A 32 year old Sesquecentennial bottle

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I would like to know if an old Jim Beam Bourbon Whiskey bottle is worth value. It is made out of regal china.
It has the state of Illinois on it. It is number 145 and made in 1968. if any one has any info about the collectable value it may have i would greatly apreciate it if someone would reply.

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Your best bet for finding a "value" for a decanter is to go to your local library or bookstore and pick up a copy of Kovels' Bottle Collecting Guide. It will list the Jim Beam decanters and their "value". Remember an empty decanter is really only worth what you can get somebody to pay for it. Kovels' may say it is worth $30.00 but that is only if you can find a buyer for that price.
Mike Veach

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There really doesn't seem to be any recognized authority for collectible bourbon or paraphrenalia, such as there are for paintings, figurines, coins, stamps, Avon bottles, Beanie Babies, etc. I've found the best way to get an idea of the value of collectibles such as whiskey bottles is to watch how they do on the auctions at eBay (http://www.ebay.com).

You'll need to register with them to access the auction pages, but it costs nothing and you don't have to bid on anything (I say this with a big grin, you understand, as I've been hooked several times). By watching the closing bids, you can see, over a period of time, what real people are really willing to pay for these items. That's a better indicator than a guess from even the most educated hobbiests (or merchants, unless they're offering to buy). If you're using this as a "value guide", don't go by the artificial starting price. Look for something with several bids on it (that will nearly always be the case for a full bottle) and note what the item finally sells for. Also, be sure to keep in mind that the buyers on eBay are usually not dealers, so the price the item sells for is retail -- if you're looking to find the wholesale or liquidation value, a dealer would pay you about half that. If there were such things as antique bourbon dealers. And lastly, be prepared to be somewhat disappointed in what you find out.

=John=
http://w3.one.net/~jeffelle/whiskey

[cowdery]

While it is generally true, as John says, that there isn't much of a market for old bourbon and old bourbon bottles, the one exception is decanters, especially Jim Beam decanters, for which there is a very active collector market. Kovels' Bottle
Collecting Guide is one source, as Mike points out. A web search for "Jim Beam Decanters" should find many others. The only known complete collection of every Beam decanter ever made (there have been thousands) is at the visitors center at Jim Beam's Clermont, Kentucky, distillery.

As a rule, decanter or bottle collectors are not also, or necessarily, bourbon enthusiasts, as are the participants of this forum. And most of us have little use for an empty bottle of any kind.

--Chuck Cowdery (http://cowdery.home.netcom.com)

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Jim Beam Decanterados...
Don't go running off to Clermont, Kentucky in the hopes of seeing all those wonderful decanters. They're no longer on display in the public visitor center. I had heard that a Japanese collector had purchased them all a few years ago, but later found that they're all displayed in cabinets around the employee's dining area in the plant. Several cabinets. There are a lot of decanters in the collection (well over 600 if I remember right)!

=John=
http://w3.one.net/~jeffelle/whiskey

[cowdery]

That is too bad. They used to be on display in the American Outpost visitors center. Since that is supposed to be a complete collection, I guess there haven't been "thousands" of Beam decanters produced, but an awful lot, at any rate.

I don't believe they are making them anymore. I'm not sure when they stopped, but I think it was within the last decade.

Interestingly, and despite the mention of same in a popular song of a few years ago, Jim Beam never made an Elvis decanter. That was McCormick. They did, however, make a lot of cool car decanters. Those are the ones I liked.

--Chuck Cowdery (http://cowdery.home.netcom.com)