He's got an arsenal worthy of Moe, Larry and Curly

UNION-TRIBUNE January 20, 2008 The Three Stooges and the Marx Brothers used seltzer bottles as weapons of fun. Antique dealer Richard Strell uses them to decorate his San Marcos home. Most of the bottlers are gone now, but people used to have seltzer delivered to their doors, like milk. You left your empties on the porch, and the seltzer men picked them up and put full bottles in their place. SEAN DuFRENE / Union-Tribune Richard Strell thinks seltzer bottles "have everything going for them" – collectible as glassware, advertising, decoration. People liked to use seltzer with whiskey, or any kind of fizzy alcohol drink. They used it for egg creams: chocolate syrup, milk and seltzer. And some people just wanted a glass of seltzer water – a two-cent plain, they called it. What really got me into the bottles was an auction in New York City about 35 years ago. I thought I was raising my hand to buy one fancy green seltzer bottle, and I ended up in the basement, where they had 300 bottles. I owned them all. Then I started collecting various shapes and colors and sizes. Back then, it was hard to find unusual ones, but when eBay came out, it kind of became a different story. All this stuff I thought was so rare wasn't. There are about 130 of my high-end, top-level seltzer bottles on display in the house. Any pink or peachy color is rare and nice. This one is a shape some people call Mae West or Aunt Jemima, big on the top and it flares out on the bottom. It's from Zetz 7-Up in New Orleans. One of my oldest ones is also the only example of an ovoid (egg-shaped) bottle I have. It's a clear bottle with a footed, or pedestal, bottom. It's from the 1860s. Now, if you could find one like this in cobalt blue – that's like the holy grail of seltzer bottles. Out in the kitchen I have a collection of bottles with colored labels. I like the art deco ones, from around the 1930s, that have drawings of waiters on them. The one from the Zebra Room, in the Town House Hotel in L.A., is maybe my favorite bottle in the whole house. And the Balboa Fizz bottle, that's from San Diego. If you take a quick peek in the garage, there are about 1,000 bottles out there. They were part of an auction on eBay. All I had to do was press a button that said “Buy It Now.” It was for a warehouse full of 18,000 bottles from all over the West Coast, which makes me the proud owner of some California history. Seltzer used to be a big thing. It's kind of a shame it's gone. Seltzer bottles now are mostly a decorative item, but they used to be a functional part of life. And a humorous part. Richard Strell was interviewed by Union-Tribune staff writer John Wilkens. If you have an interesting collection, contact Wilkens at (619) 293-2236 or at john.wilkens@uniontrib.com.