Hans Kettenburg's story of his acquisition of a rare telegraph key for two dollars, besides causing envy, brings to mind a similar situation but with an absurdly high value placed on the piece because the dealer was unfamiliar with it. At a recent bottle show, a young man was offering a clear, round glass jar about eight inches high and four or five inches wide -- a typical battery jar of the 1870-90 period. The jar had no top, but embossed at the base was "Watts & Co." (Watts was a fairly prominent maker of telegraph equipment in Baltimore from about 1872 to 1878). According to the label on the jar, the dealer had undertaken some research, and found that Watts & Co. was in existence in Baltimore as a maker of tobacco jars, around 1864. Thus this topless "tobacco jar" was displayed for sale at a mere $100.

As a "go-with" collector of telegraphy who would have liked to acquire that jar, but no way for a hundred bucks, I felt compelled to suggest as nicely as I could that perhaps he had misinterpreted his research. Contributing to this urge was the fact that I've smoked a pipe for about 40 years, and have used a few real tobacco jars over that span. They're opaque, for good reason. Anyway, my suggestion that a little re-evaluation might be in order was received with the comment that his research in a directory of manufacturers had turned up a company with the name of Watts, in 1864, and that was good enough for him. Case closed, go away! 

And I did. I'm not sure if there's a moral to this story or not, but I do know that this particular dealer's credibility as far as I'm concerned is on shaky ground. A collector learns or should learn to be wary of dogmatic claims based on partial information recorded many, many years ago. The dealer in this situation at least realized that he didn't know what the piece was, but his cursory research led to acceptance of what appealed the most, in spite of physical evidence to the contrary.* He's hoping for big bucks, but a sale won't happen unless there are some pretty gullible tobacco jar collectors out there. Since pipe smokers, like insulator collectors, are learned, brilliant, upstanding persons, that's not likely.

* How many times do collectors try to gain a bargaining advantage by pointing out flaws, missing parts, mislabeling or any other real or imagined deficiency? Can't blame the dealer for being a bit defensive when this kind of approach is made.