As reported back in March, the British department store Selfridges partnered with HP Foods and Monty Python’s Spamalot to raise monies for Tommy’s the baby charity by selling a limited number of HP Sauce Spamalot bottles exclusively at the Oxford street Selfridges store in London, England.

On Saturday, March 10th, 2007 classic HP Sauce came together with the legendary Monty Python to celebrate the self-proclaimed “first 1075 years” of “Monty Python’s Spamalot” with the introduction of 1,075 limited edition HP Spamalot Sauce bottles. This limited edition HP Sauce bottle features a unique design inspired by the hit West End show “Monty Python’s Spamalot” and is presented in a blue collectors box, each containing a numbered certificate of authenticity. The bottle was sold exclusively at Selfridges’ Oxford Street store, London.

All proceeds from the sale of the HP Spamalot Sauce bottles are going to Tommy’s, the baby charity with HP donating all the product and Selfridges donating sales space & store merchandising.

Another HP Spamalot Sauce writeup can be found at The Alternate - Spamalot sauciness at Selfridges

The Selfridges HP Spamalot bottles were originally priced at £6.99 ea and quickly sold out only to reappear for sale within hours on eBay at many times the original price. It was here where I resorted (and resigned myself) to picking up my own bottle. More on that at the end of the post…

A Limited Edition HP Sauce:

This limited edition HP Sauce bottle comes in a simple, attractive box of navy blue. The box cover is neatly labelled at its centre in gold “Monty Ptyhon’s SPAMALOT for HP Sauce - Limited Edition” while “Exclusive to Selfridges” appears at the bottom, also in gold.

Inside, the 255g (200 ml) HP Sauce bottle is cradled in a padded shiny light blue fabric which gives the appearance of the bottle lying in a casket!

The bottle itself is typical of any traditional Birmingham made HP Sauce bottle with its squared off corners and white metal cap. Not surprisingly, it is the label with the Monty Python influenced design which sets this particular bottle apart from the commonly found grocery store variety. Typical HP Sauce labels will use only three sides of the bottle whereas this illustrated Spamalot label utilizes the space on all three sides. This required the addition of a smaller label at the rear of the bottle and is reserved for the placement of the Royal Warrant, ingredients listing and nutrition information. The label itself has a glossy finish and is of high quality.

HP Spamalot Sauce Bottle (all sides):

Although this limited edition HP Sauce was most likely produced months after Heinz acquired HP Foods from the Danone group in 2005 - the rear label clearly denotes this bottle as being made by HP Foods in Birmingham, England. I am tempted to speculate that this limited edition production run was of the last to be produced in Birmingham prior to the factory’s closure in March, 2007. I would be grateful to anyone who can shed some light on when this limited edition run was actually produced.

Upon lifting the bottle out of the box, I found a small blue “Certificate of Authentication” card which also denotes this particular bottles lot number. In this case, my bottle is number 167 of 1075. The certificate’s full text reads as follows:

Certificate Of Authentication
167/1075
This worthless scrap of paper is to certify that the bottle contained in this equally shabby cardboard box is one of a strictly limited number of superbly crafted souvenir bottles of HP Sauce issued especially to commemorate the first dramatic and historic 1,075 years seconds of Monty Pythons’ Spamalot at London’s Palace Theatre.

Proceeds from the sale of this Limited Edition HP sauce will go to Tommy’s The Baby Charity.
SPAM is a registered trademark of Hormel Foods, LLC., used with permission here.

Acquisition of the Bottle:

Over the years, I have bought & sold many items on eBay and the transaction to acquire the HP Spamalot Sauce bottle was essentially no different than any other. Although I would have much preferred to have contributed to a charity like Tommy’s by buying the bottle at Selfridges myself rather than lining someones pockets on eBay, this was essentially the only option open to me. Fortunately, the the transaction was smooth and seller promptly shipped the parcel to the address I had provided him. Assuming that it was on its way, I effectively managed to ignore my eBay email account thereafter for nearly a month as I had no other transactions pending at the time. I had also assumed that my seller had shipped the parcel via surface mail in order to save on postage and by doing so, he would have ensured that the travel time would have taken at least a month to cross the Atlantic.

After just over a month had passed, I finally checked my eBay’s email account and my old grade 8 English teacher’s words came back to haunt me. “You know about those people who assume do don’t you?” he’d tell the class “They make an ‘Ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’.” and sure enough, I had an email from my eBay seller dated almost 3 weeks earlier. He informed me that the parcel had been denied entry into Canada and had been returned to sender. “What do you want me to do?” he asked.

I was puzzled. Why on earth would Canada customs decline entry to a sealed bottle of HP Sauce from the UK? It didn’t make any sense.

As luck would have it, Dave, a friend of mine in Sheffield, England was about to visit his extended family in Canada the following weekend. When I informed Dave of my dilemma, he graciously agreed that if my seller could get the bottle to him in time before he left on his holiday, he would take it with him and post it to me after he arrived in Canada the following Monday. I was thrilled and I hurriedly sent off a flurry of emails (much to the annoyance of everyone involved I’m sure!). In the end, my eBay seller posted the bottle to Sheffield which arrived there on a Friday. Dave then called in a favour with a mate of his who then picked up the bottle on Saturday and delivered it to Dave’s house just hours before leaving for Canada. Once in Canada and sufficiently settled into his new surroundings, Dave posted the bottle via Canada Post and the Spamalot bottle made its final journey to my house, and arrived safe and sound some days later.

Going through all of this palaver was far more than any of us bargained for, and because of that, I would like to thank all of those involved, Dave especially, who helped get this limited edition HP Spamalot Sauce bottle delivered to me in order that I could share it on the site with everyone. Thank you!

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