Where oh WHERE have all the glasses gone????  We always see a summer slow-down on eBay but this is ridiculous.  The supply of glass is so poor that even the Hayners and Sunny Brooks are beginning to look good!  So, in the absence of a suitable glass auction to drool over, this week's pick for SOTW is not a glass but  ---  er ---  a thimble.

        WAIT - before clicking into the Discussion Room to leave a comment suitably peppered with expletives and ampersands, it's actually an interesting one. 

Thimbles are not very popular among glass collectors but they are an important part of pre-pro history and their size approximates that of the glasses so they fit in well next to the precious crystal shots.  They're actually quite rare.  I actively collect both thimbles and shots, yet they represent less than 1% of my total collection.  They usually have embossing around their rim and on their base: you can find several examples in the "types of shots - metal" section of this website.

If I tell you up front that the auction closed at $177.50 and STILL had not hit its reserve, you'll understand why I wanted to include it here.  There were 6 bidders chasing it.  The old advertising thimbles typically sell for $20 or so, but what makes this one special is the fact that it came from the Casper Whiskey Company.

    John L Casper Co. was a wholesaler based originally in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  The company built an impressive mail-order business, but NC went dry in 1906 and in 1908 they were forced to move to Roanoke, Virginia and then again to Jacksonville Florida.  They ultimately ended up in Ft. Smith Arkansas and Kansas City, Missouri.    John Casper was reported to be an advertising genius and netted huge profits from the mail-order business with his slogan "Made by Honest North Carolina People".  He died of heart failure in 1921 - he was 55.

The Casper Co. produced a wealth of advertising material and one of the better-known and desirable cobalt bottles.   We only know of one shot glass: you can find it in the database.  So what do you think?  Willing to pay label-under money for a thimble???!!!