Antique Bottles

Smoke

Smoke

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Does anyone here collect antique bottles? I don't have a lot but I do have maybe forty of fifty. Mostly peppersauce bottles and soda bottles. A few inkwells and some misc.

I don't have any pictures but I can get some shots if there is interest in exchanging pictures?
 
Back in the day, I used to scuba dive in Lake Geneva, WI, to look for old whiskey bottles. People had been tossing them off their pleasure craft for well over 100 years. The lake is spring-fed, deep and clean with a gravel bottom, so the bottles wouldn't sink in the mud, and were relatively easy to find. We also found anchors, snow mobiles, cars, sunken boats, etc. I don't have a collection of bottles myself, however.
 
You didn't come across Jimmy Hoffa?
 
I still have a few that I dug near my summer place in Maine. I dont know if any of them are particularly valuable though.
 
I had a real nice collection of Seltzer bottles from the 12 Original Breweries in Buffalo NY and a handful of medicine bottles collected when hunting. I took them all to my Sisters House many years ago along with some unusual furniture for safe keeping when I was going through a Divorce. They are all displayed there for many years and her family enjoys them so much I just leave them there. Hoping she wills them to me at least :p

Grimmy
 
GrimLore said:
I had a real nice collection of Seltzer bottles from the 12 Original Breweries in Buffalo NY and a handful of medicine bottles collected when hunting. I took them all to my Sisters House many years ago along with some unusual furniture for safe keeping when I was going through a Divorce. They are all displayed there for many years and her family enjoys them so much I just leave them there. Hoping she wills them to me at least :p

Grimmy
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Are you talking about the seltzer bottles with a trigger for spraying into a drink? My Dad has some of those and the glass is fantastic. My Dad has the bulk of my collection at his home. we collected together when I was a kid and I left them all with him. 40 years later I get the bug again. Now I have my own and he has told me that the whole collection he has is mine when...you know.

It all started in 1994 when I collected hot sauce. We (my wife and I) had over 600 bottles at the end and the local paper did an article on us. I thought wouldn't it be cool if the had antique hot sauce bottles? They did. I started looking for them and found out that they are extremly rare do to the fact that they were nothing more than peppers in a bottle with vinegar in it. As the vinigar was used up they just poured in more vinegar and never threw the bottle away. It was common for a bottle to be used for a families entire life and actually be passed on having sentimental value.

Here is a shot of my wife and I when we were way healthier. 1994. Now its soda bottles and ink wells.
 

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Love the article...what a cute couple you are...and, a great write up...love how they did the article. With the bottles framing your photo. :o love stuff like that! Thanks for sharing...
 
Smoke said:
Are you talking about the seltzer bottles with a trigger for spraying into a drink? My Dad has some of those and the glass is fantastic.
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Yes Sir and they are from the 12 Breweries that started up in Buffalo NY after prohibition. While in High School I worked at a private bottling company that made soda. They were originally in the Beer Business before prohibition(Hammer Bottling). The owner and I were good friends and he gave me them. While I worked there we still made Seltzer water for local Pubs - It is a bit crazy when you pressurize them in a heavy steel cage and they sometimes explode. The colors and the etching on them were real nice though and if I remember correct he told me all of the good glass was made and imported from Germany at that time.

Grimmy
 
LOL, I have just one, a coca cola bottle from bellefontaine , ohio 3034A. It's clear glass I found an old cabin in the hills and dug around in their junk pile to find one whole. It looks real olde with heavy glass. A friend who was into old bottles said it didn't have coke but some other
beverage that was being produced at that time. I thought about getting into that hobby as i found it interesting but was into hunting and fishing back then. I brought it with me when I moved to seattle and have it here on the desk as i type this.

Loved your article in the paper :)
 
FYI -

01 December 2013 (Sunday) Bethlehem, Pennsylvania – Forks of the Delaware Bottle and Antique Show, Early Shopper time is 7:30 am at $20 per person. Show open to public 9:00 am – 3:00 pm. $2 admission. While in Bethlehem enjoy the “Chriskindlmarkt” at the new Arts Quest Steel Stacks Center in South Bethlehem adjacent to the Sands Casino. Show address: Bethlehem Catholic High School, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Contact Info: Bill Hegedus, 20 Cambridge Place, Catasauqua, Pennsylvania 18032, 610.264.3130

07 December 2013 (Saturday) Roseville, California – The 49er Historical Bottle Association 36th Annual Show and Sale NEW LOCATION!! Saturday, 9:00 am to 3:00 pm., Friday, Set-up and Earlybird, Noon – 7:00 pm. at the Placer County Fairgrounds, 800 All America City Boulevard, Roseville, California, Contact: Mike McKillop, 916.367.1829, pville1871@yahoo.com FOHBC Member Club

08 December 2013 (Sunday) Enfield, Connecticut - Yankee Polecat Insulator Club, “Beat The Snow” Antique Insulator, Bottle & Collectibles Show, Insulators, Bottles, Railroadiana, Telephone & Telegraph Collectibles, Lightning Rod Equipment. Free admission. Show Address: American Legion Hall, 566 Enfield Street (US Route 5), Enfield, Connecticut (Exit 49 off I-91) Contact Info: John Rajpolt rajpolt@earthlink.net

Grimmy ;)
 
We never did get to see those old radium bottles reported from Japan.

I never did understand how,considering the effort put into Radium's extraction from Uraninite by the Curie's,the Japanese had it laying about the place.
 
Thought I would show a couple pictures of my bottles. The first pic is of my collection of antique pepper sauces. 1840 to 1910
 

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Second wall niche is of bitters bottles on the bottom two shelves and whiskey on the top two.
 

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This wall niche has antique soda bottles on the bottom two and whiskey flasks on the top two.
 

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Poison bottles are in the window.
 

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I'm a long time bottle collector. I especially look for old cork top medicine bottles. I particularly like the ones embossed with a doctors name or a company. The more bubbles the better. Old amber clorox bottles and old blue Ball or Atlas jars with the clamp down lids. Ink and old perfume bottles fill out the shelves with a few old whiskey bottles.
 
I've found a few on my property in a washout,one is an old bromo seltzer and th other is a old water bottle I think
 
Here a pic
 

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I have one of those bromo bottles. Does yours have any lettering on it? Mine says: Bromo Seltzer Emerson Drug Co. Toronto,Ont.

I'd show some pics but my maid ran off with my photographer.:D I'll dust them off and get it done.
 
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