What!!! Pontiled Green Highland Bitters and Scotch Tonic
31 July 2011
You Have Got to Be Kidding!
This past Wednesday started off innocently enough until I received an eBay alert from Jeff (Froggy) Burkhardt about a pontiled Highland Bitters and Scotch Tonic. Jeff is great in spotting anomalies. See below..
Jeff states ‘Did you see this HIGHLAND? Only on for 24 hours & therefore never went the distance. VERY suspicious! Hope the buyer isn’t screwed. Have never seen a pontiled Highland in GREEN. If so, cheap at the price…if the buyer gets the bottle’.
A follow-up email from Marke Warne stated ‘I agree with Jeff. A one day auction says alot and no seller feedback did it for me’
The Ring/Ham listing is as follows:
H 117 HIGHLAND BITTERS (au) / AND / SCOTCH TONIC ( ad ) // c // 9 5/8 x 2 1/8 (8), Barrel, 10-10, NSC, Applied mouth, Yellow, Amber and Olive green – Rare; Amber and Olive green and Metallic pontil mark – Extremely rare, The Mansfield Drug Company, Memphis, Tennessee, Circa 1865 – 1875
Then I get this email and pictures from David Reed last night…
Hi Ferdinand, I met you at the Memphis National. I just snagged the super rare pontiled Memphis barrel a couple days ago. I’ve talked to many people about the Highland Bitters, and noone Ive talked to in the past few years have ever seen a green one with a pontil. I have talked to the go to Memphis guys and they told me it’s the only pontiled green one known. They tell me that the ones with a pontil are all amber and they are a iron or graphite and not open like this one. Its not a tubular pontil, but that like a Townsend sarsaparilla. This bottle is just KILLER! crudity, color, and condition are all great. It has millions of seed bubbles. Nice and clean too. Its green in all natural lights. Its a darker shade of green also. It’s the same color as a couple case gins I have. Get back with me and let me know what you think. Thanks, David Reed
OK…I just spoke to David and got the Jimmy…Story is that the bottle came from a 90 year old lady and showed up at a flea Market in Fayetteville, Tennessee. The eBay guy who bought it paid a couple of bucks.
This is certainly BIG NEWS! I thought my example was nice (see below)…it doesn’t even compare…
That’s one phenomenal find and story! A green barrel with an improved pontil mark. Just when your ready to quit looking on ebay, something like this comes along!
Glad to see it was a genuine listing and that David got the bottle. Looks gorgeous! The seller sure shorted him self with the 1-day listing. I threw in a bid and actually ended up being the underbidder, not realizing at the time there was only 7 hours remaining.
Great find best find of the year so far thank you
Peach ridge for letting us see this great
Barrel
One great barrel!! It would look great alongside my olive green smooth base example. Its already been said but this proves that it is still possible to find exceptional bottles on e-bay. Congratulations.