I was just telling my wife the other day that it had been quite a while since I scored any kettles. Well the dry spell ended yesterday. Thanks to alert messages from a local fellow grillfella, I scored two fairly rare grills.
Around noon yesterday he messages me a FB Marketplace add for a green MBH.
The location of the seller is in San Jose, about 30 miles from me. I convince Mrs. Celler2ful to go with me as I would need her in the car with me to use the Express Lane to avoid the stop and go traffic. Have I ever said what a great wife I have? As I'm driving the seller keeps messaging me asking if I'm still coming. This tells me the seller is getting a lot of messages regarding the kettle, probably with offers to pay more than the asking price. Once I arrive the seller tells me she did in fact have a lot of interest in the kettle with one person offering to pay over her asking price if he could come get it before me. Luckily, she honored the deal.
Once I arrived back home, a quick clean up using Dawn soap and a SOS pad confirmed the kettle was in exceptional condition. I would say 9.8
I get done cleaning the kettle, take a shower and open a bottle of wine.
Sitting in our back yard admiring the new addition, I see that I missed several messages on my phone. Checking the messages I find the same grillfella has sent me another FB Marketplace add, this time for a Raiders NFL Edition Master Touch Kettle.
I show the add to my wife and her response is, "Your on your own on this one". I struggled with whether I should respond to the add as I had just started the chimney in preparation of cooking a couple of steaks. I message the seller and figure there is little chance I will be able to cook dinner, eat and expect the seller to hold the grill until I finish dinner. The seller, a woman, responds that I can come pick up the grill now. She gives me a phone number and tells me to text her husband as he is the one selling the grill and he just left to grab a burrito. She also tells me to text him immediately as someone else has responded and wants to pick up the Weber. Not wanting to push my luck with my wife by leaving with out feeding her, I text the fella selling the grill and explain I just put steaks on the grill, would it be alright if I come in an hour. He responds no problem and sends me his address. Sometimes, things just work out................
BACKSTORY ON THIS RAIDERS NFL EDITION MASTER TOUCH KETTLE
The seller acquired it in in a BBQ competition, prior to a Raiders game at the Oakland Coliseum. He was one of the roughly 10 competitors that were selected to compete by radio station KSAN. Each competitor was provided with one of these NFL Edition MT kettles to cook on and also received two tickets to the game. The competitors were allowed to keep the kettles after the competition. Weber, in partnership with the NFL used these "Tailgate BBQ Competitions" to advertise the launch of the NFL Edition Smokey Joes in 1995. Since he acquired the grill, it was always kept in a storage shed and was only used maybe one or twice a year.
I now have two of these Raider-NFL Edition MT kettles. This is the first time the two MT's have been reunited since that competition in 1995 in the parking lot of the Oakland Coliseum. (pictured below with my NFL Edition Raiders Smokey Joe.