Remember when fast-food joints would entice customers with novelty glasses in the 1970s and ’80s? “Collect all four,” the ads blared.
Vancouver retiree Deena Fisher, 64, collected a lot more than that — about 6,000.
Back when she was 16, she worked for Fosters Freeze in Tulare, Calif. At first, she had little interest in the promotional glasses offered by her employer.
“You bought a soda and paid an extra 40 cents and they put it in the glass for you,” Fisher recalled.
Then came the glass emblazoned with her favorite comic book character, Hot Stuff the Little Devil. That one, she bought.
Her sister accidentally broke it and then couldn’t find another one to replace it. She gave Fisher six glasses with other characters to make it up to her. Thus began Fisher’s collection of pop ephemera.
“I’ve never had room to display them,” said Fisher, who served 10 years in the U.S. Marine Corps before moving on to a variety of other jobs. “When my kids were little, I told them I was going to sell the glasses … so I could send them to college.”
That didn’t happen. Fisher kept most of the glasses stored in boxes that she moved from place to place.
“You can kind of say I’m a hoarder,” Fisher said with a giggle.
A few years ago, after some frank words from her daughter, Fisher decided it was time to start letting her collection go.
“My daughter came to me and said, ‘Let’s get real. You’re old and you’re going to die. You’ve got to get rid of all these glasses,’ ” Fisher said. “My kids had been telling me for years that when I died, they were going to break them all.”
Fisher decided to sell the glasses for a good cause — college tuition for her two grandchildren, ages 8 and 10.
“When my grandson found out, he told me he bet if I sold them all I’d make $1,000,” Fisher said. “I told him, ‘Let’s talk closer to $60,000. I won’t just give you the money. You get to earn it. We will start a business.’ ”
She and her grandchildren run a booth called Old Glass Lady at NW’s Largest Garage Sale, which occurs a couple of Saturdays a year at the Clark County Event Center at the Fairgrounds.
Fisher considered selling the glasses online. But as a former shipping clerk, she quickly determined packaging and postage would eat up profits, especially on glasses priced at $5.
The glasses can sell for much more, though. Fisher said she sets prices by referring to a 20-year-old printed catalog, but also has her grandkids look up going rates on eBay, where a gold-rimmed Kentucky Fried Chicken mug like one in her collection recently sold for $2,400.
Fisher has so many glasses she can’t haul them all to events, so she often takes phone numbers from prospective customers who are looking for something in particular. She rummages through the boxes in her garage and gets back to them later.
She said she sells about 100 glasses at each event, so it will take some time to liquidate her collection. Meanwhile, she displays her favorites on a bookshelf at home.
About 20 years after she bought her first glass and her sister broke it, Fisher found another one with the cartoon devil Hot Stuff.
“He’s one I’m keeping,” she said.
