Month: April 2021

I have yet to find a suitable replacement for the old “glasschat” forum that, sadly, became a target for spammers and then failed to be supported in the wake of programming language updates, rendering it inoperable. I pulled it down and it has stayed down for some time now.

Since the collecting community is small, maybe there is no need for such a forum, but the upshot is that I now get many emails from visitors to the site, mostly from non-collectors (see the last post below for an example), but I’ll try to address the collector-related queries here.

I’ve had a handful of emails asking if I’m selling my collection. The short answer is “no”, although I’ve added a large number of glasses to the sales pages in recent months, so it may certainly seem that way.

During the past 5 years, I’ve been involved with several intense work-related projects that left me with little in the way of free time to devote to the site or the hobby. That meant that large numbers of glasses were coming in from collections, individuals wanting to sell, eBay buys etc. but were not getting processed (washing, photographing, logging, entering into the database), to the point where I had around 500 glasses waiting in line. The backlog extends back to 2015-2016, although some have been lingering since the previous decade.

I’ve finally had a chance to work though the pile recently, so all of the duplicates and upgrades are making their way online. Most of the common white-etched glasses have now been processed and have been logged. Next, I’ll work through the many colored-label glasses, the embossed/debossed glasses, the metal shots, and the lugs, all of which require a different camera and lighting set up – which is why they’ve had to wait patiently.

Thanks to Jim Dennis for sending the image above of the latest addition to his pre-pro glass collection. Jim notes “I traded plus a little cash for this unlisted full face label under glass, hell of a deal, under $200.00, excellent condition. I guess it was maybe meant for me. Have you seen this one before ?? I’m up to 120 shots in my Oregon collection now.”

Fleckenstein, Meyer & Co. of Portland OR. produced a large number of glasses over the years, including at least three rare label-on-the bottom glasses and two with a label applied to the side (including the one shown above). The other (an “Our Monogram”) can be found in the database.

Congrats to Jim for such a stunning find!

Finally, I periodically get some unusual requests for information related to the old liquor dealers or distillers listed in the databases. Usually it’s along the lines of “I really enjoy Old (insert brandname here) but can no longer find it in my area. Please can you give me the name of a liquor dealer who still carries it?“, the author clearly believing that a distillery listing page is a current company website. Here’s one that came in just recently and left me wondering quite how to respond:

“Our family purchased some land in Halifax County Va and it has an old car, I’m guessing from the thirties, on the property. On the door is Frankfort Distilleries INC so I was trying to figure out how it ended up in Va. The land was owned by a Jones family and I read that Frankfort Distilleries was bought by Paul Jones.in 1922. Is there any information that would link that car to the Paul Jones family? I would think there has to be some cool history on how that car ended up in Halifax County Va.

Thank You for any information you can provide.“

Well, not so much, but I needed an alliterative title and “weesl watch” was the only one to come to mind. The weesl in question is princeweesl, an eBay seller who listed a couple of dozen glasses for sale this past week with a note that “I am auctioning off the remainder of a Pre Prohibition Shot Glass collection. Have fun and bid with confidence! There are some rare Western glasses as well as National brands and Grape Juice shots and soda fountain glasses.” Many of these glasses listed and went unsold a year ago to the day; this time around, most attracted at least one bidder.

Of the group, my favorite probably was the Tucker Whisky highball glass featuring a spoof of the famous Victor Talking Machine Co. trademark. Whereas the gramophone company featured Nipper, a fox terrier, transfixed by the sound emanating from of a Victrola horn (“His master’s voice”), the Brown-Forman version featured a bulldog sniffing a funnel used to fill a jug of Old Tucker Whiskey.

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The glass had a banged-up rim, but still fetched $62.00 when the hammer fell.

These past month has been notable for the high prices being realized on eBay glasses. During the past 4 weeks, 163 pre-pro glasses listed for sale. 57 auctions closed without attracting a bidder, but the average price of the glasses that did sell was $56.03.

In top place was a two-city Rose glass (Jacksonville, FL. and Chattanooga, TN,) with a label so badly ghosted that it was almost unreadable. It was offered for sale by gator-ben and the auction closed for a whopping $334.99!

In third position (in #2 position was a Mobile, AL. saloon glass) was another Rosebud Whiskey. We saw one of these on eBay late last year and I was gobsmacked to see it sell for $212.50, which I figured must have been a fluke given that it’s a plain text-only glass. eBay regular nuffbarn listed one with a dodgy label last week and this one sold for $233.50. Nuffie – maybe the high bidder can tell us why these glasses have become golden, because it beats me….

Finally, in the last post I showcased a bevy of glasses that were being offered through Glass-Works Auctions, observing that their pre-pro glasses often reappear in diggerdaveb‘s eBay store. Apparently at least one of the featured lots was won by diggerdave because the glasses are currently being listed and are selling on eBay. Among them are a Red Cross Whiskey and a Hiller’s beer glass, both from Omaha, NE. Both were binned for $70 apiece.

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