Zumwalt (On Pickles)

Between… Baxter's antiques picker find in Missy Adams' shed of the shelf of plain pickles together with the barn soiled cathedral pickle …and… Mrs. Abbott's very appropriate Maine coastal home decorative assemblage of three cathedral pickle bottles… one finds a third active critter; the old bottle collector... refined to the …old pickle bottle collector.
Generally young middle age males NOT decorative in impulse (excepting the intervention of "the wife") but outstandingly appreciative and sensitive to the "old glass" qualities of an old pickle bottle… the weight of their "Mr. Wallet" as collectors rests steady upon any cathedral pickle bottle. They "collect". They "keep". They "find". They "SELL". Constantly. Mrs. Abbott's three are their regular quarry. "Common" but "good", "saleable" and… "my wife likes them", these collectors defer to a select group within their number who actually …very seriously… "collect". Behind THESE collectors is a single book that guides them; "ZUMWALT", so stated.
Betty Zumwalt's KETCHUP PICKLES SAUCES 19TH CENTURY FOOD IN GLASS, Mark West Publishers, Fulton, CA, 1980 is THE reference book for old pickle bottles. Collector focused and comprehensive in scale, the tome obsesses to record every old pickle bottle there is, carefully describe it and, for most, crudely picture a specimen. The core of the book is an alphabetical compendium of letter embossed old (pickle) bottles. The NOT letter embossed bottles (such as Baxter's and Mrs. Abbott's) are given short space at end of the book. This does not diminish interest in these bottles or their value. For example, a non letter embossed AMBER colored cathedral like Baxter's, perfect, with a rough glass pontil… would be priced at six to ten thousand… or more and see very, very, very strong collector interest. (Mrs. Abbott's interest would be nowhere in sight.) Should that bottle be letter embossed… even more cash value. And even more, more; if that bottle be as described but NOT recorded by Zumwalt ("not in Zumwalt") and… (a must) be (uniformly acknowledged by all collectors without ANY qualifying) "AMERICAN"… even more, more cash value. But the word for this post is ZUMWALT.
Baxter knows "ZUMWALT" and did not need to refer to a copy for he knew that without letter embossing… his find had a DEAD SERIOUS cap on it's cash value. I did not need Zumwalt for the same reason. Mrs. Abbott doesn't even know Zumwalt exists and wouldn't care except to say something like "OH ISN'T THAT A NICE BOOK" if one ever bothered to show it to her. But: HER Mrs. Wallet is the one that …rests steady on the classic cathedral pickle bottles we have amplified in these posts. She IS the market top.
This book; "ZUMWALT". is valuable to these posts as a "should know about"; should know that the word "ZUMWALT" carries "must have" clout among old pickle bottle collectors and… know that the actual book is out of print, only found in the secondary market, sells for between $30.00 and $50.00, is high quality attractive hard cover in dust jacket and… should consider that the book may actually have an odd "Wow NEAT!" - one cannot go wrong - conversation starting - coffee table - back of the toilet decorative display value …in a northern New England home.