Paul and Pat Van Vactor travel extensively and set up at all the major shows out East, which is fortunate because Paul always has glass. Thus, even if a show is a total bust, Paul's table always has something interesting to look at, even though there may be nothing new among his current sales stock to add to the collection. Not that that has ever happened: the man always has something new because he's ALWAYS out in the wild, hunting.
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I followed Paul back to his table and he reached under his empty table for a box, from which he pulled an unlisted enamel glass. "Know anything about this?" he asked. The "Our Darling" brand was not familiar to me, and I said so. The glass looked a little strange - most of the enamels I'd seen to date had enamel troweled on like toothpaste. The text on this one was small and, to be honest, looked fake. Paul had a price tag on the bottom and I turned it over to take a look. I winced. I can't get too enthused about enamel glasses, especially at this price, but I knew of at least one person that did and I suggested Paul get in touch. But this was a great start to a show - a pre-pro enamel glass and there still wasn't a even a single item on any of the tables in the room. I can warmly embrace omens like this, even if they do look like fakes!
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I left Paul to get on with setting up his tables and wandered the show floor, which was rapidly becoming congested with carts, boxes and Seller Assistants who were already circling promising-looking crates in the hopes of scoring a rare bottle.
I was two rows over from Paul's table when I found my first glass, a "Geneva Whiskey" that I'd not seen before. It had a chip in the base, but the label was strong. I certainly couldn't argue with the price, although I tried! Yea, score 1 for oldwhiskey!
Oh come on, get into the spirit of the hunt, guys! Live this one vicariously! Kurt - put that finger down - you'll jab your own eye out if you go on waving it around like that!
Some time during the many circuits of the show floor, I bumped into Ralph Van Brocklin, eBay's "thegenuineflask". Ralph also had a sales table at the show but always postpones setting up until the next day after the more important business of buying has been taken care of. As we walked and scoured and trawled, he told me about his recent adventures campaigning for elected office in his home town. Ralph always seems to have 10 different projects on the boil at once, but this one sounded intense: he was trying to get himself elected to a school board position. Spending every evening after work going door to door, trying to convince people to vote for him was clearly exhausting, which as just as well because as I listened, I realized that I was staring at two mint Casper glasses on a shelf directly in front of us.
I made a grab for them.
One was the most common of all Caspers, but it would be a welcome upgrade: competition for Caspers is always intense on eBay and finding one without wear or rim damage is tough. The other was a "Compliments of the Casper Co." that I'd not seen before. The owner wanted $40 apiece but I talked him down to $30 and smugly stashed them into my trophy bag. Yea, score 3 for oldwhiskey!
Those three finds turned out to be the best that the show had to offer, for oldwhiskey at least. As the afternoon turned into evening, I fell prey to the need to justify my being there by picking up one or two glasses that were overpriced and relatively common, glasses that I'd not look twice at on eBay.
Just when I was giving up hope of finding anything else of note, Andy Regrut came up behind me with a note of urgency in his voice.
"Hey Robin!!!" he implored "there's a guy over in the corner with a box full of pre-pro's for sale, you should come take a look!"
H'mmmm, well, I don't know, I was thinking about leaving and I didn't have supper yet. Maybe I should come back and take a look tomorrow.
Yea, right.