A Napier Tells-U-How menu cocktail shaker in silver plate with gilt fittings, made by the Napier Company of Meriden, Connecticut, circa 1929 to 1933, the recipe-dial form that stands among the most sought-after pieces of American interwar barware. The gilt-capped example is the shaker offered here, photographed alongside the silver-capped variant for comparison.
The shaker is constructed in three sections: a tapering cylindrical body, a bulbous upper section with four lobed quadrant panels, and a domed gilt cap lifting free to reveal the pouring spout. The rotating outer sleeve carries gilt-labeled recipe plaques arranged in a descending cascade around the body, a menu of the Jazz Age bar, the Orange Blossom, Palm Beach, Old Fashioned, Manhattan, and Gin Rickey among them, allowing the host to dial up a cocktail and follow its proportions from the object itself, a piece of wit entirely characteristic of American design in the years around Repeal. The base cap is stamped with the maker's mark and No. 398119. It stands 11 inches high.
Condition is very good; the silver plate is bright with minor wear consistent with age, the gilt fittings retain their strong original finish, and the rotating mechanism works freely.
Literature: Stephen Visakay, Vintage Bar Ware, 1997, p. 123.
A Napier Tells-U-How menu cocktail shaker in silver plate with gilt fittings, made by the Napier Company of Meriden, Connecticut, circa 1929 to 1933, the recipe-dial form that stands among the most sought-after pieces of American interwar barware. The gilt-capped example is the shaker offered here, photographed alongside the silver-capped variant for comparison.
The shaker is constructed in three sections: a tapering cylindrical body, a bulbous upper section with four lobed quadrant panels, and a domed gilt cap lifting free to reveal the pouring spout. The rotating outer sleeve carries gilt-labeled recipe plaques arranged in a descending cascade around the body, a menu of the Jazz Age bar, the Orange Blossom, Palm Beach, Old Fashioned, Manhattan, and Gin Rickey among them, allowing the host to dial up a cocktail and follow its proportions from the object itself, a piece of wit entirely characteristic of American design in the years around Repeal. The base cap is stamped with the maker's mark and No. 398119. It stands 11 inches high.
Condition is very good; the silver plate is bright with minor wear consistent with age, the gilt fittings retain their strong original finish, and the rotating mechanism works freely.
Literature: Stephen Visakay, Vintage Bar Ware, 1997, p. 123.
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