Original Russian Tea Room Ashtray PLUS Faith Stewart-Gordon's "Love Story"

• Rare vintage ashtray from New York's iconic Old Russian Tea Room
• Plus a First Edition copy of "The Russian Tea Room: A Love Story"
• Charming glass ashtray from the golden age of glamorous smoking
• The remarkable book takes readers inside New York's famous restaurant
• Ashtray measures 3 3/4-inches in diameter; book is a Scribner First Edition

Handle with Care, and Pass Down to the Next Generation.

Oh, how we miss the old, original Russian Tea Room, the glorious, painting-filled, elegant, samavor-studded, red, gold, light-filled palace, the New York City shrine to the art of vodka drinking. At lunchtime, theater, movie and book agents all chowed down together. Producers, names that appeared in the credits for good productions, dotted the room. Famous people swept in and became instant royalty. There was a sense as you gave your coat in on the left and queued up at the maitre d's stand that many important things might happen in this preserve of glinting caviar, buttery blini, and chilled-to-the-bone vodka.

Icons of hospitality and glamour, ashtrays from tables of the original Russian Tea Room have all but vanished into history. These authentic, well-bred ashtrays were used by the swells who called the RTR home, perhaps while lunching on Chicken Kiev, or while contemplating a Vodka Martini before dinner. Fortunately, a few authentic ashtrays have been rescued by collectors and offered here. Very limited. First come, first served.  

INCLUDES a rare copy of "The Russian Tea Room: A Love Story."  This recollection takes readers inside New York's famous restaurant, which was founded in 1927 by members of the Russian Imperial Ballet. Faith Stewart-Gordon charmingly recalls stories from the Tea Room, like the time when Dustin Hoffman showed up in drag for his role in Tootsie. Celebrity appearances are the draw here, and there are plenty of cameos from the restaurant's heyday in the 1970s and '80s: Sam Cohn, Woody Allen, Richard Burton, Helen Gurley Brown and Russian defectors Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rudolph Nureyev are some of the names that crop up in this delightful book.