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We're now getting toward the end of the traditional shot-hunting season on eBay and the number of sellers and buyers is beginning to decline as warm weather draws collectors outside and away from their computer screens.  Looks like the grass is almost high enough that the lawn needs its first cut.  Damn. 

    _{Check out the new Hee Hee Hee page....}

But the prices realized on glass continue to climb and I'm almost getting used to the idea that it's going to take $70 or more to win anything other than a text-only glass online, although there's still plenty of cheap glass to be found outside of eBay in one is willing to put the time in to look for it.  Check out the latest "Found in the Wild" page if you have any doubts about that!!
 

Right now we have a slew of glasses with a history filtering through the seven-day listing cycle on eBay.  Selling under the banner of "smokinnetdeals", most, if not all of them were purchased off eBay back in 2003 by a bidder known as "kdarius".  If you're wondering why the listing photos look familiar, that's why, because the seller is using the 2003 pics taken by Bill Naglik to illustrate his auctions, many of which now appear in our shot database with his blessing. kdarius was a Royal pain-in-the-posterior to eBay regulars back in 2003, because he placed numbingly high bids on anything and everything listing as pre-pro and decimated the opposition in the process.  For example, the Green Mountain glass he's listed (a nice glass, but neither Very Rare!!!!! or in Awesome Condition!!!!!!), set him back $61.00 in February 2003.  Remember this was 2003 with 2003 values.   I can still hear Bill laughing all the way to the bank on that one!!!   Apparently the current owner is trying to offset potential losses by sticking winners with a $16 shipping/handling charge, although I see we now have a generous (!) $8 option after Claude Hopper stepped in (see the chat room).  Having said all this, I should note that the kdarius collection does include 5 or 6 power glasses that should easily fetch $100+ this time around, so it will be interesting to see if the current slew of cheapies is all that's for sale. 

So how about a SOTW?? 

Well, this may seem like a strange choice to some, but it's a glass I've lusted after for many years. It's a Murray Hill Club glass from Jos Magnus & Co. of Cincinnati OH.   It's one of the few beaded picture glasses I know of, which makes it sufficiently interesting to showcase here, but you really have to see one "in vitro" to appreciate their appeal.

Magnus et al apparently were fairly successful wholesalers who gave us many brands and glasses.  The glasses are reasonably uncommon, however.  While I've seen six total, I've only seen them once or in the latest case, twice.  All feature the trade-marked crossed arrows and a lion rampant.  I found my first Magnus glass early in my collecting career - this was a Magnus Whiskey and again it was beaded.  As soon as I saw it, I knew I was hooked on Magnus and hooked on beaded and it's sat in my "favorites" display case ever since.  I also knew I had to have the Murray Hill glass Barb Edmonson lists in HSG.  Hence, when excellentstuff-auctions listed a minty Murray Hill, I immediately loaded a stupidly high bid into the sniper, comfortable in the knowledge that no-one would be interested enough to take me on.

Boy was I wrong.  junkmoney squashed me like a bug and took it for $107.50.

Congratulations Bill!

The bright side to this little story - or the sad side, depending on your point of view, it that excellentstuff had two of these glasses and waved #2 under oldwhiskey's nose in a buy-it-now.  I did think about it some, wondering if I'd have to live another 20 years to see prices escalate to the point where I could recover my "investment" - but wasted only 5 nanoseconds on such a silly notion. 

I mean - it's not about the money, is it????! 

Last updated: Saturday May 20, 2006
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