I have had one of these since the early 60's and I just performed with it last week. Inspired by Don Alan in the early 60's and Larry Jennings in '65, I bought mine for about $ 9.95. "flinnermagic" just sold one on ebay for $260. For an aluminum cup. Interesting.

Well, it is a classic beauty and Don Alan did use it most of his life but...John M. seems to be able to sell water while standing by the river.

Best regards,
Glenn Godsey

Hey! All you have to say is "Don Alan" and the price goes through the roof.

Don Alan

Posted: Jul 18, 2006 11:44pm

Nothing happened.

Some of us were not around in the sixties.....so we missed out....... I bid on the mentioned cups, but was outbid... I have actually seen the cups go higher.... by more than $100..... but I gotta save my money for the Sherwood Smooth Silvers if someone ever wants to sell theirs (hint).... I think the condition of the mentioned chop cup for sale had a lot to do with plus you are right, John Mendoza as the seller adds credibility to its authenticity.....

Not here, but over on an auction site somewhere in North America ...

The funny thing about the Master Cup, Jr. is that it really isn't rare. There were hundreds of them made.

I think it still goes back to the condition of the cup and its authenticity.. Speaking as a coin collector, there can be thousands of coins made of a certain type, but the ones that represent the best of its kind will fetch a higher price..especially if there are a limited number at the higher quality level....granted, there are more people collecting coins than cups so the ratio of collector to quantity of desired object has an impact on pricing.....

The problems I have seen with original Master Cup, Jr's that have been for sale is that they have been pretty used or beaten up.... So if I see one that is near mint (as in this case), I am willing to be a little crazy in the bidding.... But in my defense , there is usually someone else crazier than me.... In the past year, I have only one auction for these cups (at a lower price than this particular auction).........

That is often the case. The one in my collection belonged to Cal Emmett. It had been sitting in his garage, and somehow, some salt water got on the bag. Salt and aluminum are deadly enemies, and this raised a spot of corrosion on it. I took it to a friend of mine who is a metal worker, and he was able to buff the spot out, so you really have to look close to see it.

When Ken Brooke copied the Wheatley cup, he used the original as the model. But the bottoms of those are often loose. You can actually turn them manually.

I had a chance to purchase a Master Cup, Jr. that belonged to Mike Rogers, while I was at the MCA meeting in Vegas. I didn't do it. Instead, I made sure that got into the hands of another collector who needed one -- he specializes in chop cups and wands. Mike's cup was painted black on the inside.

Don's own personal Master Cup, Jr, that I saw him working with in 1974 had been hit on the edge of the table so hard that the rim was all beaten out of shape.

Could it be that they have become rare for that very reason? Because they were inexpensive and plentiful, people didn't value them highly and they were discarded and abused. I also think that the hyped Rings and Things "Don Alan Cup" probably led to many people switching to the new design and carelessly discarding the original classic.

I haven't seen any Master Cup Jr.s in use, other than my own, for decades. But, I have always loved the proportion and the the classic look and I never considered switching. I have always carefully kept mine in a box in my old close-up case. Frankly, I always thought that the RNT design was ugly. No offense intended to anyone.

Best regards,
Glenn Godsey

Who knows? The main advantages of the Rings and Things cups were that the gaffus never came loose in them and that they would hold a three inch ball without difficulty.

Well, the gaff has never become loose in my Master cup after 40 plus years of use. I am happy with the size of my ball loads...I use the Jennings routine which I learned in 1965, and the color of the first large load ball needs to match the color of the silk. I was lucky to find a fine gentleman's silk handkerchief in a beautiful rich blue and a rubber 2 3/8" play ball of near identical color. I bought several of the blue balls and several other colors for the second load. They are all still good after four decades and I performed with them last week.

The esthetic problem that I have with the RNT design is that there is no bead on the rim and the cup looks too large (to me) for the intimate Jennings routine. Since you performed the chop cup at Renaissance fairs, you probably do a bigger and broader routine and large loads would be desirable. Of course, I am aware that you used the period looking leather cup.

Best regards,
Glenn Godsey

Don Alan regularly went through many "chop cups" in his career because of the severe banging each endured.

Julie (formerly of Chicago)

I never had a problem loading the big ball into the cup, when I used the Don Alan cup. My routine was basically the Don Alan routine with my own lines. The Jennings routine would be impractical with it, though, for a number of reasons.

Working out of a gibeciere gave me an advantage, of course. I used three billiard balls in succession out of the cup.

I have one that Ron Wilson gave to me. I also have the ORIGINAL cup made in bamboo with the black balls.

I have an original one also, but mine has white balls instead of black ones.

Glenn,
we'll be releasing the stubby copper version with a rolled bead as we had planned some time ago. It just wasn't pressing item as we had the stainless readily available. We should have the stubbys ready sometime in August, we also plan on making a brass version.

I have an original Al Wheatly Jr cup with a couple of small dings on the saddle, nothing very big, I'd let it go for 225.00 if anyone wants it Gaff is intact.

A lot have been up for auction over the past year that were in the UK. Also the way to tell the KB version from the AW is the mouth bead, Ken's was about half the size as the AW cup. Ken Brooke also made 3 different size cups, First the Highball came out, then the stubby, like the AW then there was another release of a cup that was in between the highball and stubby. You see a lot of these around on ebay coming from the UK as well.

Also, the bottom of the Ken Brooke cup was thicker. And quite often, it is movable.

I paid $12.50 for my cup back in the 1960's and that was a lot of money back then!

I also purchased a Ken Brooke cup, he sent me the short master cup. I did not care for it as the inside bottom was to tell tale. So I traded it off as just an ordinary Chop Cup, Morrissey made them identical to Brooke's, I really thought he just got them from Morrissey. So there is an unknown Brooke chop cup out there somewhere. He did not mark them so no way to tell.

I still have my original tall chop cup sold by Martin in Illinios.

Any time you get ready to unload it, let me know.

Morrissey made cups for a lot of people. Supreme was one of their customers.

You weren't looking or bidding.