FOHBC Show, Reno - NV, 2012

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The first order of business the next morning was to secure an show entry pass, because even though it had opened the day previously, a Friday start meant that there would new sellers arriving and setting up first-thing Saturday morning and I wanted to have the chance to pick over their wares during the early-bird session.

Well, actually, the first order of business was to find coffee, and Starbucks, in its annoying ubiquity, had conveniently located a store in the hotel lobby. How did we ever function in the days before Starbucks? I really have to wonder. I think I drank a lot of instant coffee, a notion confirmed by all the empty glass jars holding nails and screws in my basement.

The early buyer session was due to start at 7 am, but since I was still on Eastern time, I was already raring to go by six. I swung by the show admissions office at about 6:45 am, hoping to get a good start, only to find it closed. By 7, a bleary-eyed and slightly discombobulated Richard Siri had appeared ("bottlestrays" on eBay; one of the bottle-collecting big-wigs), but with no keys or cash to make change. The entry fee was a whopping $70, $50 for FOHBC members. I know putting on shows is an expensive proposition, but even so!

Reflecting on the day ahead

I eventually secured by "Early Looker" pass and was granted access to the show, only to find the show floor practically devoid of life, the shrouded mounds of bottles giving the room the appearance of a large morgue. At the front of the room, however, there was number of cloth-covered dining tables placed there for the benefit of those patronizing the concession stand. Seated at one of those tables was Dennis Bray and Ken Schwartz. Dennis collects insulators and had put together one of the displays. Ken should need no introduction at this point, given his prominence in the collecting world. If in doubt, check out his collection, which I had the pleasure of seeing and writing about following my last trip to Reno.

I spent about an hour catching up with Ken, during which time various sellers began showing up and the room slowly came to life. Someone also stole one of Ken's bottles off his sales table, which was just feet away. The weekend was to be punctuated by numerous announcements of thefts, and one of the people I talked to seemed fairly certain that the thief was one of the bottle collectors set up at the show, someone with a previous record of sneaking bottles off tables when no-one was looking.

By this point, you want to know about what shots were on offer, so the next couple of pages contain a pictorial summary of what I saw.

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