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Rebuilding the Website
In October of 2009, the company that hosts the website moved it to a new server. In the words of one of techs on the support staff, "something broke" during the move.

When I first conceived of www.pre-pro.com back in 2002, I had no idea of how websites worked and html was a foreign language to me. Luckily, the University I worked for provided all its faculty with "Frontpage", a Microsoft program that made writing for the web relatively easy. Unfortunately, Frontpage, like so many of Microsoft's products, had unusual features that required dedicated support from the hosting company. These features included pieces of code that the generate navigation bars and many of the buttons that give the site its "look".

Dear Mr Gates decided to drop Frontpage from its lineup some time ago, along with technical support for its orphaned product. Thus when "something broke" during the move, we lost all of the navigation and much of formating that determined text font, color, size, etc.

Since the problem with Frontpage was not fixable, I've spent the past few days applying Band-Aids to most of the pages on the site. Some areas will have to remain trashed until I have time to redevelop them: I desperately need to update the areas that introduce novices to the area of pre-pro collecting, for example, and this seems like a good time to do it.

I apologize for the mess and incovenience and appreciate your patience - if you find any glitches in your travels around the site, please drop me a line. Thanks!

Updating the Shot Database
The shot-glass database recently jumped by around 100 glasses to a total of 3,720 listings, largely due to contibutions from Pat Baker, who combed flea markets, antique malls, and bottle shows in the San Francisco area to assemble a rare collection of pristine west-coast glasses. His additions to the database are greatly appreciated!

If YOU regularly drop in on www.pre-pro.com and have glasses that do not appear in the database, then consider putting some of your free time to good use and photograph your own collection.  Drop me a line for tips on how to do this in a painless manner.  Thanks!

Dick Bales and Common Stuff!
Dick rises to the challenge and reviews the various glasses from Detrick Distilling of Dayton, OH and Chattanooga, TN, in the latest issue of Common Stuff by Dick Bales....

"Found in the Wild":  see what your colleagues have brought home from the hunt!
If you've found something worth writing home about, drop me a line and I'll list it for you in the "Found in the Wild" section: latest neat find comes from Brad Allin, who's been out-and-about in the glasslands of New England: check it out!

Updating the Circle
The Circle at www.pre-pro.com was originally conceived as being a newsgroup to which collectors could subscribe.  The intent was to send out regular bulletins on sales, shows, specials etc.  It hasn't quite worked out that way, so I have purged the old Circle e-mail list and I'm now in the process of recreating it.  If you used to be a Circle member and you didn't get an e-mail from me yesterday (8-5-08), then I don't have your current e-mail address.  Time to re-enlist!

The benefits of belonging to the new Circle include:

• 48-hour early-buyer access to glasses when we have a special sales event here at pre-pro.  Circle members get to pick the best of what's on offer before it goes online.
• A chance to participate in collection buy-outs.
• A chance to sell off dups or less desirable glasses at super-premium prices: when I get a request from the internet for a particular glass (usually glasses from a great-grandfather's liquor business), I forward that request to you and you get to pick the price.

Sound good?  Then you need to enroll or re-enroll today! Just send an e-mail to circle@pre-pro.com with the word "include" in the subject line and you'll be in!

A New Distilleries Database!
Ever wondered about where the shot-glass folks got their liquor from?  Ever wondered whether there was a list of distilleries identified by their RD numbers?  Ever wondered which states had distilleries in pre-Pro days?

A new distilleries database hopes to answer these questions.  The database was made possible by Bob Snyder who had several tattered old photocopies or IRS records among the many boxes of paper that I purchased from him a couple of years ago.  The database as it stands now is basic scaffolding - full listing pages will be created for each of the 2,500 or so distilleries that we have a record for.  Check it out and help the cause by sending me info if you have it!

Meet Jack Sullivan!
Jack Sullivan should be a familiar name to readers of any of the bottle mags because he's a regular contributor to many of them, including the FOHBC's Bottles and Extras, Potomac Pontil, and Ohio Swirl.  Jack has a knack for telling stories about the old distillers and dealers, often using a jug, bottle, or piece of advertising as a kicking-off point  for an interesting tale.  He's published several hundred articles over the years and self-published three books, including his latest offering "Mostly Whiskey: Bottles, Jugs & Whathaveyou" (order here: only $23 shipped!).

Jack has graciously agreed to let us make his articles available here at www.pre-pro.com in searchable electronic format.  At present, only a handful of his articles are available, but in time all 200+ will be incorporated and linked into relevant dealer listing pages.

You can browse and search Jack's work within his mini-web: "Whiskey Men, by Jack Sullivan".

City Directories Database:
My box of directory copies (the generous donation of Jack Sullivan) is now down to New Orleans and I'm missing information on several important areas of the country.  If you have access to directories or are willing to make a trip to your local library, I'd very much appreciate any information on any of the New England cities and towns: Boston, Hartford, New Haven etc., and Washington DC.

If you don't see it listed on the city directory entry page, then I could use information. I'm happy to cover costs, so please consider helping out.

Contact me at glassmaster@pre-pro.com.

Sales Database is Up and Running
The pre-pro shot sales database is now open for access. You can find more details about membership levels and instructions for registration using the links from the login page.

As of writing (January, '09), the database contains records of 14,655 individual sales spanning 8 years. It includes approximately 4,400 unique glasses, the majority of which are not recorded in the free-access databases. Approximately 250 new records are being added each month so the scope and accuracy of the data are improving constantly.

The database is made available to help the community determine the true value of glasses and collections, and to provide a sense of how the pre-pro market is moving over time. It's also a powerful tool for determining appropriate snipe levels. Indeed, I'm hoping no-one applies for membership because it will significantly impact the glassmaster's competitive advantage on eBay!

In coming weeks, we're going to start adding in sales data from fixed price sales and incorporating images that come without sales data. This will add to the research potential of the database and help determine the true rarity of glasses that have been seen only once in the life of the database. Stay tuned for more information!

A pre-pro Reference Library
The latest addition to pre-pro is an online library.  This area was created to help visitors find reviews of recent books, find out what books are available on various subjects, and to read books and articles online (Bob Snyder's articles from Old Bottle Magazine, for example).  As with many areas of the site, this is a work in progress so please forgive the dust and debris!

Take a look and see what you think.  If you have a pile of old bottle mags or books you'd like to get rid of, please consider donating them to help the library grow!  Thanks!

A Final Word:
This site is changing continually and is getting so large that it's becoming a real challenge to stay on top of every page and link.  If you run across typos, errors or broken links, please help me out by dropping an e-mail to glassmaster@pre-pro.com.  Thank you!!