Each edition of SOTW will begin with some stats on sales in the past 28 days to give us all a sense of where the hobby is going.  In the past four weeks, 198 pre-pro glass auctions closed, 39 closed with no bidder, average price of the glasses that sold was $19.24.   Only one glass sold for >$100, none sold for >$1,000. 

Since the drive for anonymity on eBay makes it difficult to know who's bidding on glass these days, I thought it might also be helpful to identify any new faces that are picking glasses off eBay on a regular basis.  This past month saw a half-dozen or so sell to atcoins and another eight or so to 62jeb.  62jeb has actually been hanging around pre-pro glass listings for several months and bids prodigiously on both modern and old glass.

If you track the sales stats above, you'll notice that the heavens opened and we were showered with pre-pro shots this past month -- and most of it came in the form of an crystal blast from Minnesota's backside.  I believe there were three separate collections of MN glass running concurrently, which is unusual, to say the least.  MN has a somewhat dubious reputation in my mind as providing the greatest number of ambiguous shots -- as in, are they pre-pro or Post Repeal?  No doubt we've all been suckered into buying what looks like a pre-pro glass from MN (and billed as such by the seller) and then discovering that in fact it's from the '40s and thereby worthless.  Think "Bursch Bros." and "Lo-Price Liquor Store".  I also think of MN as being the State that gave us the greatest number of instantly forgettable glasses, most of which originated from Minneapolis.  Look at the Davis Merchantile Co.,  California Wine House, and Dryer's Wines and Liquors by way of example -- all super-snoozers that show up with annoying regularity in the Bay.  No doubt Dick Bales will be spurred to prove me wrong in a future edition of The Common Stuff, a thought that then prompted me to check out known glasses from the State in the Cumulative Shot Index.   The very first glass on the page proves to be one of the more stunning enamel transfer glasses: from Loeb & Co. of Duluth.  SO with foot stuck firmly in mouth as usual, let's move on to a consideration of the glasses worthy of a mention in SOTW

First up is a prime Steal of the Week: a collection of modern and old glasses offered for sale by salesbaron1.

This actually was a relist -- in the sense that half of the glasses shown above were offered as a group previously.  Most of them were common: a Detrick, an O! So Good, and a Hayner (see at right above) and hence the auction predictably closed without a bidder.  salesbaron spiced up the deal the second time around by adding a number of much rarer glasses, including an Aronson (Seattle), Clover Nook (Kansas City) and Pacific Coast Wine & Liquor (Los Angeles).  This lot was definitely worth bidding on, but by the time auction had run its course I'd completely forgotten about it (the listing title: "B&O RAILROAD SHOT GLASS SETS BAR BARWARE DISPLAY LOT" didn't help exactly) and it sold unchallenged for a measly $19.99 to 209ronm.  Tsk.

This is a "lakerdude special edition" of SOTW, not just because he had a last-birthday-before-planting-one-foot-in-grave celebration two days ago,  but because his name crops up on the cumulative wins list several times.  The first was in reference to a listing by Paul Van Vactor, an "Old Autocrat" glass headlined as being from San Francisco.  That's the way it appears in the database here at pre-pro also, but reading the notes section reveals that it could equally well be from Edwin Schiele & Co. of St. Louis, MO. Indeed, if you take a look at serving trays from Schiele (an example is shown below), they feature an etched glass labeled with the brand name "Old Autocrat Whiskey" (see enlargement at right below).

So which is it, CA or MO?  My gut tells me probably MO, which pretty much guarantees the origin as being CA.  The San Fran connection was sufficient to attract a lot of interest and the glass finally sold to the Dude for a cool $66.43.  Within a day of the auction closing, a second "band-wagon" listing appeared, this one offered by memoriesrgv.  This example (middle panel above) was in much better condition and the seller also suggested a CA origin.  Sequels rarely do as well as the originals and this one was no exception: it sold to mrkmitch for $47.  Not too shabby for a MO glass....

So what of a SOTW?

This glass was a shoe-in for the role the minute it listed, mainly because it's a picture glass from Alexandria, VA, one of the more desirable areas in terms of collectability.