“I Lost My Shirt”

I lost my shirt on my first piece of Carder Steuben. I was at a show and I was drawn to a booth with a large selection of Carder Steuben goblets. After asking a few questions, I indicated to the dealer that I was interested in purchasing several of the goblets. For some reason I decided to negotiate the price of the goblets individually rather than as a group. Being a very new and completely inexperienced collector I unknowingly selected the most common, least valuable goblet to start the negotiations – a Celeste Blue 1692 goblet with a colorless stem. The negotiations didn’t go very well and at the point I started to move the price in 50 cent intervals (in my defense, this was 35 years ago), the dealer’s frustration overcame him. He exclaimed, “Here, you can have this goblet for free. Let’s talk about the other ones you want.” while simultaneously shoving the goblet into the chest pocket of my dress shirt, ripping the pocket and ruining the shirt. It took us both a few minutes to recover but I ended up acquiring 4 goblets (including one for free – or so I continue to delude myself). And today, a similar dress shirt still retails for more than that Celeste Blue goblet.

Scott Hansen,
Stamford, CT