Virtual Museum News by Richard Siri

Virtual Museum News

By Richard T. Siri, Santa Rosa, California

The FOHBC Virtual Museum has been established to display, inform, educate, and enhance the enjoyment of historical bottle and glass collecting by providing an online virtual museum experience for significant historical bottles and other items related to early glass.

**************** What constitutes an antique bottle? When I started collecting old bottles, finding an inside screw-top whiskey was a big deal. Those bottles were 60 to 70 years old at the time. Collectible, yes, antique no, at least by the United States government standards. If you traveled out of the States and brought home items, you paid duty on them unless they were antiques, and that meant at least 100 years old.

Now those screw-top whiskeys are true antiques and look at the categories of collectible bottles that will soon be antiques. ACL sodas are a good example and we will be placing them in the museum. How about ACL milk bottles? I know collectors that specialize in World War II slogan ACL milks and they are of the age that the screw-top whiskeys were when I started collecting.

The point of all this is, placing bottles and other glass objects in the museum is going to be a lifetime chore with those that are doing it now. Ferdinand does a bottle a day and still has a business to run on the side. Alan and Gina have lots of collections to photograph when their time allows. Did we bite off more than we can chew? Seems that way sometimes. Hopefully, we can entice donors to get us to the point where we can have full-time people working at the museum so adding five to ten bottle images a day could be accomplished. But for now, it’s the best thing since sliced bread and it’s getting rave reviews by even non-bottle collectors. Let’s hope some of those people, like those who can pay millions of dollars for a ten-minute rocket ride, will see the value in what we are doing and give us a hand and be a corporate sponsor. I think we are showing great progress. Maybe it will happen. **************** Next VM Imaging Trip: By the time you read this, Alan DeMaison and Terry Crislip should have returned from their automobile New England imaging trip. As of today, July 24, 2021, they plan to leave Ohio on Friday morning, August 6th, to image the Rick Ciralli collection in Bristol, Connecticut. They plan to set up on Saturday, August 7th at Rick’s by 9:00 am and image 30+ items that Rick has been coordinating with Ferdinand. They should finish by 5:00 pm or so and travel to image examples from the Michael George collection in New Hampshire. By Sunday morning, August 8th, they should set up by 9:00 am and plan to image 30+ items, mostly pontiled medicines, and other items if time permits. Then, back to Ohio to start the editing process. When that is done, Alan will send the completed images to Miguel in Almaty, Kazakhstan and from there Miguel creates a draft template page on the Virtual Museum website. Then Ferdinand in Texas creates the display space in the museum gallery and pulls together the historical information and secondary support images. Then the piece is placed in the museum and an announcement is made to the public. Truly a global effort!

**************** VM Finances: Alan DeMaison is also the FOHBC Virtual Museum treasurer who reports to the FOHBC treasurer Jim Berry in New York. He provides monthly and annual reports to the board. I thought I would reproduce his latest report below.

**************** Reno 2022: Alan DeMaison will be set up and imaging bottles on Friday, July 29th, Saturday, July 30th and Sunday July 31st [Showroom hours] in the GSR Summit Pavilion. He will do this on an appointment basis but will also consider walk-in requests if time permits. Be a part of the greatest new thing in our great antique bottle collecting hobby.

FOHBC VM Team: Terry Crislip, Alan DeMaison, Ferdinand Meyer V, Gina Pellegrini, Miguel Ruiz, Richard Siri.

Please help us in our Phase 2 fundraising campaign to continue development of the FOHBC Virtual Museum.

THE FE D E R ATION OF HISTORICAL BOTTLE CO L L E CTORS VIRTUAL MUSEUM

VIRTUAL MUSEUM

OF HISTORICAL BOTTLES AND GLASS

Phase 1 Goal: $30,000

ACHIEVED Phase 2 Goal: $60,000

$30k

$25k

$20k

$15k

$10k

$5k

PLEASE HELP US FILL OUR JAR!

The FOHBC and the Virtual Museum team thank our many donors who have helped us raise a little over $46k to date. We have close to $12,000 in available funds to continue development to build our galleries, exhibition hall, research library and gift shop. Donations are tax deductible. All donors are listed on our Virtual Museum Recognition wall.

With one salaried web technician averaging $1,000 a month, we need help. Plus, we will be planning new trips soon where costs will be incurred. All other time is donated by the Virtual Museum team out of our love and passion for the hobby and the FOHBC. Thank you.

Current Operational Account: $12,069.20 - Development Gifts to date: $45,996.48

FOHBCVirtualMuseum.org

For gift information contact: Alan DeMaison, FOHBC Virtual Museum Treasurer, 1605 Clipper Cove, Painesville, Ohio 44077, a.demaison@sbcglobal.net 25 July 2021

Visit the FOHBC Virtual Museum Today! Admission is Free!

fohbcvirtualmuseum.org

Probably the most interesting Pond’s Bitters advertising trade card of many. Reminds me of an illustration by Dutch artist and graphic designer Maurits Cornelis Escher (M C Escher). Is this Sigmund Freud, George Morgan Pond or someone else? The reverse of the card provides no answer. – NIH U.S. Library of Medicine