Where bottles are concerned I have found it best to supply the vessel and to let the customer supply the magic of the contents.
Case in point: A couple of years ago I headed up a project to replicate an impossible to find Whiskey Bottle from the movie Blade-Runner. I say impossible to find because people have been looking for it ever since the movie came out in 1982.
I, like many others before me, spent a great deal of time scanning shelves at antique and junk stores looking for it, convinced it was out there somewhere just waiting for me to find. I also spent many nights scanning page after page at E-Bay under many different search parameter's but never found it. I kept hoping that someone out there would find it but then it hit me...
Even if someone
DID find it, there was no guarantee that I was going to get to own it!
What I did was put the word out amongst the "prop" community that I was going to have the bottle made and wanted interested people to jump on-board the wagon and help me research the prop with the promise that, once we found a manufacturer, everyone involved would have the opportunity to purchase one of the bottles at a greatly reduced price from what the general public would have to pay.
I was contacted by my now good friend Jay and together he and I created a CAD Model for the bottle and eventually had 200 of them made along with complete label set's as they appeared in the movie.
Funny thing was that even after we conquered the monumental task of having the bottles and labels made there were still people who insisted that the bottle should come with whiskey in it!
You can look here if you'd like to see the Whiskey Bottle I'm talking about:
http://buffyprops.com/BladeRunnerWhiskeyBottle.aspx
Anyway, when all was said and done 78 people had a glass bottle with label set and cap for around $175 apiece.
Later I ended up selling these same bottles for well over $300 apiece and in most cases for around $600 apiece (I kid you not)
and in one instance I sold one for $1000 straight up.
My point being that there's only so much a person can do.
In the case of the Mou-Ping I have sought out a glass blower who is willing to recreate this very hard to find bottle
for me by hand and I have been good enough to post this offer around to several "Buffy/Angel" posting boards on the internet. I'm also taking on the responsibility of making sure that this bottle is accurate in every physical way possible, from cap to dimensions.
I'll be finding out tomorrow what the price per unit is and then gauging the interest to see if I'll have more than ONE made.
I know that I want one for my collection and I know that I'll have a few interesting choices on how to display it, but I'm simply not able to offer individual lighting per bottle!
I would say that those who are interested should be willing to use there own creativity to put the final soul-ful touches on the bottle themselves and if someone wants to wait around for another better offer to come along they are certainly welcome to do so!
I'll be posting cost per unit tomorrow for those that are interested.
Thanks again for looking.
