Collecting mini bottles has really changed through the years. I am sure that there must have been collectors of mini bottles before the Prohibition Era but there are not a lot of records avalilable to confirm. I believe that mini bottle collecting started after Prohibition ended. It was then that several new distilleries sprang up and created brands of whiskey with beautiful labels, even on their mini bottles. States like Pennsylvania, Maryland, Kentucky, Illinois, California and Tennessee were the states that had most of the distilleries at the time. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, there were only a few states that sold mini liquor bottles.
One of the states that did sell mini's, had probably the premier liquor store for buying mini's after Prohibition ended. That was a store in Miami called Manny's Liquors. Manny had bottles for sale from all over the world, including Cuba. Cuba produced many beautiful mini rums, including the famous Bacardi label, which ultimately moved to Florida. I was able to find a lot of memorabilia from Manny's, including a few price lists. The list was incredible with so many mini bottles available for sale. California was also a mecca for mini bottles. You could buy mini whiskey bottles in drug stores in those days. But as I said in an earlier blog, California had to stop selling mini bottles in 1942 because of the war. But for those 10 years, there were many beautiful mini whiskey bottles produced and they are coveted by collectors today. Some of them have sold for as much as $300 in recent years. Some of the states that did sell mini bottles only sold them through state controlled stores. Other states only sold them in bars when you would order a drink. It was difficult to find mini bottles in those days unless you were lucky enough to live in a state that sold them.
As time went by, the hobby began to grow. The problem was, however, that most collectors did not know that there were other collectors out there because there were no means of communicating or of even knowing about other collectors. I have found records that show that a national mini bottle club was formed in the late 1940's but that it did not last very long. In the 1950's, a few collectors again found each other and began communicating with each other. By the 1960's, there were probably 100 known collectors in the US. One of the problems about our hobby is that there are still to this day, many collectors who prefer to remain anonymous and just collect on their own. The internet has helped them to remain relatively anonymous. By the middle to late 1960's, several local mini bottle clubs began to form and newsletters and magazines began to appear. In the 1970's. a collector from Texas named Bob Snyder published a series of three books that showed pictures of mini bottles in full color with descriptions. This was really a big event in the hobby. Collectors now had something to aim for.
What collectors did before the internet was to visit local antique shops and flea markets searching for mini bottles. Other than buying new mini bottles from a shop in those states that sold them, this was really the only way to find some of those older mini bottles, unless you were able to make a trade or purchase from another collector. But that was not a common method. I can remember attending a flea market at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena in the 1970's and finding a Schafer and Vater Gold Miner mini and being very excited. It was my first flea market find.
In the 1960's, several of us Southern Californians started the Liliputian Miniature Bottle Club. Like other bottle clubs that started up, we would hold a meeting every month and we would all bring bottles for swap or purchase and one person would volunteer to be a speaker and talk briefly about a special bottle that they had in their collection. They could talk about a bottle that was unique or tell the story of how they acquired the bottle or something about the distillery or whatever they wanted. It was always fascinating to me to hear how some bottles were acquired.
As the years went by, more and more states began selling mini bottles and the hobby grew. More and more communications became available between collectors and the Midwest Miniature Bottle Club began their annual mini bottle show. That was another bench mark for the hobby because for the first time, it brought a large group of collectors together from not only the US but from foreign countries as well. People got to finally meet people that they had heard about or did a swap with. We just celebrated the 31st anniversay of the show this year. It is still growing strong.
Then, in the 1990's came the internet. This has probably had more impact on the hobby than anything that ever came before it. Now, mini bottles, new and old, became available to collectors all over the world. For advanced collectors, older and more rare bottles became available. For newbies, fascinating bottles from Europe became available. And for collectors with modest collections, bottles they had been looking for became available. It has changed the hobby drastically. People now do not need to leave their homes to buy mini bottles.
Also, more and more international mini bottle clubs are beginning to hold shows that are similar to MMBC show. Last year, there was a show in Spain. Next year there will be a second show in Sicily by the Italian collectors. There is a show in Russia every year. More and more Americans are attending these shows. So the hobby is really becoming one big international family. I have been collecting since the early 1960's and I am thrilled by the growth of the hobby and look forward to all the new things to come in future years.
See you next time. Until then, happy collecting.
No comments:
Post a Comment