I bumped into an auction online that kind of threw me, so I thought I'd toss it up to the great minds here.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Extremely-Rare-1876-Old-Crow-Sour-Mash-1-2-Pint-Whiskey_W0QQitemZ300255419570QQcmdZViewItem?_trksid=p3286.m20.l1116
What this is advertised as is an 1876 bottle of Old Crow, for which the seller thinks it "may be one of the earliest specimens from the Old Crow distillery since its inception". The seller is so certain of this that $9,500.00 (that's nine and a half kilobucks) is the asking price.
There are several things that I think may be wrong with this picture, which is why I'm bringing it up. No, I have no interest in buying this; if I had $9,500 free and clear with nothing else pressing I think I'd be finding me some vintage A. Ph. Stitzel product, or Stitzel-Weller. Or some pot-still Herbst Old Fitz.
At any rate, this is what I'm noticing:
1. There does not seem to be any indication that this is from 1876.
2. There appears neither the name of the distillery nor the wholesale bottler. Were this from 1876, chances are it would have been bottled by the regional wholesaler, some of which are listed on pre-pro.com . Most of these distributors proudly put their own name on some vintage labels for which they owned sales rights within their territories. Distilleries did not usually bottle; it was George Garvin Brown who really got that off the ground, and even then he wasn't a distiller yet.
3. Age statement? (That likker looks a mite pale to me)
4. Proof statement?
Given the widespread fraudulent marketing of whiskey in the late 1800s, I actually suspect this bottle of being a vintage impostor, something put together over a century ago to pass off as the real thing and now hoodwinking an unsuspecting auction seller today. I'll never know on my own, of course, but with the research-oriented historians that gather here (Prof. Veach, Chuck Cowdery, Gary Gillman, John Lipman, et al), I figure someone might be able to set me straight on this curiosity.