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Now-famous 'Elvis Cup' could make Sylva appearance
By Carey King
You may have heard about him on CNN, FOX news or National Public Radio. You may have read about him in USA Today or the Washington Post.
But did you know that Wade Jones, the self-proclaimed "Elvis Cup Guy," has ties to Jackson County?
"Wade was an adorable boy, but he was extremely shy. You wouldn't know it now," said Jones' great aunt Nancy Browning, who lives in Sylva.
Wade Jones of Belmont, self-proclaimed "Elvis Cup Guy," displays the 28-year-old Styrofoam cup he says Elvis once sipped from during a 1977 concert in Charlotte. Jones gained national media attention in December when he sold the three tablespoons of water the cup contained for $455 on eBay. He and the cup recently traveled to Boulder, Colo. with the cup encased in a half-inch-thick acrylic box packed into a padded briefcase when a health food company paid him $305 to make an appearance at a benefit it was hosting. Jones said he's willing to bring the cup for a Jackson County tour, as well, since his great aunt Nancy Browning lives in Sylva. "If somebody called me tonight and said, 'Would you come up to the mountains?' I'd be there this weekend," Jones said. "I love it up there."
The source of his rise to stardom? Three tablespoons of water from a Styrofoam cup Jones says Elvis Presley took a swallow from 28 years ago.
"Of all the Elvis collectibles you can buy, I'm sure I'm the only person with water out of his concert drinking cup," the 40-year-old Jones told the Charlotte Observer Dec. 20.
A reporter from the Observer noticed Jones had put a glass vial of Elvis-touched water up for auction on eBay and called to interview him. When the water sold for $455 five days later, the story hit the wires and was picked up by papers around the globe.
"I had people calling from Reuters and AP news. It was in every major city," said Jones, an industrial automation salesman who lives in Belmont.
The Styrofoam saga began when Jones turned 13 and got the birthday present of his dreams tickets to Elvis' Feb. 21,1977, concert at the Charlotte Coliseum. He wanted to take home one of the King's scarves as a souvenir, but could only talk the policeman guarding the stage into letting him swipe a cup Elvis had sipped from while introducing his band.
Jones took the cup home, fastened a piece of Saran Wrap on top with a rubber band, then stuck the cup in his mother's deep freeze. Ten years later, he noticed the water had evaporated significantly, so he thawed the whole thing out and put the three remaining tablespoons in a glass vial topped with a plastic cork. He sealed it with a glue gun to keep the tube airtight.
That lasted until a couple of weeks before this past Christmas, when he heard that a grilled cheese sandwich bearing the image of the Virgin Mary had netted some $28,000 on eBay.
"To me, that was ridiculous," Jones said.
So he put the water not the cup up for a base bid of $100. Had he let the bidding go on a little longer, Jones said he's sure the media attention could have helped him reap a bigger profit.
Since the sale, the frenzy has helped Jones get a few new gigs going: Elvis Cup T-shirts can be had on his Web site (www.elviscup.com) for $20, and a Jones-autographed Elvis Cup photo just went for $76 on eBay. He also netted $305 by taking the cup to Colorado on its own personal tour.
"Since it's going this crazy, I decided I'll do something crazier," said Jones, who admits he's never made the pilgrimage to Graceland. "I'm not doing this thing like it's a serious issue. I know it's a joke."
The owner of a Boulder, Colo., health food company bought the tour, then flew Jones, his wife Amy, and the cup which travels in a half-inch thick acrylic case packed in a padded briefcase out for a 600-person benefit event that featured live bands and Elvis impersonators and raised money for celiac disease research.
"They paid for my airfare and transportation and hotel, and for security for the cup," Jones said.
Security for the cup?
"An off-duty policeman," Jones said.
Though he's postponed a recent attempt to auction a second tour in North Carolina, Jones now has agreed to sell the cup in an auction posted for one bidder only: former Beatle, now Sir Paul McCartney.
Wade Jones' "Elvis Cup" is one of the cups at the King's right during this Feb. 21, 1977, concert at the Charlotte Coliseum, according to Jones. The 40-year-old attended the show for his 13th birthday and said he took home the cup as a souvenir. He has since sold the water from the cup on eBay and is now offering the cup itself to one bidder only former Beatle Paul McCartney.
"He's the only living person I feel is worthy of owning the cup and would truly appreciate it," Jones wrote on the site for the auction, which will be open until this Saturday, Feb. 12.
The starting bid is $10,000 and Jones says he'll deliver the goods in person.
"I've said in many different interviews that I would never sell the cup ... but I have thought it over, and ... I know that Sir Paul McCartney is a huge Elvis fan, like myself," wrote Jones, adding that he'd be willing to donate the proceeds to McCartney's campaign against land mines.
How can he prove that an old Styrofoam cup is worth all this hullabaloo?
Well, for starters, Jones says he has "almost a 100 percent positive rating as an eBay seller." Then there's the concert photographs of Elvis and the cup that Jones says seal his case. And then there's the fact that representatives from Dart Container Corporation, the cup's manufacturer, have verified that the serial number on the cup's base indicates that it came off the assembly line sometime before February 1977.
"That's why I didn't even hesitate (to sell it)," Jones said.
Few people have been privy to the cup in the past two and a half decades, Jones said, and that includes his Great Aunt Nancy.
"It was funny. I was sitting in her living room two days before the auction closed," said Jones, whose mother, Bobbie Davis Jones, was from Cullowhee.
Jones says he visits Sylva four or five times a year.
He didn't mention the auction during his last visit, so Browning first read about the uproar in the Asheville Citizen-Times in late December. She thought it was strange that someone besides her great-nephew should have the name Wade Jones and live in Belmont.
"I knew he'd been to the concert, but I didn't know he had that cup," Browning said.
She clipped that article and sent it to Jones' wife, Amy, attached to a note that read, "Could this be our Wade?"
Jones said he might be willing to bring the cup on a Sylva tour should the right person contact him.
"I'd turn it down if someone wanted me to just come sit in their living room with it," he said.
Instead, Jones is thinking bigger-picture a business grand opening, a charity event.
"I inherited some land in Cullowhee so I've got to come up there anyhow. I'll just bring the cup with me," he said.
Browning, who still refers to Jones as an "exceptional child," said she knows how to get him here: her hot pepper relish.
"When he was little, he turned up his nose at everything I cooked until he tried it. Then he ate the whole jar," she said.
Would she be willing to trade a few jars for a glimpse of the cup?
"Most definitely," Browning said. "I want to touch it."
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