At least some people know how to profit off of tackiness.
Carson Home Accents, a Pennsylvania novelty company, started making the Original RedNek Wine Glass — which consists of nothing more than a Bell Mason jar glued to a Libby candlestick holder — in March, and has already made $5 million on the product, according to CNN. RedNek has recently topped Amazon.com’s glassware sales list.
Carson first learned about the item in January, when a company staffer randomly saw a RedNek on sale at a greeting-card store.
The company then bought the licensing rights from RedNek’s inventor, Okie Morris.
“I use old things and give them a new twist,” Morris, 43, told CNN.
Because the glasses only cost $6.50 to manufacture and sell for $15(!), Carson has experienced an unexpected windfall.
“We didn’t know how big this thing would turn out,” a Carson vice president told CNN. “When we realized in the summer that we were shipping 100,000 glasses a month, we hired 20 more people to handle the production. That’s a 40 percent jump in our employment.”