This all started one Sunday morning after watching the A&E's Incurable Collector.  It was the "Ginger e Fred" cup by Federico Fellini that caught my attention and started this phenomena.  Here is some background information regarding the Illy  and its Collection Cups.  

Illy Coffee

Based in Trieste, Italy, illy cafe produces and markets a unique single blend of coffee and is the leader in both quality and innovation. It is available in more than 40,000 of the best restaurants and coffee bars all over the world, serving over 5 million cups of illy coffee a day.

Illy Collection

The intuition to unite the sensorial pleasure of a perfect espresso with the esthetics of a work of art resulted in the the first series of decorated cups in 1992.

From then on each year famous and emerging contemporary artists have been using the illy cups as if they were actual walls on which to express their own personal expressional and conceptual styles to create original masterpieces.

They are not simply decorated cups, but rather original masterpieces of contemporary art issued by illycaffè.

All the creations of illy collection will continue to grow more valuable over time clearly because they are numbered and have signatures of the artists while the cups that are found in the restaurants are decorated but not signed.

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