A Few More Thoughts on Provenance

A small name, Ralph Finch, talks about bigger names

In this issue of AB&GC is a well-done article by New Jersey’s Robert Strickhart. (I find it interesting that he has “hart” in his name; it should be spelled “heart.”)

In it, Bob writes about an important aspect of the hobby that many people, perhaps too many, don’t think about.

Writing about a piece of cold glass, and putting a person, a bit of heart in it, has always been soooo important to me. Bob talked about famous, and not-so-famous, people who have already owned the bottles that we now proudly put on our shelves. Bob recognized that we don’t really own this stuff. We are only temporary caretakers of them.

And, talking about provenance, one of the (too-few) smart things I’ve done was back at the 1976 St. Louis Expo, some 45 years ago. I took the program around and asked people to sign it. Three pages of names that, I admit, I don’t recognize all of them now, but many are names that are still remembered and respected. I also did the same thing when I attended the Blaske auction.

As I thumb through that old Expo program (remember the cover with the flags?) I’d have a hard time remembering any glass I may have purchased. But when I look at the names, I remember people like Paul Welko, the great Barb and Bob Harms, Gloria Kim, John Panck, Mary Ballentine, the Barnetts, Steve Ketcham, Jon Vander Schauw, Keith Leeders, Bill Rouppas, Don Keating, Sheldon Baugh, Paul Van Vactor, flask man Jack Whistance, the muchloved Burton Spiller, Tom Hicks, Frank Peters, and Bob Villamagna, who did illustrations for the program. And Cecil Munsey, and Ray “Jaybird” Weimer, the cure man. And balsam queen Betty Blasi (I will always remember my first visit to Betty’s home), and Jim Spencer, who started Antique Bottle World magazine before he gave it to Chicago’s Jerry McCann (and, in turn, that magazine that took several years of my life).

Ralph's 1976 St. Louis Expo, program with the names of friends from all those years ago.

Other names were printed in the program, and were part of the show: Peck Markota, Bob Mebane, Roy Brown, Hal Wagner, and show co-chairman Jerry Jones of Columbus, Ohio. Interesting. I just talked with Jerry the other week. Ditto with Phyllis Koch.

Others who were part of that great St. Louis weekend included John Feldmann, Louis Pellegrini, Chalk Netherland, fruit jar queen *Alice Creswick, target ball godfather Alex Kerr, E.C. Moody, ink man William Covill, Randy Haviland, Sam and Barbara Coggins, Terry Gillis, Hal and Vern Wagner, Carlyn Ring, Sam Greer, David Beadle (the Lancaster Glass Works man), Ben Swanson, Jim Hall, Ken Sosnowski (the milk man), Jim and Penny Lang, Peck Markota and Bob Mebane, fruit jar man Joe Smith, and bitters man Glenn Brendel. And the St. Louis bottle club filled a whole page with its club members’ names. And John Wolf, Michigan’s cure man. Sam Greer and Bonnie Yarbrough (who died young), and Don Spangler of Ohio. (Have you ever heard that a bottle has been Spanglerized? That meant Don worked his magic and fixed a hole, and maybe even made a whole top, for a damaged bottle!)

And Jerry Hostetler … hmmm, I exchanged emails with him just the other week.

*I don’t remember what bottles I bought at that show, 45 years ago, but I do remember — and remember well — driving home to Michigan and stopping in the middle of nowhere at a McDonald’s, and there was Alice Creswick and her husband, Howard. We all had lunch together, and I felt like I was dining with royalty. Having breakfasts with Alex Kerr at the 1980s Indiana fruit jar shows was similar.

Ralph's program cover from the 1976 National Antique Bottle-Jar Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri.

And, talking about famous people you have dined with, or visited, or people who would welcome a stranger into their home, that is John Feldmann, the bitters man from New York. Many decades ago I was on Long Island for a bottle show, but ready to drive back to Michigan, thinking that New Yorkers were HORRIBLE, rude people. Then John Feldmann stepped up. He knew I was on Long Island, called a few hotels and tracked me down. He called my hotel room and invited me over to his home, and to see his incredible bottles. What a kind and gentle man he is. (I think Jean Garrison was there. Remember her? Jean had also been president of the Long Island Bottle Club, and the FOHBC chairwoman in 1981. I think she was the No. 1 promoter of the Federation — and the Verbeck House? — as they were being formed.)

And I now thank all the others whose names were printed or written in that program, and to those whose signatures I can’t decipher.

And to anyone reading this: If you can remember more than a handful of these people, well you probably can also remember black-and-white TVs, asking operators for phone numbers, and spatz.

How many of those who attended the first Expo are gone? Well, lets give them a moment’s pause.

I doubt if Muhammad Ali was a bottle collector, but he knew what the bottle hobby was really about when he said: “Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.”

Do remember the hobby, and what it is all about. It’s not just glass, but a place where you can learn, if you are lucky, about friendship. Excited to announce the Summer 2021 opening of the Royal Crown Cola Museum in Columbus, GA, home of Royal Crown's founder Claud A. Hatcher!

Looking for artifacts (signs, display pieces, etc.) from the following: Chero-Cola, Royal Crown Cola, Nehi, Diet Rite Cola, Upper 10, Par T Pack Ginger ale!

Please contact Allen Woodall at 706-332-6378.