What does your dad collect? How about occupational shaving mugs? The funniest one we've seen lately is a Doctor's mug decorated with a skeleton (laughing and smoking, no less). We like the mugs that picture nineteenth-century equipment—sometimes it's a game to name the job. Can you tell how the man who owned this mug was employed?

This mug shows a telegraph machine surrounded by quaint pink posies, so its owner likely worked for Western Union or ATT sending telegrams. It sold for $120 last month at a Cowan's auction (the doctor's mug sold for $900 in the same auction).

Ran on June 17, 2009