Thursday, March 4, 2010

How rare is it?

After reading a comment made on the Wonser's posting, I thought I would examine the topic of rarity ratings. I decided to go back and post ratings that have been used in two well received published bitters bottle books that were published almost 30 years apart. Here are the ratings for the year 1969.

Extremely rare 1 - 10

Very rare 11 - 30

Rare 31 - 60

Very Scarce 61 - 100

Scarce 101 - 150

Common over - 150

Next are the ratings for the year 1998.

Extremely rare 1 - 5

Very rare 6 - 15

Rare 16 - 35

Very Scarce 36 - 75

Scarce 76 - 150

Common more than 150

It has now been an additional 12 years since the last publication for ratings.

How have our bottles stood the test of time?

Alex Von Humboldts Stomach Bitters 1969 rating E R, 1998 rating V R currently with 13 known it now would be considered very rare by both book ratings.

Dr. Boerhaave's Stomach Bitters 1969 rating E R, 1998 rating E R, currently with 11 known it now would be considered very rare by both book ratings.

California Wine Bitters M. Keller Los Angeles 1969 rating E R, 1998 rating V R, I believe the number in existance now would be considered very rare by both book ratings.

Cassin's Grape Brandy Bitters 1969 rating E R, 1998 rating V R, currently with 1 known (un-repaired) it now would be considered extemely rare by both book ratings. However counting the other 6 repaired examples puts it back to the original ratings.

Cassin,s Grape Brandy Bitters 1969 rating E R, 1998 rating V R, currently with 19 known it would now be considered very rare and rare by both book ratings. However counting another 4 damaged examples doesn't change the ratings.

Chalmer's Catawba Wine Bitters 1969 rating E R, 1998 rating V R, currenly I know of 9 examples, this would make the book ratings still correct respectively.

Lacour's Bitters Sarsapariphere 1969 rating S, 1998 rating R, currently there are 23 V1, 11 V2 & 39 V3. So variant 1 bottles would be considered very rare under the 1969 ratings. Variant 2 bottles would be considered very rare by both book ratings. Variant 3 bottles would be considered very scarce under the 1998 ratings.

G. A. Simon's Medicated Aromatic Bitters 1969 rating E R, 1998 rating E R, currently 3 known, one example repaired. Would still be considered extemely rare under both book ratings.

Dr. Wonser's U. S. A. Indian Root Bitters 1969 rating E R, 1998 rating VR-R, currently the number of examples known would be considered rare and very scarce by both book ratings respectively.

Of course adding different criteria will of course change the ratings even more; such as color, but I thought the results were interesting to compare.

6 comments:

  1. I have never understood how in the world those guys came up with numbers like that for a bottle rating system. Those kind of rarity ratings in my opinion are quite misleading and only the opinion of 2 people that far to many collectors buy into. In no way do they reflect an actual or realistic rating or consensus among collectors as a whole. A coin, stamp or almost any other collectible of 150 or less known would be considered extremely rare. If 150 is considered common then what would something like a Bromo at say 500,000 known to exsist be? Uhhhhhhh how about super common or maybe maxi common or how about beyond common, I give up...........

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  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. Sorry about removing the previous post I forgot to use spell check... rs

    I agree with GP, just how did these ratings come about.

    Now let me ask this - If there are say 16 examples of a particular bottle and it is considered rare and one collector owns 13 of the 16 examples does that make the other 3 bottles "Extremely Rare"?
    What if the 16 examples were owned by 16 different collectors? Would the bottle be considered common?
    rs

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  4. I don't buy this ambiguous "rating system" either.

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  5. Anyone have a guess on how many Henley's "OK Bitters" there are? I'm guessing ten+. Thoughts appreciated. THanks.
    -Rob

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  6. I agree with all you guys, but in defense of the authors of the books in question, I believe that the rarity ratings were an educated guess buy the authors after talking to a lot of collectors about what they had in their collections. ( as in Ring Ham).Also it makes the book more valuable as a guide, which I suppose is the end result....Sell more books...Andy

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