The Lady Who Collects Shot Glasses
January 17, 2022
Lynn Mahlmeister has an interesting hobby — she collects shot glasses. Lynn’s husband introduced her to the hobby, and not surprisingly, Charles Mahlmeister was collecting shot glasses long before she was. In fact, Charles has been collecting shot glasses since he was 19, which means he has been doing this for 26 years!
Lynn’s collection includes around 200 to 300 shot glasses, all of which she’s collected in the last four years. Although it doesn’t quite compare to her husband’s 26 year old collection. Lynn’s shot glasses come many of the places she’s visited in the past four years, such as Oklahoma, Florida, Tennessee, Missouri, and Mexico. While she has travelled to many places, Lynn’s favorite place to visit is Tennessee, but that’s not where her favorite shot glass comes from. So of all of the shot glasses in her collection, which one is her favorite?
“The one my god-daughter gave me from Florida. Pointing out the glass, Lynn proudly pointed out the beautiful engravings in the glass.
Lynn says that other than her husband’s collecting habit, what got her into this hobby were the shot glasses people just started to give her as gifts. After receiving several as gifts, she just simply started collecting shot glasses intentionally.
It isn’t always easy, though. As you might expect with a hobby that involves breakable glass objects, along the way there have been some accidents and some glasses have been broken — “Yes, many times, too many times to count,” says Lynn.
Other glasses were unfortunately lost in a house fire that Lynn experienced earlier. “Yes, I lost many things in a fire, and the shot glasses just so happened to be one of them.” The shot glasses were just some of the things Lynn is sorry to have lost.
Although she favors her Florida shot glass, she doesn’t have a least favorite; instead, she likes them all, and as an added bonus, every shot glass comes with a memory of where it came from. She says her most favorite memory of acquiring a shot glass is when she went to Disney World in Florida and bought one there.
Lynn can’t imagine ever stopping her hobby or selling any of her shot-glasses, and suspects she probably will keep doing this hobby of hers until she passes. She said she would, however, be willing to pass on her collection to her child, as long as her child wanted to keep collecting shot glasses for her after she’s gone.
Charles Mahlmeister, Lynn’s husband, would probably agree.
“I’ve been doing this for a very long time and I am very glad that my wife is also doing it with me. I think that this hobby of ours is very fun and I wouldn’t change it for the world.
Even some of Lynn’s friends have enjoyed Lynn’s hobby. Rachel, who lives with Lynn’s family, said, ”Well, I think that this is a very cool hobby that I have even helped out on, and I hope her collection keeps growing and growing.”
