If you have a 24 or 36 ounce bottle of Heinz in the kitchen, check the front label: it may be one of four limited edition "Celebrity Talking Labels."
Following the success of Heinz' 2003 "Say Something Ketchuppy" campaign in which eight consumers won the right to grace labels with such witticisms as "Meatloaf Enhancer" and "For the Burger That Has Everything," celebrities William Shatner, Lindsay Lohan, Terry Bradshaw, and Mia Hamm were invited to add their spice to the sauce. (FYI: technically, ketchup is a sauce.)
The celebrity labels debuted in September 2004 and are still somewhat plentiful, at least here in New England. But some have already turned up at online auctions, with one individual willing to pay up to $18.50 (8.50 for the bottle and 10 for shipping) for a William Shatner. (Star Trek fans, listen up - you can pay less than $2.00 at the supermarket!)
At any rate, whether you collect the bottles or recycle them with the trash, it's all for a good cause: Heinz is donating a portion of the proceeds to charity.
TV Guide's April 17, 2005, four-cover tribute to Enterprise sold out almost immediately. I ought to know, because I tried to buy one of the 250 limited edition sets available only at TV Guide's online store. But all is not lost because I was able to obtain the three newsstand covers free from my local cable company's office. Now, I just need to check all my friends and acquaintances to see whether anyone of them has the fourth "bonus" cover that was mailed to subscribers only.
The newsstand editions were "The Captains," "The First Officers," and "Heroic Crew," while the subscriber edition featured an Enterprise-only cast (Archer, T'Pol, and Tucker). For a complete description, check out The TV Guide Store
(http://digbig.com/4dmjh).
Only time will tell whether and how much the sets will increase in value beyond the initial $14.99 price.
Live long and prosper!
***
Regarding our previous article on glass insulators (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y203/m10/abu0104/s07), one of our readers wrote to say that while growing up in Missouri, she remembers finding "a nice whole green glass insulator and about 3/4 of a brilliant iridescent ruby red one." Anne took both home, but her mother threw away the red one "because it was broken, and kept the green one".
Led by the very real difficulties in manufacturing red glass and inaccurate descriptions in original company literature, authorities on the subject have long been divided as to the existence of red glass insulators. And only adding to the confusion have been the increasingly common productions of commemoratives, reproductions, and outright fakes - all in the tantalizingly elusive ruby-red color.
It is now generally acknowledged that some insulators may have been produced in red colors on extremely rare occasions, but most collectors are right to remain highly skeptical whenever confronted with any specimens, for the odds are that they are not genuine.
Anne, however, may have seen the genuine article, as Ohio Brass was purported to have filled a limited order of red insulators for "a southern state" (http://www.collectinginsulators.com/Reds/Reds.html).
About the author:
Michele Alice is EcommerceBytes Update Contributing Editor. Michele is a freelance writer in the Berkshire mountains of Massachusetts. She collects books, science fiction memorabilia and more! Email her at makalice @ adelphia.net eBay ID: Malice9
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