As you might imagine, the website attracts many visitors, not all of whom are collectors or interested in shot glasses. More often, people are looking for information on the value of a bottle they've found, or want more information on their great- great- grandfather's business. I get quite a few alcohol-related e-mails also, for example: "Trying to find OLD GRAND DAD whiskey in my area, zip 48749. All of a sudden, no one is carryuing this line. Any Suggestions?"

This past month, I received an irate shot-glass related message to brighten the tedium of bottle queries: "FYI. I bought a Braddock Rye Shot Glass on E-BAY. I over $200.00 for it. I was not impress by the quality. The glass was thin and light weight. The etching and texture was light. I beleive my glass and any sold like are a reproduction scam. I am having the sale of such glasses investigated. If I am correct and I was scammed I will taking legal action on the perpetraters of the scam."

The message came in from the comment box on the Braddock shot glass listing page and was anonymous (senders have to include an e-mail address if they want a reply, because the message is generated by the listing page, not by the sender's e-mail). A non-collecting friend of mine did comment that "it feels like plastic!" when given the opportunity to inspect a prized pre-pro picture glass for the first time, so one can well imagine that someone who had no idea what they were bidding on might be shocked to realise they'd just forked over $200+ for what appears to be "reproduction scam", but really....

James Clark Distilling Co. was based in Cumberland, MD and their Braddock glasses have become hot property in the last year. They're genuinely acid etched and so the label is light (hence the concern expressed above), but they're probably Truog glasses. That fact, plus the Cumberland connection means that they've always sold for a tad more than the average pre-pro glass, but the prices have been reliably holding in the $40-$50 range during the past ten years. Late last year (Oct. 2012), one topped the $100 mark for the first time, then in April, two sold in rapid succession for truly stunning prices:

April 8: $255.00	April 11: $306.99!

The first sold for $255 after a classic, drawn-out bidding war between unidentified bidder o***o and the eventual winner, buckeyett. It's easy to imagine that buyer remorse set in pretty quickly after an eBay invoice for $261 dropped into the winner's inbox. The second glass sold for $306.99 to eBay regular whatchagot513, better known to us as Scooter. Mystery bidder o***o took a poke at this one also, but was cleanly outbid. Scooter knows all about pre-pro glasses so it's unlikely that he's the source of the message above, so, buckeyett, for whatever it's worth, your glass is the genuine thing. At least I sincerely hope so, because if it's not, there are many collectors sitting on mountains of similar glasses and it would be SUCH a shame to discover that they'd all come from China.

 

The one glass that caught the Poobah's eye this past month is a saloon glass featuring a wonderful image of an elephant, because, well, it was from The Elephant Saloon. It's also a Lynchburg, VA. glass, which makes it highly desirable. The only detractor is a note in the seller's description that it has a contents deposit, which will hurt it as a display glass. Scooter took this one also - it sold for $306. Of course it could be a reproduction scam - whatchathink?