners!

While you're watching the action on eBay in coming weeks, have a thought to who the next Golden Hayner should go to. I see huge amounts of glass opening at starting prices that are already MMTS material, so it shouldn't be too difficult....

This auction is for a super nice and old shot glass in overall excellent condition. Front has the applied advertising that looks like etching and reads;

DRINK FINE MOUNTAIN KING (AN INITIAL THAT I AM NOT SURE OF) JUNG & CO. MILWAUKEE.

The applied advertising is excellent and shows little if any wear. There are no chips or cracks in the glass and it shows little wear. Measures a little over 2 1/4 inches tall. I guarantee this to be an old original shot glass. Fresh from a local estate and selling with No Reserve!!!!

Note that you can browse many previous
choices for SOTW in the Archives.

Last updated: Friday January 06, 2006
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