Lot 1031: Ginger Beer. C. McAlister, Goulburn. Dump. Tan Top. Cork Stopper. Repaired. (New South Wales)

Repaired. (0). This bottle was sold back in Auction 57 with the following description: "The shoulder and lip have been painted, at some stage some of this has been scraped back to reveal a slightly lighter neck tan down the front, through this section there are no repairs. It looks like there have been some chips repaired around the upper lip only, possibly one of 10 x 8 to front left lip, and maybe another of 12 x 5 mm to upper right lip. Maybe another chip or two has been filled, it really is near impossible to tell as the job is extremely good, if the paint hadn't been scraped back it would have been impossible to tell. Minor scrape to base edge from making. A little minor discolouration. Some scratches and minor marks. Whilst this is repaired, I have a feeling it is only two or three lip chips, removing the paintwork will reveal the full extent. A rare bottle, I can't recall ever seeing one for sale. No numerical grading due to unknown extent of lip repairs, but should be somewhere in the good region as per usual ginger beers with a chip or two." The buyer has given this bottle to us to auction as he has decided to move it on to another collector. He did as we suggested and scraped the paint back to see if there was any neck damage, which there wasn't, and so he stopped before the lip - all good? Now that we can see this with the paint removed from upper body and neck we have noticed something that has made us investigate this bottle internally. This has actually had the entire top replaced from the sharp shoulder edge, a cut and shunt type of job which is brilliant! You truly cannot tell with this sitting on the shelf, even with a close inspection externally you would be hard pressed to see this. Extremely rare bottle which remains the only one we have seen for sale. Estimate: $300-500