TOYS OF THE TRADE: PURPLE CRACKLE OWNER COLLECTS UNUSUAL BOTTLES

Tucked in a back room at the Purple Crackle nightclub are antique cars, duck decoys, statues of Elvis and leprechauns, a sewing machine and phonograph, all holding a fifth of liquor.

Bud Pearce, owner of the Purple Crackle and also Pearce Realty in East Cape Girardeau, Ill., has an extensive collection of liquor bottles, totaling over 1,000.

"I've been in business since 1946," Pearce said. "When the companies started coming out with these bottles, I started collecting them. I really had no intention at that time of collecting this many. I would get one and put it away."

The collection grew.

"They are kind of clever. Most of them are really detailed," Pearce said. "You wouldn't suspect most of them are bottles."

In fact, it's a challenge to discover the caps for many of the bottles.

"Most of them are full," Pearce said. "But when I first started collecting them, I couldn't afford to. I needed to sell the liquor."

"Most of this collection is Jim Beam," Pearce said. That's because Jim Beam has been the largest maker of the collector bottles.

Austin Nichols, maker of Wild Turkey, is another distillery which made a number of the commemorative bottles.

He has a 10-year series of Wild Turkey bottles, shaped, of course, like turkeys.

The first Wild Turkey bottle in the collection, from 1971, sold for $20. It soon was valued at $360, a 1,700 percent increase.

But Pearce said he hasn't tried to determine the value of the bottles. He just enjoys looking at them.

"I've never seen another collection this extensive," Pearce said. "I know a lot of people who have some."

He bought two Corvette bottles in July, perhaps the last such liquor bottles to be made.

In July, the last company that made these collector bottles went out of business, Pearce explained.

"I don't know if any more of these will be made or not," he said.

Pearce has a 1959 pink Cadillac bottle. "I really like this one. I had a yellow Cadillac just like this.

"These Elvis bottles are all musical," he said, as he turned the music box key under Elvis's guitar.

A Japanese sake bottle has a geisha girl that dances to music, and an after-dinner liqueur is packaged in butterfly-shaped, wall-hanging bottles.

"This Jim Beam sewing machine is very unusual. I have never seen another one," Pearce said.

"I get a kick out of these convention bottles," Pearce said. The bottles depict the elephant and donkey of the Republican and Democratic parties.

There are commemorative bottles for cities and nightclubs. He has collected a series of bottles depicting outlaws like Billy the Kid and Wyatt Earp.

The bottles are shaped liked birds, horses, fish and even a Missouri mule.

"I looked for the longest time for that St. Louis arch," Pearce said. "Some friends came down from St. Louis and I asked them to keep an eye out. Within two weeks they found it, I think at a yard sale."

Pearce nearly lost the entire collection.

In 1980, a friend of Pearce's, the late Charles Harris, planned to open an antique car museum. "He wanted to display my bottles, too," Pearce said. "I had them on shelves in the package room and in corners.

"He displayed them at Harris Truck and Tractor. That was 1980. In 1982, my club burned to the ground. I would have lost them all," Pearce said.

Two cabinets of miniature bottles were lost in the fire.

"Charles kept the bottles until he passed away," Pearce said. "His family gave them back, and I bought the display cases and put them in this room."

From floor to ceiling, the bottles line the wall. A desk is the only other object in the room. "I come in here every once in a while and admire them."