John Wayne Mug Collection, ca. 1960
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GUEST:
My father was an associate of John Wayne's way back in the early '40s, where he probably met him at an illegal after-hours nightclub on the Sunset Strip. And my dad was a hustler. He'd been born in San Francisco after the earthquake, and he was a bartender, then decided to get into show business. He was in vaudeville. And he was a good guy. And John Wayne was even a great guy. So John Wayne had him as his kind of right-hand man for a long time. And all these movie mugs that you see here, my dad made with John Wayne. When you made a movie with the Duke, after the movie, every cast and crew member got an individualized mug with the person's name on it and generally a picture from one of the scenes of the movies. The only exception was "The Quiet Man," where there's nothing on the back, and just something from the front.
APPRAISER:
It is very rare that these come up on the secondary market, because they're so personal to people. John Wayne, originally named Marion Morrison, died at the age of 72, but left a legacy far greater than his years. In the '50s, he started his own production company, Batjac.
GUEST:
Right. My dad was there, and I visited their offices in West Hollywood many times. It was a fun and family affair, because he had his brother and his sons working there at the same time. And it was really a well-run organization. But the Duke never made much money from that. He just cared about making movies, and was not interested in making the big bang buck.
APPRAISER:
So the time frame for these mugs are the early '50s until the late '60s.
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
Most of them were hand-painted, and then, as we spin it around, we can see when they've been dedicated.
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
And so these were dedicated to your dad, and his name was?
GUEST:
Well, his screen name was Al Murphy. So some of them say, "To Al from Duke," or "To Murph from Duke."
APPRAISER:
So there can't be anything that has better provenance than coming directly from John Wayne. These come up for auction every now and then. There was a big estate sale of the estate of John Wayne in 2011 that broke a lot of records on these. Without the connection to these movies, Wallace Company made $20 mugs, tops. I love this one especially, from "The Quiet Man," which... as you said, it doesn't have a direct reference to the movie. It just says, "100,000 welcomes" in Gaelic, which is just wonderful. And it's also in green. That's the only mug that was a separate color besides the cream colors.
GUEST:
Right.
APPRAISER:
Do you have any idea of what they're worth?
GUEST:
I've seen some go for the lesser movies for maybe $1,000, $1,200, and some go for over $2,000. So I think it depends on the movie.
APPRAISER:
Absolutely it depends on the movie. We sold the "Green Berets" one for almost $6,000.
GUEST:
Wow.
APPRAISER:
And "The Comancheros" for $4,000.
GUEST:
Oh.
APPRAISER:
So altogether I would put an estimate on these of $25,000 to $35,000.
GUEST:
Oh, my goodness.
APPRAISER:
And they could even bring more.
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