Beethoven's 10th Sympathy

MUG: Waechtersbach, Made in W. Germany, PMS Mud-colored, Composers Signature Edition.

COFFEE: None.

NOTE: As you should know, I collect Waechtersbach coffee mugs. In the late 1970s, they produced a limited run of mugs with the signatures of Classical Music composers on them. They also produced a run of mugs in a natural color that I admired greatly (I called it PMS-Mud, and painted my entire duplex interior this color).

I never saw any of these 'mud-colored' mugs in the Composers Series, and I never found a Beethoven mug I liked. But last month I found the combo above on Ebay at a reasonable price, a NOS mug. I won the bid. I was excited.

It was shipped wrapped in bubble-wrap, but in a box that was too small and offered no protection. The mug was shattered into about five easy pieces, and a couple of dozen of difficult flakes. I glued it back together (the face side was unbroken) for show and tell and 10th-degree sympathy.