Saturday Morning, November 23, 2024
Did you hear the one...
A horse walks into a bar. Shuffling along, he selects a stool and sits down, slouching, hanging his head. What'r ya drinking? Asks the bartender. The horse kept his head down not responding. Hey, continued the bartender, what's with the long face?
A neutron walks into a bar and sits down. What'a you have? Asks the bartender. A boiler maker, says the neutron. After drinking his shot and shooting his beer, he slams the glass down. Thanks, what do I owe you? The bartender replies, For you, no charge.
A priest, a rabbi, and a minster enter the bar. Behind the counter is a stripper. What can I get you fine gentlemen...Oh never mind. Not the time or place for this one.
1959 Piels Beer bar sign & clock - Come Back and See Us Again.
Bert and Harry Piels, aka, comedians Bob Elliot and Ray Goulding produced television ads for the Piels Company. 14 ½" H. 11 ¼" W.
Trommer's was a very successful brewery founded by John Trommer, a German immigrant, in 1897. The family survived and thrived the Depression by selling legal near beer, supplying the demand with an output of 300,000 barrels+. The fall of small breweries began in 1949 with the New York brewer's strike. It lasted long enough to destroy the yeast culture for the Trommers. They, like all small breweries never regained market share, quickly replaced by corporate giants. Large tray. 13 ¼" D.
Piels Beer bar bottle stand, painted white metal. Back pocket for cigarettes, perhaps swizzle sticks. 6" H.
Cute. Those, the reasons behind bar jokes. Some simple, some sexy. But all start with walking into a bar. Why? For eons it has been a standard setup line, the perfect spot, recognizable to all, and just maybe the fertile ground for these jokes.
This week's auction is framed by this theme as we touch another multi-generational home. Distant immigrants from Germany arrived in America backpacking the European talents of hard work and perseverance. Within this context, this family owned a bar in a working-class neighborhood. Thriving driving citizens focused on success. Plenty of work, multiple opportunities, life was for living. On every other corner was a factory. Between those corners were bars. Symbiotic. On the way home from work, a stop, a drink, friends, a working network. Life was good, predictable, insuring continuity and safety only a community can offer. The wellspring of stability.
German lithophane porcelain stein - personalized for Josef Bierbichler, woodmaker.
Hand painted design with lithophane genre drinking scene on base. 9" H.
Our House was a very, very fine House
Time passage is no friend to humanity. We resist the timberline, yet it exists. The home was a victim of abandoned memories. Narrow staircases with rickety treads. Aged wallpaper and faded paint. Darkened rooms, cobweb hung, dim more so from filthy windows and exhausted light bulbs. Wall-to-wall carpet, long past its high pile, now worn bare. And the kitchen, far removed from its Good Housekeeping days.
This home contains a multitude of ephemeral sports related items. The mainstay is wrestling, ca. 1960.
Wrestling magazines featuring superstars: The Bruiser, Buddy Rogers & Russian brothers Ivan & Karol Kalmikoff.
Within this labyrinth, the basement and attic held many secrets, a surviving repository of human experiences. The sun had risen. The sun had set. Lost generations only a glow in the twilight. Fishing rods and reels still held the hint of surf. Endless magazines and signed photos illustrated an adolescent obsession with professional wrestling. The Bruiser. Johnny Valentine. They and others stared back at us. We were once here and we meant something. You wanna make somethin' of it? Clocks, their tops dusted by age, their hands no longer turning, frozen by arthritis. One, a classic Atmos, perhaps an anniversary gift, still remained in its original box, never touched, a story no more. No need to keep time here. It stopped long ago. Of the many items, the clue to their livelihood was the advertising bar signs, still promising the best life has to offer. If only life were that easy.
Boston Brewers
From the nineteen-century into the twentieth, beer brewing was regional. As a group, they held their own until large corporations blitzed the market around World War II. This violation sent most small brewers into bankruptcy. Gone were the rich regional flavors, many based on European heritage. The King of Beers was just that, guzzling down entire fiefdoms.
Pabst Brewing Company mechanical bar display.
At one time a bottle sat in the slot on the left. 16 ¼" H.
One brewery favored by this German family was Piels. Its origins also Germanic, the brewing brothers arrived in America with a dream. To survive this corporate onslaught, Piels hired an advertising firm who featured the comedic duo of Bob Elliot and Ray Goulding. Bob and Ray were household names, heard on radio stations throughout the northeastern seaboard. Their start was on Boston's radio station WHDH in 1946. To fill time when the baseball games were cancelled due to weather, Bob and Ray adlibbed a show for hours, sans script. Their talent soon attracted many admirers. Among them, Piels.
Here they assumed the stage names Harry and Bert Peils. The duo spun their humor for the company into the late 1950's. But even this could not fend off America's changing taste buds. Piels and the German bar, faded, victims of time's passage. And so, the house sat untouched, until this Saturday.
Original untouched Atmos clock with packing paper and brochures.
Two people, unknown to each other, entered Brown Bros. Over the weeks they shared their interests and collecting passions. One Saturday, they greeted each other somewhere between the jewelry cases and display tables. Morning. Morning. They echoed to each other. What are you in for? Without hesitation the other spoke. At Brown's, well, addiction. I'm a lifer.
As we all have become. Doors open at 8 AM. Auction starts at 9 AM. PA AU 1265L [bb]