Page 49 - Issues131-133

Undoubtedly it can be affirmed that the 1950’s to the late 1980’s period was the golden age of our
hobby. Following those decades, several economic crises and many socio-cultural changes, in
many ways affected the passion for collecting diverse objects (for instance, stamps, coins, tickets,
among others) in Argentina. Hence, the production of miniature bottles drastically declined. As part
of this process, and contemporaneously with the closing of both clubs, the collectors were
diminishing, many of them quit the hobby, put up for sale their collections, or passed away, and the
collections were sold over time. Then, since the decades of the 1990s up to recently, only some
scatters survivals of both associations were collecting in isolation, and witnessing almost an
“extinction” of the activity. Hence, from being one of the leading countries in miniature bottle
collecting around the world our hobby was then only practiced by a few individuals. Since the
closure of both clubs, systematic collecting practically disappeared, and only just a few survivors of
that golden age remained active, such as Cartago Jorge García, Luis Pérez Accomo, and myself.

However, mainly since the beginning of the 21st century, fortunately, with diverse emphasis several
persons started to collect miniature bottles; new collectors emerged, and various assembled
significant collections. Some of them, such as Jorge Rey Valzacchi, have a notable international
presence interacting with different clubs and meetings. This has allowed Jorge to assemble one of
the most notable vodka (among other spirits) collections in the world.

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On 30 July last year, Carlos Parodi, a friend colleague from Buenos Aires, connected me with Juan
M. Barragán, a young and enthusiastic collector of whisky miniature bottles. In our WhatsApp chats,
he showed a great interest in linking together all the people in Argentina with our common hobby.
“Go ahead” was my answer. He immediately created a WhatsApp group with our known active
colleagues. With the idea of forming a new club, we quickly started to invite and sign-up our fellow
collectors. Surprisingly, we quickly formed a significant group of people who agreed to perform a
zoom meeting (Fig. 9) to discuss the idea of founding a new miniature bottle club.

Then, with several aims in mind, we had a meeting on August 16th. We agree to found the “Club
Argentino de Coleccionistas de Botellitas” (CACB). Among different issues, we discussed and
approved our goals, a behavior code, the club´s logo, and the committee. As seen on the back page
of miNiZ130, a foundation act witnessing this event, officially declares August 17th as the date of
the club foundation with our goals and signed by the twenty-two founding members. It is also
registered the elected committee as follows: President: J. Rey Valzacchi, Vice-President: H. G.
Nami, Secretary: J. M. Barragán, and M. E. Alvarez, L. Pérez Accomo, and C. C. Parodi as first,
second and third officers respectively. The well-known pioneer Argentinean collector A. Spinelli was
elected as Honorary President. Quickly, in a few days, a significant number of people with common
interest from all over the country joined the group. Several of them showed notable generalized and
specialized collections. Thanks to the current technological communications, we have had a strong
and very active interaction by meetings, exchanging histories and data concerning old and new
miniatures, and planning future national and international face-to-face events as well a newsletter
publication.

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