The Howl Jones Price Index
As a collector of old books relating to the application of alcoholic spirits upon the human spirit, I spend a fair amount of time scouring eBay, ABE and Alibris, as well as some of the darker corners of the web. For instance, I recently found a cache of Soule Smith's The Mint Julep, (4th edition) for sale but I'm gonna keep the details to myself, for now. Not only are these sites target rich environments for acquiring things, but they're invaluable for assessing the current values of things already got. EBay is a particularly good resource for valuation-- it's literally the New York Stock Exchange of America's junk.
Here are some recent eBay sales that have caught my eye.
Jerry
Thomas 1887 $307.00
This caught my eye for 2 reasons:
The price (!) of course and it was mis-identified as "Terry" Thomas in
the listing. I'm curious if the price would have been higher without the
typo.
George
Kappeler "Modern American Drinks" $161.00
In
my 10 or more years on eBay I don't recall ever seeing this book, nor
have I seen it on ABE or Alibris. Another pretty bad listing from a
seller who most likely had no idea what she had. There were only 60 or
so page views for this item, and I know I can account for about 15 of
them. Yes, I won it.
Oscar
Haimo "Cocktail Digest" 1943 $51.00
I've
got a small selection of Haimo's books and this one somehow slipped past
me. I thought I had the cat by the whiskers when I scored a Cocktail
Digest from 1944, (it would become the Cocktail and Wine
Digest in '45) but this is something else altogether. Haimo was
one interesting cat, if his autobiography Nothing Lasts Forever
is to be believed. After getting rejected by numerous publishers, Haimo
self-published the Digest with the proceeds from a cocktail
competition. He did all the artwork himself and his is one of the first
published recipes for the Moscow Mule that I'm aware.
Bartender's
Guide and Song Book $80.00
This is one of those
Prohibition era books that jauntily eulogizes the good ol' saloon. It's
replete with the recipes found in the demised saloon and the songs that
accompanied them. You may have recognized the fellow on the cover: he
got "Doctored" up by Ted "Doctor Cocktail" Haigh and was trotted out to
help promote a lot of MoTAC 's
events and announcements.
The dedication still resonates:
Published
in sacred memory of those good old days when bartending was an exact
science, and you could forget your troubles on any corner.
Bottoms
Up $81.00
This just caught me flat footed.
Ted
Saucier's "Bottoms Up" $4.99
Flat footed
again. Here's an instance where a book listed in a less than optimum
category fell into the hands of a very (very) lucky person. The book
isn't valuable, nor is it particularly rare but this copy looks
absolutely mint-y and it comes with an equally pristine slip cover.
Probably worth $50-$75 but an absolute steal at $5.00!
The
Savoy Cocktail Book $405.00
The Savoy Cocktail
Book is one of the most collectible cocktail books out there and
for a number of good reasons. It's a great resource for the cocktail
historian but it's also just a beautiful thing to look at and hold--a
true object of the cocktailian arts. This is simply an amazing
specimen for a collector. Here we have a 1st edition, in really good
condition and it's inscribed by Himself. The famous "Bacardi
Cocktail" addendum is intact, and did I mention already that Harry
Craddock signed it?