New and Shotworthy

eBay seller brew508 has been around since the auction site’s inception and I’ve brought a couple of glasses from him over the years. In recent weeks, he’s been listing glasses that are notable for their condition and also for a “Best Offer” option, something that is increasingly gaining favor and that I’ve taken advantage of many times to get a better deal on an eBay glass. Sometimes sellers accept, sometimes they don’t, but it’s always worth a try.

The glass with the highest opening bid price ($150) was a Badger Club Whiskey from John Thielen of Oshkosh, WI.

You’d be correct in raising one or both eyebrows over this auction given that it’s essentially just a plain text glass with panels and a partial gold rim. It is on the rare side – I’ve logged just 6 of them into the sales database over the years. The first of these (below) was back in February 2004 and was won by texas1869 for just $26.99.

I guess texas1869 didn’t like what he saw on arrival, because it relisted with a note that “it had a crack” in April. Yours truly ended up buying it for $20 and, on pulling it out of the box, a large chunk amounting to about 10% of the wall fell out onto the benchtop. The “crack” formed a giant U-shape that ran from rim to rim and the chunk of wall that it described had been (weakly) held in place with glue. Caveat emptor, as always.

I still have the glass even though I’ve since replaced it with a much less “cracked” example. The cracked version sits alongside a really neat sign I picked up off eBay that features the same glass alongside a bottle of the product. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that the pre-pro glasses we treasure so much actually show up featured with other advertising giveaways, so the sign is a much treasured addition to the collection.

brew508’s glass sold following submission of a “Best Offer“, price undisclosed.

brew508 also listed a couple of Old Tom Bentons a couple of months apart.

The opening bid for both was $55, which was tempting given how clean the glasses were. Again, plain-text glasses, and from David Wise & Co. of Chicago, IL (not a collector’s favorite city), but an attractive design none the less with a nice gold rim. Both sold following submission of “Best Offers.”

Lastly, brew508 appears to have lucked out with a cache of Fuldner glasses. It was one of these that got me hooked on pre-pro glass collecting back in the day (I found mine at a Milwaukee bottle show back in 1989 – the seller was asking $22 for it but took $16; it’s still in one of my top 2% display cases). It’s a classic pre-pro design and I adapted the Fuldner trademark design to serve as the banner on the pre-pro.com home page. For reasons that are not clear to me, they fail to attract much attention when they show up on eBay; the most I’ve seen one sell for is $76 and change.

brew508 has been listing them for a $45 opening bid with a “Best Offer” option. Three have sold so far, the most recent being a couple of days ago. If he has more and you don’t have one in the collection already, you should grab one – it will outlive most others you may acquire for the display case.

If I had to name one US State to focus a collecting interest on if my collecting budget were limited, it would be New York .

NY gets zero respect, pre-pro collecting-wise, for reasons I don’t really understand. NYC is particularly hard done by. There’s well over 100 known NYC glasses and that number includes some of pre-pro’s best picture glasses, including the Old Valleys, Seminole Clubs, Auto Ryes, Salzman Nightcaps and Eye Openers, and a Rip Van Winkle. Despite this, NYC glasses typically have difficulty attracting buyers when offered for sale and, when they do sell, prices are typically bargain basement.

Two nice examples of NY glasses showed up on eBay in the past week or so, both in really nice condition by the looks of them. The first was a glass from Troy, NY – A Herman Carl Co. Inc., “The Reliable Wine and Liquor Dealer.” It’s lost its gold rim (not unusual given how weakly the rims were adhered), but the label is strong – the closing bid was $72.00.

The second was a Storm King Whiskey, from J C Childs of NYC. One would have thought that this would have sold for around $95 or more, but the auction closed at $34.50. As I said, no respect.

Bottles of Storm King Whiskey were richly illustrated – here’s a couple of examples of paper labels:

If you want to start a bidding war on eBay, then list a Westheimer glass, preferably a Red Top Rye.

Ferd. Westheimer was a major player in the pre-pro years, with Red Top Rye being his leading brand. Jack Sullivan put together a comprehensive history on his blog site, in case you’re interested in the details. Other Westheimer brands included Boston League, C. C. Bond, Clover Brook, Manhattan Reserve, McAllister, Number One, Old Hutch, Old Planet, Pullman Pure Rye, Top, and White House Club. The company also owned the Old Times distillery and brand name.

The Red Top Rye brand was the most heavily advertised and they gave away many promotional items bearing the name. Few of the other brands they used appear on shot glasses (Old Times being the main exception), and such glasses are very rare. Prior to these past few weeks, I’d seen an “Old Planet” show up for sale only once. The more recent listing was nice example of this glass but failed to mention the Westheimer connection, so the closing price was a meager $60.01.

Many of the Red Top Rye glasses these are etched with a red label, which makes them extra desirable to purist pre-pro glass collectors and is the reason they command sales prices in the $300+ range, but there are many more common white-frosted variants also. Two different white-etched Red Top Rye glasses showed up in recent days. The first was the speckled label variant shown below. The auction closed with a final bid price of $189.46.

The second to list was a plain script variant, shown below. The opening bid price is $149.99. As of writing the auction is less than a day old and has yet to attract a bid.

Time is ticking!

Not everything shot-glass related that comes my way is via eBay, although it sometimes seems that way. I’m always interested to see other people’s collections, especially when they’re in a display case.

Most of you will have at least one glass in your collection that was purchased from Paul Van Vactor, better known as stilz on eBay. Paul is something of a legend in the collecting world. In the pre-internet days, he was one of the few reliable sources of pre-pro shot glasses and the latest version of his snail-mail sales lists were eagerly awaited by all. He was one of the collectors that contributed to Barbara Edmonson’s Historic Shot Glasses and Old Advertising Spirits Glasses, the Old and New testaments of the pre-pro shot glass Bible.

Paul shifted his sales activities to eBay after the internet became a force to be reckoned with. The sales database has logged over 41,000 auctions since 2001, roughly 1,300 of which are attributable to stilz.

Paul is based in Lousiville, KY. His collecting interests focus primarily on KY bottles and glasses (he has a lot to choose from!), although his shot glass collection includes some rare examples from other States. His eBay wares include bottle, glasses, and souvenir china pieces from all over the US, picked up during his travels around the country.

I had a chance to catalog Paul’s glass collection as it was over a decade ago now: You can click through the listing pages here. However, Paul was kind enough to recently send me a couple of pics of his new display cases that I’m excited to share with you here:

I have to say, those squat enameled back-bar bottles make for an impressive display. If I weren’t already overrun with shot glasses, I might be tempted to start yet another collection….

The first week of December brought us this rare Conway’s Famous Shakeup glass:

It listed with a $49 opening bid with a $129 buy-it-now, which is a hefty price to ask of a new collector who may be unsure of the background or authenticity, so it ran without attracting a bidder for almost a week.

We don’t actually know much about the origins of this glass. It was given away by Henry E Dowd, of Toledo, OH., about whom we know next to nothing. We know that he applied for a patent covering his name and his face (we can safely assume that it’s Henry’s face that appears on the glass) back in 1981, the patent listing as a “Medicinal Beverage.” Beyond that, I have no idea.

The glass shown above is clearly old. It’s a heavier glass and the label is acid-etched and, although unsigned, clearly the work of George Truog of the Maryland Glass Etching Works of Cumberland, MD. I’ve seen this glass twice now, so it’s a rare one and most likely early 1890’s. There’s a sister glass that’s equally rare. Both are in the database, but perhaps there’s another variant out there that we don’t know about (Toledo collectors please get in touch if you can provide more information).

The auction finally closed on December 8th with a buy-it-now at the asking price, which is a bargain if you’re interested in the older pre-pro glasses.

While I was noodling around on the internet, I happened to notice that an “identical” glass was still listed on a Russian scammer site at 50% off — with 11 still in stock! Yay! Caveat emptor…

This was one of the more interesting offerings on eBay over the past few weeks and an easy one to miss if one were not familiar with the heavier, pressed and embossed/debossed pre-pro glasses.

In addition to a handful of more common thin-walled shots, Stulz Brothers of Kansas City, MO. produced several unconventional glasses, ranging from tall wine glasses to squat shots with their name embossed in the base. One such glass looks like a dose or bitters glass with a short stem, with the Stulz Bros. name appearing as debossed text in the base.

This glass is notable for the reversed “Z” in “Stulz.” It’s a relatively uncommon glass that shows up for sale every 4 or 5 years, with a couple of them selling in the $100 range.

So I was interested to see a set of six of them show up on eBay for an opening bid of $50, offered for sale by carnival96. What made this grouping notable is that the glasses have been decorated with a colorful flower design:

The auction closed without a bidder, but was immediately relisted and sold for a best offer price of $25.

I would have to assume that this was a professionally-decorated set and some kind of premium giveaway; it would be interesting to know what the true history was. Regardless, it’s a fascinating find!

This was the glass that achieved the highest sales price during the past couple of weeks and it’s a rare old beauty:

It was listed for sale by miketaylor100 with a start price of $29.99. It was soon bid up to around $49, but then sat there for a week with no further bidding activity. The auction finally closed with a volley of sniper shots that drove it up to a final sale price of $259.55.

What made this a $260 glass? The Mette & Kanne Distilling Co. were based St. Louis, MO. They listed in city directories from around 1893, and I would guess that this glass dates back to somewhere around there given that it’s acid etched and the design was a creation of George Truog of the Maryland Glass Etching Works of Cumberland, MD. We know this because the glass is signed by the Master himself: see the tiny transparent “GT” signature to the right of the crown.

I’ve seen the glass once before – it was one of those that made up Ken Schwartz’ collection. There is a sister glass that advertises Carmen Kentucky Bourbon, which I first logged into the database as a part of Paul Van Vactor’s collection. It’s also signed by Truog and is almost as rare.

Congratulations to the collector that snagged the Crown Jewels!

Not quite a lump of coal, but I’m sure some may view it that way. Mini-mugs are shot-glass size, standing about 2-1/4″ tall, and they date to the same pre-Prohibition era. Mini-mugs are collectible in their own right and there are hundreds, if not thousands of variants to chase after, but mini-mugs advertising a whiskey brand or a distiller are exceptionally rare. Offhand, I can only think of one, and that advertises Bellwood Rye Whiskey from McCarthy & Co. of Haverhill, MA.

Mini-mugs don’t get much respect from purist glass collectors, but they do make for an interesting and colorful addition to the display case. The Bellwood mug is actually quite rare, showing up for sale about once every 4 or 5 years on average.

whatilove00 listed one for sale mid-December with an initial bid price of $49.99. Unfortunately it had a significant chunk missing from the rim and the auction closed a week later without a buyer. In good condition, this mug can sell for in the region of $125, so the asking price was not unreasonable.

If you’re interested, the mug relisted at the same asking price and the auction was still running as of writing, no bidders.

Believe it or not, “trotting”, aka “harness racing” is actually a thing. Wikipedia helpfully explains that “harness racing is a form of horse racing in which the horses race at a specific gait (a trot or a pace). They usually pull a two-wheeled cart called a sulky, or spider, or chariot occupied by a driver.”

Quite how Samuel P Haller Co. of Pittsburgh, PA. was connected to trotting, we may never know, but his business did leave us with two nice picture glasses featuring a trotting horse and sulky to advertise their Trotter whiskey brand. Both are relatively rare, showing up for sale roughly once every 5-7 years or so.

The database contains a rare variant of one of the two that lists the company as “Samuel P Haller Co.“; the more common version of this glass omits the “Co.” The other glass in the database is the “Sole Owner” variant, and it was one of these that listed for sale on eBay in the past couple of weeks.

The seller, milksrme1960, wanted $100 for it and the auction closed on Dec. 17 without a bidder. I would have bid on it if I didn’t already have one in the display case, but I understand why there were no takers.

Wash me!!!

Luckily, the seller relisted for $65 and, as of typing, there’s only one interested party. I wouldn’t be surprised if a bidding war pushed it over $100 this go-around. Happy eBaying!

Legal disclaimer – it’s a dove, but it’s not a turtle dove, and there’s only one, but we live in an age where reality is routinely redefined by group thinking and the interwebs, so free to use your imagination on this one.

Despres was a Chicago firm notable for two glasses with an inscription that incorporated blue in the design. The first, an example of which is featured here, shows up for sale once every 5 years or so. A white-etched dove is enclosed within a blue circle outline that spells out the wholesaler’s name. I’ve seen the second only once, and that was in Bob Mraz’ collection. The dove appears on a black circle within the blue circle outline with black etching. I had a chance to visit Bob and photograph his collection while out West for an FOHBC national. Bob is no longer with us and I’m not certain where the glass ended up, but it’s a rare one for sure.

Glasses with blue/white labels are very uncommon. Offhand, I can only think of the Blue Bell from Barth & Co. in WI, the Old Ironsides from Magullion in MA, and the TPA from Kayser & Hegner Co. in OH. They make for an interesting addition to the display case.

The latest example of the twice-a-decade glass showed up on eBay a week or so ago, just in time for Christmas. It sold for $31.95.

Peace, good will toward men!