Characteristics Of Vintage Bottles
People everywhere and from all walks of life love to collect and use vintage bottles. And so they should, collecting vintage bottles is fun and engrossing while the end result of your efforts is a collection of venerable old bottles from yesteryear.
The vintage bottles bottles come in many colors making for a colorful and intriguing display. The most valued colors are yellow and olive greens, cobalt blue and teal blue, purple, yellow and green. The earliest form of American glass is likely to be black glass. The black color of the bottle was most advantageous because it helped protect its contents from going bad. The word “black” also can be used to describe dark amber and olive-amber colors.
With such a variety of shapes and colors to look for, it can be a treasure hunt looking for the old bottles in a flea market, thrift shops and auctions. Some people may be lucky enough to have vintage bottles already in their home among their old collections of stuff, such as the collections of old treasures that gathers dust in attics. You might try looking around other areas of your home, such as the kitchen, laundry room and garage to see if there are any old bottles there.
If you are a serious collector, you may buy vintage bottles and find yourself looking for them in the antique shops and searching the auction sites on the Internet such as eBay for that special find.
If you are just starting out collecting vintage bottles then you will want to know a little bit about how to identify one.
Most vintage bottles were handmade so you will most likely not find two identical bottles. The bottles will contain flaws and may contain bubbles in the glass. These are two characteristics that can make a bottle more sought after and valuable.
Other characteristics to look for along with color, flaws and bubbles, are:
- The age of the bottle. Bottles made before 1970 had lips that were handmade. You can also figure out age by the base of the bottle. Most bottles made before the mid 1800’s will have a mark on the bottom where the rod used to hold the bottle while the lip is made, is broken off the bottom.
- Design Or Embossing. It is more valuable if the design or embossing identifies date the bottle was made.
- Condition. Chips or cracks in the bottle lessens its value.
- Category. Medicine bottles, soda bottles, perfume bottles, ink bottles, alcohol bottles and druggist bottles are some of the categories.
Vintage bottle collecting can be profitable too. Imagine your thrill when your latest find turns out to be worth $50.00 and is very rare. The value of your collection will be the value of all the bottles that you collect, which over the passage of time can become quite large.
Collecting Perfume Bottles
Perfume bottles are collectible bottles. Quite often the bottle attracts more attention than the perfume in it. Do you have a hard time throwing away old perfume bottles? Are you a perfume bottle collector? Thousands of people collect perfume bottles ranging from new, limited edition designs, to perfume bottles from ancient times.
The beauty and design of perfume bottles makes you want to keep them forever. Once you have started to collect perfume bottles, you may decide to focus on a certain type of perfume bottle, a collection theme such as perfume bottles with flowers on them, perfume bottles made by a specific maker, or otherwise unique perfume bottles.
Knowledge is the key to collecting any type of collectible bottle, and this is true of collecting perfume bottles as well. You should either buy books on parfum or perfume bottles to make sure you know enough about the subject to avoid disappointments.
The Internet is a great resource for the perfume bottle collector. Keeping your eye on auction sites such as eBay will help you ensure that you don’t overpay for a perfume bottle or buy from an impostor. Auction sites can help you estimate the going rate for many kinds of perfume bottles.
When considering perfume bottles to purchase, check for chips, scratches or cracks in the glass. Run your hands over the bottle, sometimes your fingertips will detect a scratch that your eyes missed. Examine the cap, stopper or applicator to make sure it is free of flaws. A paper label should be firmly attached and without tears and stains.
Remember while collecting your perfume bottles that the packaging is just as important as the bottle. If you are buying new perfume bottles it is best to keep them unopened. Whether you choose present or past collectibles, the perfume bottle is both a treasure of beauty and a refinement of society throughout history.
While collecting perfume bottles is a rewarding investment, it is also an enjoyable hobby. You will want to keep your investment and and your gorgeous perfume bottles out of harms way. Display your collection of perfume bottles in a curio cabinet or other display cabinet. If you are not able to display your collection, keep all of your perfume bottles in protective wrap and in cartons.
Collectors know that their perfume bottle collection will never be complete or perfect. They are happy to collect the collectible perfume bottles that they want to collect, and that they enjoy collecting. These collectors find their collections fascinating and worthwhile.
There are different kinds of collectors, advanced, the inquisitive and the informal collectors. Informal perfume bottle collectors do not have a specific goal in mind, they just go on collecting. The inquisitive collector is one who is in it just to know the different kinds of perfume bottles.
Remember whether they are contemporary or antique, your perfume bottles will maintain their beauty as they increase in value over time.
Collectible Bottles
There are so many kinds of collectible bottles that it may make your head spin when you first start out looking at the different kinds of bottles. If you decide you want to collect bottles you will soon find a collectible bottle type that appeals to you, and then you will be on your way to a great collection. You can then start searching for the collectible bottle of your choice.
Poison Bottles
One of the many kinds of collectible bottles you can collect are poison bottles. These are dramatic collectible bottles which date from the 1870’s to the 1930’s. Since many people were illiterate in those days many people were poisoned by accident. Both the governments of the United States and England passed laws to prevent accidental poisonings.
It was the poison manufacturers themselves who took action as they had found that glass bottles were perfect for transporting their poisonous products to market, and the poison trade had really taken off. What the manufacturers did not only reduced deaths but created an almost irresistible collectible.
The manufacturers made their poison bottles unique and dramatic in color, shape and texture to ensure that the bottles stood out from other bottles on a shelf. Colors like cobalt blue, honey amber, black, emerald and several other shades of green were used to make the bottles distinguishable from other types of bottles. These bottles also had textures that were unique such as latticework, raised ridges, dots, diamonds, horizontal or raised ribbing, or hobnails. Embossed lettering warned, “POISON”, “DEATH”, “POISOUS” or “NOT TO BE TAKEN INTERNALLY”.
Starting in the mid-1800’s the pirate flag’s skull and crossbones was often used on the labels of poison bottles. Then, toward the end of the century, the skull and crossbones were embossed into the bottle. The most famous poison bottle was a bottle in the form of a skull patented in 1894 by Carlton Lewe. This bottle is found in 3 sizes from less than 3 inches to 41/2 inches in height. This bottle often has damage to the nose where the glass is the thinnest.
Early companies did not make a different bottle for each product, instead they attached a different label to identify the contents. Original labels in good condition enhance the value of a bottle.
Milk Bottles
Milk bottles are yet another kind of collectible bottle that is popular to collect. Many vintage and antique milk bottles are quite charming. Milk has been carried and kept in glass for centuries but it is not know when the first milk bottles were used in the United States.
The first dairy cows arrived in the United States in 1611 at the Jamestown colony. The first settlers of the United States knew the value of dairy cow quality milk.
Street merchants first delivered mild to homes in metal or wooden open tubs. These open containers let dirt and bugs get into the milk which created a health problem. People needed and wanted milk but it was not safe to drink impure milk and sometimes people would become sick from it. IN 1856 Doctor Louis Pasteur invented the process we now know as pasteurization, which involved heating and then cooling the milk in the process. This process removed harmful bacteria from the milk, but the problem of packaging still remained until the late 1870’s.
The earliest patented milk bottle is known as the Lester jar because it is named after it’s inventor. This jar was not easy to mass produce and this resulted in limited use of the jar. In 1884 Dr. Harvey Thatcher of Potsdam, New York invented a milk bottle that was a quart size with a glass top that was sealed with a metal clamp. Now the milk industry industry had a safe product that could be delivered in a sealed glass bottle.
Dr. Thatcher continued to make improvements to the way his milk bottles were sealed. Eventually he came up with the paper cap top in the recessed lip of the bottle. This improvement reduced the cost of the production and helped keep the cost of home delivered milk low.
As the sales of home delivered milk continued to rise, other companies started manufacturing milk bottles. In the Early 1900’s dairies started delivering milk to homes in horse drawn wagons. The milkman became a common early morning sight in all the towns and cities in the United States. Home delivery of milk went on for over fifty years and the glass bottle made it possible.
Milk bottles were made in all sizes and shapes. The early glass milk bottles had the name of the dairy embossed into the glass. These bottles were pressed into a mold which allowed the embossing.
The embossing method was replaced in the 1930’s with “pyroglazing”, which was a process that allowed color to be printed in the glass. Dairy labels now appeared in colors, usually red, blue, black and green. Other colors were used, but these four were the most common. Pyroglazing also allowed ads to be placed on the backs of the bottles. During World War II milk bottles advertised for the sale of war bonds and victory for our troops overseas. These war slogan bottles are prized by milk bottle collectors.
From 1900 to the early 1960’s the glass milk bottle was the primary container used to deliver milk in. It came in different sizes, shapes and colors. Eventually the milk bottle was replaced by wax cartons and the plastic jug, and home delivery has all but disappeared.
Other Bottle Categories
The world of vintage glass bottles in huge, and almost every kind of vintage bottle that you can think of is collectible. There are too many types to list here, some of them are Chinese snuff bottles, whiskey bottles, wine bottles, ink bottles and soda bottles just to name a few.
When you start out collecting it may be difficult to decide what type of bottle and what theme you will collect. But you will find a bottle type that you love and soon you will be on your way to a great collectible bottles collection.
Vintage Perfume Bottles
Pretty scents and fragrances abound in perfume departments, but it is the beautiful and intricate vintage perfume bottles that many seek. This is nothing new, people have been collecting these lovely bottles for centuries.
Archaeologists have discovered gorgeous perfume bottles in the tombs of the ancient Egyptian Pharaohs, and it is believed that the Egyptians were the first to incorporate scents and fragrances into their cultural rituals. Egyptians kept their perfumes in bottles made of the most diverse materials such as gold, hard stones and glasses of colors. The most used material for making perfume bottles in ancient Egypt was alabaster which they obtained from their neighbor Libya.
Antique perfume bottles were not created using glass until 1500 B.C. To own a glass perfume bottle produced back then was quite an honor as these bottles were reserved for only the very wealthy. Perfume was used on a regular basis in Rome, Greece, and Venice, all producing their own perfume bottle creations. In the 16th century perfume bottles started to be produced in England, Americans did not start producing perfume bottles until the mid-1700s.
In the 18th century designs for perfume bottles began to be taken seriously. Designers in New England began to experiment in the 1800s with different colors, sizes and shapes creating the wide range of beautiful perfume bottles that we see today. Throughout the 1900s collectors grouped perfume bottles by styles and designs.
There is a vast array of styles, cuts and colors to select from when considering and addition to your collection. Hand painted scenes are prevalent on bottles from the early 1900s, and gold details were used extensively on perfume bottles created during the Victorian Era. Because some of the perfume bottles were so small and exquisite they could even double up as a piece of jewelry, and in fact perfume bottles were extremely fashionable as decorations and enhancements during the 1880’s.
Here are some things to look out for when looking for vintage perfume bottles:
- Is the bottle made out of lead crystal?
- The glass dauber stub hold the top in place and can be used for large spot perfume application.
- Cork stub holds the heavy top in place and the perfume in the bottle.
- Glass dip stick attached to the top and is used for spot or swiping perfume application.
- Atomizer cushion pushes air and perfume out.
- Acid etched insignia or foil sticker on the bottom of the perfume bottle.
- The bottle shape is small or it can’t stand on it’s own like a tube or a vile.
- The bottle is unsymmetrical or misshapen.
- The overall condition of the vintage perfume bottle is another critical consideration. Vintage bottles in good condition (no marks, scratches, chips, stains, or cracks) will fetch a better price. The label should not have any blotches, tears, or discoloring on it. By the very fact that these bottles are old, vintage bottles in good condition are hard to come by. If a vintage perfume bottle is rare and has a minor chip, it should not be too devaluing.
If your perfume has any of these qualities there is a chance that your perfume bottle may be a Czechoslovakian, Victorian or French bottle of perfume.
When you are searching for vintage bottles of perfume, know the the styles and origins that interest you. There are plenty of books on perfume bottles, you might try going to your local library to locate a book that you like before you buy. Also, the Internet is a great source of information and is most useful.
Auction sites such as eBay are great to browse, even if you do not intend to buy. They are great sources of pricing information. You can search through antique stores for vintage perfume bottles and question the shop owner about any bottles that you find. If what the shop owner tells you does not jive with your research notes, you will know whether the store owner is reliable.
If you decide to buy from an auction site such as eBay make sure you ask lots of questions and that the pictures are clear. Make sure you have done your research!
Often, collectors are concerned about the contents of the perfume bottle. Many collectors wish to own bottles that still contain the original scent. Perfumes that are sealed will indeed fetch higher prices. Note that perfumes loose their freshness after 7 to 10 years, some vintage perfumes actually stink! Additionally, due to the alcohol content in the perfume, perfumes evaporate over time leaving residue in the bottle.
Vintage perfume bottles need special care. If your vintage perfume bottles are starting to turn cloudy from hard water minerals, drop a denture cleaning tablet in such as Efferdent, fill the bottle with water, and let the fizzing action clean it. The inside of the bottle can be cleaned by swirling lead shot or sand around in the water filled bottle, but you must be careful not to over fill the bottle so the water does not come in contact with the label and damage it.
Lastly, when storing your perfumes do the following:
- Keep perfumes out of direct light.
- Store in dark cool areas.
- Try to keep excess air exposure to a minimum.
Be creative when storing your perfumes so you can showcase your collection while keeping them safe at the same time.