Pomona, 2009

Today was a day to pick through old letterheads, peer at bottles for useful brand info, take in the displays, and catch up with friends, old and new.

Los Angeles Bottle Club members had put together several displays, three of which are shown at right.

The topmost image shows a sampling of the hundreds of bottles that had once sat in a NYC hotel bar that had operated from the pre-Prohibition years until the 1940's. All were in near mint condition and there were many familiar brand names among the grouping. Empty examples of these same bottles show up with regularity on eBay, but it was gratifying to see them in person with their contents and seals still intact.

At center right is a display of bottles recovered from privvies that were in less than mint condition. Just to the left of the gravestone is The Genuine - a bottle worth tens of thousands in good condition. This example shown here is worth about 2 cents of recyclable glass!

At lower right is my favorite display, one that showcases carboys. The vessels were blown by hand, were crude, and most were huge. They were probably used to hold chemicals rather than wine or whiskey. A carboy collector needs plenty of space to devote to their hobby - as in an entire basement! Think I'll stick to shots...

I had also arranged to meet with Bob Mraz to take a look at a box of trader glasses that he wished to dispose of as a group. I met him in the parking lot and I sat in the back seat of his car so that I could pick through the box while I listened to him tell me about his collection and collecting history.

Bob is a shot purist - no bottles, no jugs, just shots. He's apparently amassed a collection of well over a thousand which he displays throughout the house.

His first wife, Rita, was an antique dealer and it was through her that his interest in shots had developed. Barb Edmonson visited him while assembling information for OASG, but if you look at the acknowledgements at the front of OASG, it's his wife who gets the credit, much to Bob's annoyance!

After losing his first wife, he remarried (another antique dealer) and his shot collecting activities were sidelined for a while, but he's now back out hunting with a vengeance. It's probably lucky that he cant be bothered with eBay, because I suspect he'd feature regularly in the pages of SOTW as having stomped on collecting regulars!