I hope this edition of SOTW marks the beginning of a return to something like a regular column.  I know that will dismay some and please many, but we'll see how it goes.

In case you've forgotten,  SOTW is a place to talk about recent doin's on eBay, where we all spend far too much of our time (and money).  New "unlisted" glasses continue to appear as regularly as known ones (the percentage ratio is 54:46) , which gives you a pretty fair idea of how many unknown shots there are out there.  We'll talk about the rare and not so rare, about who's buying, who's selling, and who's playing elaborate games as buyer or seller.  If you're on eBay, you're fair game, like it not. 

There is a serious side to SOTW also - fakes are going to start showing up sooner or later, especially now that the four-figure threshold has been broken, and we need to be ever vigilant against fraud.  Even more worrying is the amount thievery in recent months.  I joined eBay in 2001 and up until last year had only ever lost one glass to a crook.  I paid and waited and waited and waited ..... you know the rest. 

In the past 12 months, I've lost five and two more are currently MIA.  Luckily none were particularly valuable but one was very rare.  To have that many glasses go AWOL is such a short time is alarming, and hopefully a fluke.  Maybe I'm just buying too much glass!

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, 170 pre-pro glass auctions closed, 44 closed with no bidder, average price of the glasses that sold was $29.02.  Nine glasses sold for >$100.

Entertainment this past month was provided by "son of xxxtruk", who ended up selling 10 of the 15 glasses listed (see box imported from the chat room below).  Two different collectors e-mailed me about this one -- I'd missed it completely and had to be clued in.  It really brightened up what was turning out to be a pretty depressing month, glass-wise at least.

I thought we had at least two nominees for Golden Hayners this week, but the prices have been holding firm.  Both are glasses either from during Prohibition (Canadian) or post Repeal. 

We've had a slew of interesting glasses to look at in the past month.  The best of the bunch were both nabbed by junkmoney for what I'm sure he'll admit were stupid amounts of cash, but that's never stopped him in the past.  Either could stand as SOTW, but my pick of the last's month crop is the Thistle Dew. 

It's a fairly crude picture and there is is no name or city on it, but it's an attractive glass nonetheless.  So where does it come from, any ideas? 

The brand name "Thistle Dew" was actually registered in 1879 by John C. Hussey of Cincinnati, OH.  By 1880, it was being used by Henry W. Smith & Co. of Covington, KY.  Smith was doing business under the name Freeland Distilling Co. after 1900, selling brands called "Freeland", "H. W. S. & Co.", "Kentucky Nabob", "Split Rock", as well as "Thistle Dew."  But I'm not sure that is a Covington glass. 

The thistle motif should be familiar to any pre-pro collector as a Chicago brand, because it was the trademark of Hannah & Hogg.  The Scottish duo owned "The Thistle", a watering hole on W Madison, later establishing a mail-order business that send hard liquor from coast to coast.    This was most likely one of their glasses.  Or was it????   Very nice Bill!

That's all folks - see y'all on eBay.