Monday, April 27, 2015

Auction Results from ABA #61

 
I followed the progress of the western whiskey listings in ABA's Auction #61, which closed last evening, with a great deal of interest.
 
The "middle of the line", has remained strong like a bull, especially if a cylinder in this category has that little bit extra in terms of color and or character. Sadly, the upper end, over the past several years seems to have slipped badly.
 
The auction results seem to indicate a turning point for the "top end". Prices were strong, and the 10% buyers fee, although quite reasonable in today's auction arena, bolstered prices higher yet.
 
Here's the results of the auction.
 
Remember, click on the auction page and it will open in a large format readable window!
 
Comments?
 
 




5 comments:

Kelly P said...

The Tom T did seemed to do well. The other three- Golden Plantation, Gold Dust & SHM had issues I don't know if you can include them in with the mint examples when evaluating prices. Can you? A few of the tool tops really surprised me. The two E Martin's were very nice and hit about where I thought they would. It's hard to guess what's going to happen in an auction. The Tom T was awesome! wish it was coming to my house.
Kelly. P

Kelly P said...

Im interested in the E Martin mid crown. What's the green paint about? Also isn't that an early bottle for Tonopah? I have heard of some early bottles that have come from there...
Kelly.

Anonymous said...

Mike Dolcini dug a hole in Tonopah, that was full of Cutters. Both the E. Martin and Hotaling. All of them were painted green.

Rick Simi said...

Hi Kelly,
Interesting question about the green paint on the bottom of the mid crown E. Martin. I have seen ads by early western soda distributors that mention the base of their soda's are painted a certain color to identify them to their company. Possibly to have them returned to the correct company. I believe there was a lot of pirating of bottles by different company's to reuse bottles that were not originally their own back in the day.

I have never seen a whiskey fifth with identifying paint on the base but that doesn't mean whiskey distributors didn't use the same practice as the soda distributors.
- rs -

Kentucky Gem said...

From what I've read in the past, Rick is spot on with regards to the paint on the base of the bottle.

Kelly wondered about the age of the bottle vs. the ca. of the town of Tonopah. Tonopah came into existence in 1900. It, Rawhide, Goldfield and other towns in this era were part of the last major wave of gold and silver strikes in Nevada, which date post turn of the last century.

Why a glop top cylinder dating from the 70's ended up in Tonopah is anyone's guess. Perhaps a throwback, or perhaps Mike picked it up from a digger who resided in Tonopah, but found it elsewhere. We'll never know~

Bruce

 
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