I wanted to give a shout-out during this 12-day Christmas sequential to a Zahringer’s glass that has been circling the eBay drain for several months now. The glass was first listed by napa-capecod sometime back at the beginning of annus horribilus 2020, along with over 100 others from his personal collection. This is a collector with a well-honed eye for great glass, and his presumed New England (Cape Cod) connection gave him access to offerings from Boston, a city that rivals San Francisco in terms of having produced the greatest number of iconic pre-pro picture glasses.
Zahringer glasses hail from neither San Francisco not Boston but rather from Peoria, IL., but they stand among the finest in terms of pre-pro artistry. Back in the days when I was a fledgling glassluster and there was no internet or eBay, the only reference material available to me was Barbara Edmonson’s Historic Shot Glasses. I distinctly remember wondering if I would ever possess a glass so fine as the Zahringer’s Pure Stock illustrated on p. 200 under “Z” with the iconic camel, pyramids, obelisk, sphinx, and palm-tree design. The advent of the internet meant that I’ve seen and owned several examples of this glass over the years, and we now know that John Zahringer gave away many different variants.
The example shown above has some rim issues but the etching is nice and enough to make a collector appreciate what a truly great design this is. It finally fell in a buy-it-now for $28.00.