Antique Glass in Australia?

Collecting around the world

In upcoming issues of AB&GC magazine we’ll have several reports about glass from England and Australia. The stories are interesting, and will display items rarely seen in the U.S. (In a recent issue we had a great story by England’s John Ault.) Ralph Finch will set them up, with introductions with top collectors from across the pond and from the bottom of the globe. What follows explains Ralph’s world-wide interest in glass — and Australia. Antique Glass in Australia?

Memories by Ralph Finch

As noted many times over the years, I’ve loved traveling, and have been around the world. I thought Cuba was cool, Haiti was hot, and I left Russia with love. And, until I met Janet, had left my heart not in San Francisco, but in Japan, thanks to having lived there for two and a half years, courtesy of Uncle Sam.

I’ve been across the country and have visited dusty ghost towns and major metro-polises. And with the thousand or so articles I have penned, not all my comments were well received. A visit to Jamaica resulted in a nasty note from the Jamaican travel bureau — it didn’t like my interview with a drug dealer for a story that carried this headline: “Why’d Jamaica me cry?” And a small blue-collar suburb of Detroit was red-faced when I wrote about it. The city council named a tree in my honor, and suggested I would swing from it if I return, but it wasn’t a swinging town, so I didn’t. And the Chicago bottle club, two or three decades ago, banned me from returning to its show, but like a bad rash, the club’s anger cleared up and a year later, again like a bad rash, I returned. But, a couple of articles in AB&GC magazine covering bottle auctions in Australia resulted with emails with Travis Dunn, the chief the ABCR Auctions of Melbourne, Australia, and editor of the Australian Bottle & Collectables Review, a four-timesa-year magazine.

I asked him about a bottle shop in Melbourne, but since it was 28 years ago and I have problems remembering what I had for breakfast, I was a little fuzzy on the details. What year was it, where was it, how did I get there, etc.

So I emailed Chicago’s Jerry McCann for help. Now, Jerry’s knees are a bit wobbly, having traversed around the world, but his memory is as down-to-earth as ever. He told me: “The shop you went to was ‘Rocky’s Relics’ on 462 Waverley Road in East Malvern (a southeastern Melbourne suburb). The owner/operator was Rocky Huxley, since retired and enjoying life with his wife, June, in a country town in the old gold country of Victoria. You took streetcar (tram) No. 3 to the end of the line and walked a short mile east to the shop.”

“Your trip was in late 1992 to see Phantom of the Opera, which was playing in the newly restored Princess Theatre in Melbourne. Your ticket to Australia was a free ticket given to you by taking a European flight on Northwest Airlines.” Thanks, Jerry, but where did I leave my glasses this morning?

But I do remember the Aussie visit well, traveling around and doing unusual things. Saw the Phantom, yes, again, and sat on a beach at dusk and witnessed the return from the ocean by a few thousand little penguins who waddle up the shore and into the dunes after they return from a day of fishing. (And if you are quiet, they’ll ignore you and walk right by you.)

I also went to the “Giant Worm Museum.” Sadly, it has closed, complaining of not enough attendance, which is hard to believe. The museum was built in the shape of … a huge worm, of course. You think I’m kidding? Wikipedia explains: “The Giant Gippsland earthworm averages three feet in length, but has been seen as long as nine feet. It is native to the clay soil along streams in Victoria, Australia.”

PS: Did I get any target balls while in Australia? I was told by a knowledgeable Aussie glass man that there were no target balls known in Australia. However, within a year or two, I owned three very rare Aussie target balls, and one cost more than my entire trip.