Don Mullally was born more than a long-time ago and he collected antique bottles when many collectors today were still busy being born. In a lot of ways Don Mullally was ahead of his time in a lot of the things he did. Not unlike a previous Ken Fee auction we did this year, this one comes from the way past, the boxes like tombs, holding history not entirely unlike those found in the Valley of the Kings. The plain truth about Don collecting antique bottles began when he was driving to see the ghost town of Bodie. He looked out the window of his car and saw an amber bottle on the side of the road. That bottle turned out to be a Fenkhausen whiskey bottle with a bear embossed on it. He was hooked.
There are still a lot of people in the hobby today that knew Don and saw him at bottle shows in the early 1960’s and through the 90’s. I don’t really remember seeing him much, especially in the last decade or so of his life, although I spoke with him on the phone. People knew he had “stuff,” but it had been so long they asked where he was, is he still around and what did he have? When his name comes up often a person will say fondly that they knew Don. He had good taste and tried to go after the best available. He was a deal maker. Not super picky, the early collectors of historic glass couldn’t afford to be picky. If perfection was what you wanted, you’d be better off collecting fine art. They got what they could and there wouldn’t be a computer to look it up for another 50 years. There weren’t even many books for the bottles Don was after back then.
Foremost-Don was a Naturalist, also ahead of his time for those days. He was born the year of the great stock market crash and grew up during the great depression. In a time of great strife, he saw the beauty of the world around him and wanted be a part of it and to help preserve it. His work experience included the Army in the Korean War, he was curator of the former San Mateo Junior Museum, a high school biology teacher for 20- years and a seasonal California State Park Naturalist for many summers. Don and a friend formed the Los Angeles Historical Bottle Club in 1967 out of Granada Hills. The club still exists today. As for collecting beyond antique bottles and art, Don and Mary’s hobbies also included collecting suiseki rocks and lapidary.
His whiskey flasks were the last of the great bottles he owned, along with some nice fifths and a smattering of other interesting pieces. Don was intent on having all the better flasks known and that included a very rare Wormser Bros. horizontal embossing flask with a champagne top. To our knowledge it is the first undamaged example to come to auction. A blue aqua Cassin’s Bitters was found there ironically just after we sold one that to our knowledge was the only other known example. Alas, it has a large crack in it.
This collection wouldn’t have been possible without Mary coming to our aid. Don had instructed Mary that his collection go to us and she made things so easy we are delighted to present it. Very honestly, she did as much work as we did. Mary is a fit and friendly woman whose joys in life were and are mountain hiking, gardening and family and lots of other things. Don had a way of finding beauty and enjoying it to the fullest.
Thank You Mary Patterson and Don Mullally.