My weekend visit to Bill Baab in Augusta, Ga. in September, 2003:
Just a short distance across the Georgia state line, in a beautiful section of Augusta is Bill's house...
Upstairs in his office, this is just one of the many cases of jugs and bottles in Bill's collection. The light from the window behind him and from the case itself put Bill in a bit of a shadow in the photo that I could not adjust out - but you can still see his smile. All of the bottles in this case are rare beauties indeed! And look at the colors!
This second photo is a little bit better, but still the shadow is there. Behind Bill, you can see the shelf of his straight-sided Coca-Cola bottles. There was another full-wall shelf behind me - also full of bottles. The fourth wall included jugs and demijohns.
The nicest part is that you can pick up any bottle he has and he can tell you all about it!
I can't wait to go back! (And this time, get better photos, and MORE OF THEM!)
A big thanks to Bill for an enjoyable weekend that went too quickly.
From Bill, re: his collection:
During the course of digging for antique bottles, I started digging stoneware jugs, both the stenciled variety and the stamped (where names or initials are stamped into the still-wet clay before glazing and firing). I started out with about a dozen and now my collection has grown to more than 200.
Most of my collection comes from Crawford County, Ga., where there was a dozen or so potters operating from just after the Civil War until the end of the first quarter of the 20th century. They supplied jugs to the whiskey trade in nearby Macon, Ga.
I also have six miniature jugs with names of Augusta merchants either stenciled or "scratched" under their glazes, plus five larger jugs with stenciled names.
Early in my digging, I excavated some English (Denby) inks as well as some French ones (N. Antoine et Fils, Paris) and a couple of American examples. I've still gotten these on display, as well as some Chinese tiger whiskey and soy sauce pots which also were dug in Augusta.
Contemporary face jugs (1970s-2000) glare at visitors from a dining room case, while sculpted pigs (some thrown, others molded) look like they want to say "oink" from another.
Augusta ephemera (letterheads, billheads, envelopes, post cards, photos et al) dating from the 1850s are mounted in acid-free albums.
My wife and I also enjoy collecting early mysteries written by Erle Stanley Gardner, Nero Wolfe, Agatha Christie and others.
All this keeps me busy, but I still find time to edit The Augusta Chronicle's fishing page one day a week, write a few articles dealing with bottles and pottery and go fishing at nearby Clarks Hill Lake.
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