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sample minis

Over the years there have probably been hundreds of different sample ceramic
bottles. Some were accepted 'as is' and so are identical to the final mini. Others
were modified before going into production and some never got made at all.
Many of the latter were featured in MBC (http://www.minisnz.com/mbc.html)
and so all we have are black and white photos. I have kept the B&W photos to a
minimum in the article but all the samples we know about can be seen on MBL
at: http://www.minibottlelibrary.com/mbl/alpha/themes/sample.html

The Hoffman sample Cheerleaders were what got
me thinking about this article. Pete Gabbard
spotted these for sale on Ebay with the
astronomical 'Buy Now' price of US$20,000, plus,
of course, US$675 postage! These were already
shown on MBL but it was a small photo of the
whole group so it was good to see some decent
photos. This set was on sale at the St. Louis show
several years ago (2009?) and from memory the

seller wanted US$1200. These are almost certainly
the same six bottles as only two of each were
made and the vendor states: "I know where a
partial set are of the 4 that do not include the gold
topless and regular Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders."

Sticking with sample bottles of people we have quite a number that McCormick
never made. Above we have the Chuck Norris 'World Karate Champion' bottle.
We start the next page with three Ice Hockey Goal Keepers. Unfortunately we

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