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Should we officially rename SOTW "Shot of the Month"?  Amazing how quickly a month on eBay goes by, especially when one's authoring SOTW.

This issue of SOTW is going to be a little different from usual.  If you've checked "What's New" recently, you'll see that we've implemented a new database that provides access to sales records from various sources, principally eBay.  In the process of getting it up and running, I've looked at around 8,000 images and tried to figure out what's rare and what's common.  I've also created several scripts for analyzing sales data, including one that helps streamline SOTW. 

In the past, awarding an SOTW has been a rather haphazard process in which I sift through old sniper records for highlights and lowlights.  Since I often delete records along the way,  relocating an auction that I think I might have seen during the past few weeks can often be a challenge, to say the least!  But the database offers the chance to take an accurate  snapshot of the previous month and it's interesting to see what emerges.

First off, I should note that eBay seems to have fixed its main search glitch and results are now reasonably consistent.  Searches now pull up store items in addition to the regular auctions, so I guess we were witnessing a rather sloppy introduction of this new feature.  The bigger the site gets, the more cumbersome and glacial it becomes.  You wouldn't believe how long it now takes to download an auction page on my cruddy 24.8 kb modem, especially when aol is piping it's inane features down the same phone line!

Here's the snapshot.  This is taken from an administration page and is not available to subscribers, and I've inactivated the Shuffle feature so that it's permanently sorted by price.  Lakerdude33 is immortalized as having paid the most for a glass in the last 28 days.

If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, you can see that I logged 243 glass sales during this time, although there were 5 auctions that included multiples, so the number of individual auctions is around 240 total.  I'd be very interested to know if I missed any - if you can find one that's not on the list, drop me a line.

This was actually an unusual month because it was dominated by one bidder (js30vino)who was driving prices several times higher than normal.  Most of the action was during the first half of the month, and then the bidders (as well as the nicer glasses) melted away during the last two weeks and many auctions closed without a sale.  Down at the lower end of the sales list you can find the usual bottom feeders, including roachke and oldwhiskey. 

There were some truly GORGEOUS three-digit glasses this month.  The Trotter was an early favorite: not a common glass but the known examples always seem to show up in mint condition with an exceptionally strong label.  Shotfaced cantered across the finish line in first place on this one: nice going Rog, er sorry, "Ann"....   The Rip Van Winkle was my personal favorite and clearly not a sleeper despite what the name suggests.  I well remember lusting over another example of this glass back in 2003.  Paul Van Vactor carried that one home: the latest offering fell to new collector js30vino for an impressive $288.    Ah well, there'll be another....

So how about a SOTW??

This week's/month's pick is a novelty glass: a glass etched in wonderful detail featuring two panels showing an infant on a pot.   It was hidden under category Antiques > Decorative Arts > Glass > Other, which is not your usual pre-pro stomping grounds, and the title read "Shot Glass 1800 's Whishkey Anti Prohibition Etched" (obviously the seller was using is for a little tipple when writing the listing).  But I managed to find it, Brad found (and won) it, Dick found it, and I'm sure several others did as well.  There was no competition because the starting price was a penny short of a c-note, which is a fair chunk of change for this glass.  But it is most definitely a classic and if I didn't have one already, I would have gone after it too.

Actually I have three of them - two shots and a tumbler!  I picked one off eBay many years ago (the only other one I've seen at auction) and two locally.  I bought the extra with a mind to selling or trading it but my wife loves them so much she made me promise never to let them go! 

Dale Murscell identifies the glass as being a Truog design (p. 97 of "George Truog and His Art").  When pressed, he noted that this attribution was based on his having found the glass in the Cumberland area, and he may well right.  The images on the glass come from a pair of photographs that were used extensively on postcards and tradecards advertising beer and wine, as shown below.  Did George take the images and create the etchings from them?  Maybe.  Probably. I guess we'll never know for sure.  And what IS the message here exactly????!!!!

Congratulations Brad!

No matter what the origins, it's a rare and wonderful glass! 

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