"Mug Life": 82 Awesome Mugs That Serve Beyond Their Initial Purpose (New Pics)

Mugs are one of those items that we tend to just have way more of than necessary. Realistically, you will never be drinking from more than one mug at a time, yet true mug aficionados could probably use a different one each day of the week without breaking a sweat. Like t-shirts, the design is simple, but the possibilities are endless when it comes to colors, designs, and even shapes.

Of course, the true sign of a mug fanatic is the steady escalation in size, as some people wield mugs large enough to become a deadly weapon and deep enough to fit an entire pot of coffee. While there is little academic literature on this, one wonders if there is a sort of dominance display happening when two mug fanatics work in the same office. 

These days, custom designs, just like the aforementioned t-shirts, can be made and ordered in print shops or online. While there is less control over the shape and materials, people now can have almost anything they want to be put on a mug, which turns this drinking item into a vessel and display piece of a person’s creativity. 

Part of the ubiquity of mugs also comes from the fact that they are great gifts, particularly for smaller events or if one does not know the recipient that well. Prices have a decent range to them, you know the item will be useful, and it’s often on display, so one doesn’t have to feel like the gift was received, then discarded. Plus, you can very easily add some personalization, like the aforementioned print or design to make it stand out from the millions of other factory-identical mugs. 

There are also people who take their obsessions a bit too seriously. Charles Hubbell was a Tennessee man who accumulated almost 30 '000 mugs in a pretty unique collection before he passed away in 2019. Hopefully, his collection was preserved after his passing, but at the very least, one could probably build an entire house just from the materials required to manufacture and paint 30 '000 mugs. 

Setting aside the modern office or tea parlor, the mug design is one of those truly ancient things we still use today. Clay mugs, made by early potters, date back to between 6000 and 3000 BCE, while there is some indication that the first wooden mugs were even older. After all, we’ve needed to drink things since forever, and scooping up water with one’s hands seems downright annoying. 

Early clay mugs suffered from how thick the vessel's walls had to be, so only people with larger mouths could use them without discomfort. Mugs better suited to our actual bodies came about with early metalworking techniques in about 2000 BCE, when gold, silver, bronze, and even lead were used. It’s a good indication of how important a good mug is, that the first metals were used to make them.