Where Have all the CUTTER'S Gone?

I received a mail yesterday from a fellow collector and dealer in Western Whiskeyana. He was wondering if I had any Cutter fifths that I wanted to sell. Cutter fifths? Hmm.. I took a look at my Cutter's and thought - sell?- heck, I need to buy a few, I'm kinda' short on Cutter's for a guy that collects western whiskies.

All of a sudden it dawned on me "Hey, where are all those Cutter's you saw on the tables at bottle shows?" A while back someone I knew always had a few Cutter's for sale, and come to think of it, I haven't seen a decent Cutter up for grabs in a while. This got me to thinking.....

I fired up the laptop and dialed into Western Glob Top Whiskies to take a look at any information I could find on the disappearing consummate western fifth.

Now things were coming into perspective. Heck, there were no less than 22 posts on Cutter whiskey bottles. The first post I read was from a collector in San Diego that had in one day purchased or traded for 2 Cutter whiskies at a BBQ and 2 more at a bottle show the next morning. This same collector posted a picture on the American Bottle Auctions site showing his color run of 5 star-shield fifths.

The earlier post titled "J.F. Cutter Star in Shield" showed pictures of 29 different Cutter fifths from about 5 different collectors. That's a rough average of about 6 Cutter bottles per collector.

Now things were getting interesting...

Seems to me this western whiskey blog has really made certain collectors more aware of the so-called lowly Cutter bottle. Why just the other day I was talking to a whiskey collector and he was relating to me the fun he was having putting together a "run" of Bottled By globby fifths. Why, Bottled By fifths? Here's what I was told by a beginning collector. "Its a way collectors that can't hack the buy in price of high dollar fifths can put together a grouping to be proud of. It takes as much time and effort to put together a run of lower value fifths as it does high ticket ones and the satisfaction is just as great without breaking the bank!" I don't even own a Bottled BY fifth, but maybe I better get one before they are all gone.

Don't even talk to me about color runs.... seems like every western whiskey collector I talk to has a color run of some Cutter variant.

Have you tried to buy a Star-Shield fifth lately? Those $100 fifths now start at $300 and go on up in price depending on the color. And how about the 4 piece circle Cutter, when was the last time you saw one of those for sale? These "circle's" are coveted and bought & sold in the parking lots of bottle shows - like they were McKenna's or Teakettle's.

Cutter OK's start at $200 - 225 if you can find one and the tool top version, that used to be a $15 bottle, now starts at around $100.

In this old collector's opinion the Cutter fifth has finally started to get the respect that it deserves.

So....... better start stocking up on those Cutter's -while there are still some left !!!