Hamm's What the Hell is THAT?!? Page

Hello folks and thanks for stopping by the Hamm's What the Hell is THAT page. I welcome all comments and will sure post them here if you like. First off, I am not trying to be "the sign police" by writing this page. I have been involved in various facets of the breweriana collecting hobby for several years. From the very beginning up to about three weeks ago I have "shot myself in the foot" countless times on different transactions.

     To better define shooting oneself in the foot I would suggest from a collector perspective an instance would be purchasing that 1973 Oktoberfest stein with the Hamm's Bear on it for only $35 from that special booth in the antique shop you like to frequent and going to an advertising show (or my website) and seeing them new from the box for $7 or $11 shipped. A small instance I know, but add those up over a several year collecting stint and there is real dollars involved. Another instance from a collector shooting him/herself in the foot. I have honestly heard of three instances of this same story. A fella goes to a flea market and sees a large Hamm's Scenearama clock version sitting there for $700 and looks beautiful. He is a bit hesitant, but the last one he seen that clean sell at auction for over $1200! There is no power around to plug it in so he spends the cake and takes his sign home. The person he bought it from mentioned the motor does stick a little sometimes and when he sees no flowing water or smoke rising from the campfire he decides to open it up and see that there is no motor and over half the guts he was expecting simply aren't there. Yep, there is a large non-motion scenearama which was available for some of the good selling, but likely not as large of an account. We could easily start a whole different thread on the value of a large clean non motion scenearama, but I can promise you that 97% of folks who purchase the non-motion sign and devote the acreage of wall space required to hang it, will be looking for the motion version to hang in it's place. At $700, he/she has "shot them self in the foot". The bad thing is that it obviously sucks even if you use the excuse of "I am not a seller and I will keep it forever" to make you feel better about the expense. Face it, at some point, either when we die or heaven forbid there is a bad accident or a person falls ill of health, at some point these signs or your "investments" will be sold either on your behalf or someone you care for. Whether you are sitting in the back row of the auction or looking on preferably from above, you will want to see the most you can recognized from your purchases. The flip or good side to that is that each time the foot is shot there is experience and knowledge gained one way or another. Tim T. is getting a bit windy on this What the Hell is That page but this all leads to the reason I am putting this all out there.

 If I see a blatantly fake item represented as original it affects me in a few different ways. From a purely collector perspective I look back on all of the stupid purchases I have made and realize I really don't need folks going out of their way to persuade or lightly dance around the truth and con me to be stupid again. I think of new folks getting into the hobby, maybe visiting an auction site via the web or attending their first show. Sure, they don't know much other than what they like to look at. Hell, I wish I had more folks to bang questions off of at that point for a neutral third person perspective if nothing else. I see someone spend three times or better what I see the same item go for in different arenas. I then think of the crappy feeling in the pit of that persons stomach when they realized what the deal was and "shot themselves in the foot". I figure it is at that point the widget collecting, golf or bow hunting hobby they also were thinking about sounds a hell of a lot more mentally lucrative than collecting beer advertising. The same could be said on the opposite side by having a great experience in a first purchase with knowledge involved. This is where the seller/swapper/dealer portion comes in. For every new to the hobby collector who gets a sour deal and decides to shelf the hobby, those folks are also the same ones who would frequent a website like this and be a potential customer and thus a kick to my collecting potential and pocketbook. Nuff said on that subject. My intent here is not to upset anyone although I assume it will. I am naming no names, but those of you who frequent the auction sites will surely know the deal. I am placing items here that are either fake or aftermarket or had no affiliations to the Hamm's name whatsoever and also having an affect on the resale value years down the road. I will be purely informational with this as to not get in trouble. God bless our troops and the U.S.A. for freedom of truth in this case. Comments welcomed! email me at tthiel@ctusa.net

Sign and original Description	Comments from Tim T.
Hahaha... I'm still laughing about this one! ~Hamm's Beer Bear~ Large Wildlife Toon Photo Sign! This Great sign depicts that lovable bear flavoring up "The Land of Sky Blue Waters"! Great Humor here and we don't know if a bear poops in the woods but we do know that they have been seen whizzin in the river! Very Colorful! This is trully a Masterpees! Perfectly sized, it Measures about 12" x 10" and Its Like New. No Scratches or damage, Comes in a nice Oak* wooden Picture Frame with glass. It's a "Shot of the day", and This will look Great in your Bear Collection. Lucky winning bidder to pay just $6.00 S/H. Paypal*, Bidpay* or Money Orders only within 7 days of auction end. Dead-beat bidders look elsewhere, I read feedback and feedback is properly applied. -No Reserve- we have a real Auction here! Thanks for looking! Love that Bear!	Okie, yep it is neat. So save the large photo and enjoy it on your desktop. As I see it, there is about $8.72 invested with the print, frame and glass and I bet I am heavy on that estimate. This is a neat effect from a graphics program like Photoshop. You have a Pabst era barrel end sign that usually has the bear held out by a spring. Pull the bear and spring off, shoot a picture, use photoshop, buy bulk cheap oak frames and you too can make the several styles this seller is also pimping out on auctions sites right now. To be fair, I e-mailed and asked the seller if the sign was authentic or an aftermarket "did it on my mac" type project. His response was that he requested that I not bid on his auctions as he was unsure of my questions. Perfect spot for this right here. He has cleaned up the listing a bit. There is still no disclosure as to what the piece actually is. Is there anything wrong with this? Absolutely not, IF it is promoted truthfully, I would be all for it. Take a look at my site, if it is aftermarket, it says so! I like in the listing how he states "It's Like New" Truth be told, I wonder if the ink was dry prior to framing it is so New!
NEW HAMM'S BEAR NEON SIGN.TRADITIONALLY HAND CRAFTED GLASS. THIS SIGN MEASURES 25 INCHES WIDE AND 24 INCHES TALL. TRANSFORMER IS OPERATED WITH A PULL CHAIN. THE SIGN CAN BE HUNG OR FREESTANDING	I have no trouble with folks bending their own neon and trying to make a buck. Just don't disclose it as a new Hamm's Bear neon sign. Photo above describes what an authentic Bear Head neon looks like. Again, not discrediting his work as this is one of the nicer re-popped bear head neons I had seen. In fairness I also emailed this seller, he was truthful in his description, it just leaves a good amount of grey area, possibly enough to fool a less than knowledgeable Hamm's collector into saving $25 and buying his as he can always make more! His comments below: tthiel@ctusa.net wrote: Hello! I have a question. First, your personal work is really nice on the items you are attempting to peddle such as the "new Hamm's sign" Do you feel a bit goofy about offering these as original Hamm's signs when you know very well they aren't? It kind of sucks for the real collector and really sours the taste of folks new to the hobby when they find out they have hanging on their wall a repopped piece of someones garage work versus a true and valuable original piece of advertising history? Thoughts are welcomed as I am curious. Tim Tim, These signs are traditionally bent  by a licensed bender. I did not say they were original. Just new signs that are bent for people to enjoy. No garage work here. Also where can you find an original piece of art work for $250.00.