Barb Edmonson, A Tribute

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Out east, she stayed with Sheila Sears who then lived in the Baltimore suburbs. Sheila had a collection of several hundred pre-pro shots and she recalls setting Barb up at a card table and then watching as she sketched her way through the entire collection. She visited other Maryland collectors while in the area, but the proximity to Washington DC meant that she also had access to the Library of Congress and their vast resources. Barb described many long hours spent in the basement, tracking down information on glass manufacturers and on the history of various liquor companies. She also recalled trying to wrestle New York City directories off their shelves, only to be defeated by their size and weight.

It’s difficult to know what drove her. She was primarily a collector who was as passionate about the delicate nature and fine detail of the etching on the old glasses as any individual, past or present. But the time and effort she put into cataloguing and fleshing out their background must have satisfied a greater intellectual need. “Who but some nutty old lady or man would do this, spend all this time for no money?” she quipped to the reporter from the local paper.

Old Advertising Spirits Glasses was a remarkable work and it too sold quickly. I was delighted to see the familiar request for information on unlisted glasses pasted inside the cover, because it meant she was already planning a sequel. I immediately dispatched photographs of unlisted glasses from my own collection.

Book Three was to have focused on glasses from eastern states, but ultimately it was not to be so. Barb’s sister Janet died in 1988, the same year that Old Advertising Spirits Glasses was published. Janet Turner was a talented artist whose works can be found in museums around the world. She had accumulated a massive collection of rare prints and Barb now redirected all of her considerable energies toward finding a permanent home for her sister’s legacy. There was also the issue of how a third book could be financed and distributed. The nineties saw Barnes & Noble and Borders grow into national chains that crushed the smaller vendors who had helped sell Barb’s first two books.

She was also living on a limited income and the costs of creating a new book from scratch were prohibitive. As a compromise, she re-issued Historic Shot Glasses with six new pages of listings added as an addendum. She also updated the glass values. She did this by gluing new price ranges over the old: on p. 70 of the revised addition, you can see where one of these scraps of paper escaped her attention and settled unnoticed over the drawing of a glass inscription! The revised edition of Historic Shot Glasses was published in 1992 when she was 80 years old.

The 1992 edition of Historic Shot Glasses. One of the new price-range labels that she used to update values escaped Barb's attention and glued itself over a drawing illustrating a Four Roses shot glass (above)

After the revised edition was published, Barb disposed of her research materials and sold all but a few of her glasses via mailings to the collectors who had bought her books. She then settled into researching the history of the Turner family (her ancestors) with all thoughts of pre-pro shot glasses put aside.
Eventually her advancing years caught up with her, even though with a wink she placed the blame for her failing health on her fondness for martinis. Ultimately the end came quickly and she died on November 1, 2004.

Her ashes were scattered at sea following a service held in Bidwell Park, Chico. Her friend Susan Murphy related that “It was a beautiful, sunny day in the Park for her celebration of life”.

Her passing left a tangible hole in the fabric of the pre-pro community. Everyone who knew her commented on what a nice person she was and how they’ll miss her, but her loss also left its mark on collectors who’d never met her or talked with her. Perhaps it’s because so many present-day collectors grew up, at least in terms of the hobby, thumbing through her two books and dreaming of the same intricate scenes displayed on their own collection of sparkling treasures. But perhaps also, as one collector wrote to her, “the books are special because of all the wonderful drawings and for the comments that are scattered throughout. I suppose that they are infused with your personality, which transforms them into something more than simple reference works”. Whatever the reason, she’ll be greatly missed.

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