Albuquerque and Farmington Finds

I recently made a trip to Farmington and Albuquerque New Mexico to visit friends and family.  Of course I could no go there and not check out the antique shops. The first picture below shows the entire cache of treasures I found. I am pretty excited about some of them.

All of the below glasses were found at a shop in the 12,000 block of Central in Albuquerque. 

I have a lot of A&W mugs, but this one has a Snoopy on the back. As near as I can tell the Snoopy is original to the making of the mug.

The below picture shows looking into the plastic mug.  It says HIRES int he middles and Always Refreshing To You .The little child's mug is Little Skipper Root Beer. I got it in a shop in Durango.

More mugs.  

These is a small shop about 14 miles east of Durango. That is where I found this frosted Hires mug.  Very cool.

A new ceramic mug to add to my others.

First Ted's Root Beer bottle I have ever seen. It is dated 1959. The Triple XXX1953 and the Dr Swett's is 1934.  Great find.

This little thermometer was in a shop in Durango. It is a bit rough but looks great on my wall.

Wright Root Beer

I recently got an email from Alan Wright asking me about Wright Root Beer.  Prior to this email I had not heard of it. There is not a lot of information on the internet about it.  I asked my friend in Iowa, Vince Payne about it and he had a couple bottles. He sent me the below picture.

I forwarded this picture to Alan. Alan then sent me a couple pictures of the Wright Root Beer collection he has been able to put together,  It is very impressive. Check out the below pictures.  If you have any questions about Wright Root Beer, or would like to talk to Alan about his collection, you can email him at acwright@comcast.net

Thanks Alan for sharing what you have found.  Now I will keep a sharper eye open and see what I can find.  Wright Root Beer comes from the Louisiana area. 

An Iowa Root Beer Connection

Not long ago I received an email from a fellow root beer collector in central Iowa, Vince Payne.  He has every bit as big a collection as I have.  He is the first true Root Beer collector, other than myself, that I have met.

Over the holidays he and his wife came out to the Denver area and I had him come up for a visit and a tour. It was a great 2 hours of fun.  He left with a few items I had that he did not. Well yesterday I got a package from him with some treasures in it that I did not have.

It is really fun to have found another collector and be able to share a few items with each other.  Here are some of the things he sent me.

 If you check out my post on MUGS you will see I have a pretty large collection. So getting the above three new ones is a treat.  Now I am out of shelf space and will have to add another one

These four cans put my can collection at 160 different cans.

I already have a small keg of 1919 Root Beer so getting this jug and the above mug is a nice addition.

I also got a tiny bottle of Root Beer flavoring and a couple Richardson bottles caps I did not have.  Thanks Vince.

If there are any other root beer collectors out there, please send me a note. I can hardly wait until I go east again so I can stop and see what Vince has.

A&W Coolness

Do I have the best wife ever or what. Not only does she put up with my sickness about root beer, she finds me way cool things like this A&W cooler in Logan, Utah.

We tell people we went to Logan to see a good friend, but my motivation was to get some Root Beer Float Milk from Gossner Foods. Very good.

While in Logan we saw an Antique Mall and my wife pointed out the cooler to me.  She even negotiated a lower price for it. I love my wife!

The shelf life on this Root Beer Float Milk is about 10 months. It is also quite inexpensive. The main thing is that when it is cold, WOW! it is like drinking the left overs of a root beer float after the ice cream is all melted. Next time I will buy a case of it.

But here is my new pride and joy. I can hardly wait for the next Church Root Beer Social to show it off. When I told my wife what I think it is worth she said I should sell it.  HA HA! Not a chance.

Too Expensive for Me!

Here are several Root Beer items I saw while traveling, but did not buy because they were very high priced.  I thought I would at least take a picture so I could say I saw one.

Very cool cardboard sign,  The next one is cardboard also. $700.00 for the pair. Ouch.

First bottle cap sign I had seen but $500 was too rich for me.

I really wanted this one but $400 was just to pricey for me.

Turns out I have one of these but this one was way more than what I paid.

East Coast Root Beer Treasures

We recently took a trip from Colorado to Ogunquit Maine.  Along the way we stopped at many Antique and Collectibles shops. We found a few treasures. We went to many shops in Pennsylvania hoping to find some cool Hires items, but we did not. What we found on Hires as in Ohio at the Heart of Ohio mall just south of Springfield.

Here are some of what we found.

Fist time I have seen:  HI-Top Root Beer and Leary's Root Beer.  This is the first RICHardsn bottle I had ever seen.  Finally, a paper label Hires from the 1930s and a clear ol'Smoothie.  I already have a brown ol'Smoothie bottle.

I saw a lot of Ma's Old Fashion Root Beer bottles. I really like the Walker's Root Beer.  I had not heard of this brand before either.

The Hires can has Roberto Clemente on the back.

Silverfross Root Beer mug, Richardson's Liberty Root Beer and a German Hires mug.

Two different Rochester Root Beer mugs and a Stewart"s Mug

I love Root Beer candy and found the Russel Stover at the factory in Abilene Kansas.  The other two I already have but bought more since they are not found in the Colorado area very easily. 

Howel's Root Beer sign from the 1930's

Hires Root Beer sign from the 1960's

All in all it was a fun trip. I saw a lot of things I did not buy, mostly because they were too pricey.  I will do a separate blog entry on those items.

Hires is ALIVE!

Went to Salt Lake City to visit friends on a mission.  Cindy and I had the chance to do to the Hires Big H
(www.hiresbigh.com) drive in hamburger joint.  It was really good. I had heard about it a couple years ago but this is the first time I have had a chance to go there.

I took a picture of this below sign that explains why the name Hires is in the drive in name.

I also took the opportunity to pick up a few other items, like the T Shirt below.

And when I paid my bill I asked if I could have one of each of their drink cups.  No Charge!  I like this place.  I had a root beer float, of course, and will definitely go back whenever I get the chance.

I also found a couple Root Beer brands I did not have.  One is from the Lion House next to the Joseph Smith building and the other was from Deseret Books across the street.  Then top it off I also found some root beer extract at Orson Gygi's.  All in all a fun trip.