Old glass milk bottles are popular with collectors and antiques enthusiasts, and they make versatile and attractive decorative items in the home. Understanding which bottles are actually antique and knowing where to buy old milk bottles can help you sort out the treasures from the trash.
How to Date and Authenticate Milk Bottles
Before the advent of the paper carton and the plastic milk jug, dairies would send milk men out to individual houses with glass bottles of milk. The shape of the glass bottle, as well as its color, labeling style, and other factors can help you determine whether you have an authentic find and get a sense of your bottle's age.
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Check Your Bottle's Shape
Shape is one of the first indicators to look for when dating an antique bottle. According to antiquemilkbottles.com, the shape indicates when your bottle was manufactured. Take a look at your piece and see which category seems to fit it best:
Round - If the bottle has a round bottom and tall, steep sides, it was probably made during the 1930s or earlier.
Square - If the bottle has a square bottom and shorter sides, it was most likely made in the 1940s or later.
Examine the Style of Label
Your bottle will may have a label or some other identifying mark. These labels prevented competitors from reusing the bottles of another manufacturer and ensured the bottles made it back to the correct dairy for refilling. Although some older bottles may have no label at all, most do have some type of identifier. Look for the following styles:
Etched label - This is a frosted design etched in the glass. It may have been handwritten, or it may have been a stamp. This style could be from any era.
Raised embossed label - This style features the dairy's name or symbol in raised glass. Prior to 1933, manufacturers used a slug to add the glass design to the bottle during manufacturing.
All-over raised design - Instead of just having a raised design on the label portion of the bottle, larger dairies had special molds that allowed them to create bottles with all-over raised designs.
Applied color labels - After 1933, many bottles featured applied color labels with the dairy's name or logo. These came in various single colors, including red, blue, and black.
The label will tell you which dairy used your bottle, which can sometimes have an impact on the value.
As with any collectible item, there are reproduction milk bottles on the market. Some of these are simply modern decorative items or milk bottles used by modern dairies and aren't intended to pass as antiques. However, others are fakes of particularly valuable bottles. Either way, it's very important to understand how to identify these pieces. There are a few ways to know you have a reproduction.
Use extra caution with bottles featuring Disney images or war slogans, as these are frequently faked.
If a war slogan bottle is stamped with the date 1951, you know it is a reproduction.
Check all applied color labels to see if the paint scratches off. A real label won't do this, but fake labels are simply printed on the glass.
Note that bottles from Wheaton Glass Works are new reproductions used by modern dairies.
Where to Buy and Sell Milk Bottles
Because they were so common only a few decades ago, milk bottles are still very easy to find in antique stores, at flea markets, and even at garage sales. However, if you're a collector looking for a specific style or era, you may have better luck buying or selling a bottle on the Internet. The following retailers are a good place to start your search:
Milkbottlesforsale.com - This is a site run by a milk bottle collector and is devoted to particularly desirable and valuable bottles. All the bottles are authenticated, and the descriptions include all important identifying information.
The Milk Maid - Specializing in antique bottles from Pennsylvania, this site also carries bottles from other states. You'll find other related items as well including caps, milk bottle carriers, and more.
eBay - eBay has hundreds of listings for antique milk bottles, and the selection changes all the time. It's important to ensure that you milk bottle is authentic as soon as you receive it, since this is a common place to sell fake bottles.
Ruby Lane - This online antique mall also has a good selection of old milk bottles from different eras. You'll also discover associated collectibles like caps and carriers.
Before you buy or sell a milk bottle, it helps to know how much it's worth. These bottles can range from about $10 to $200 or more, depending on a number of factors. Assigning value to your bottle isn't an exact science, but it's important to get some sense of the price it should fetch. This process can help.
Check the Condition
Check the bottle's condition. Chips and cracks will greatly reduce your bottle's value, as will excessive wear from rattling in the milk case. However, all used milk bottles will show some scratches.
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Determine if It's Rare
See if you have a rare bottle. Unfortunately, rare bottles are vulnerable to reproduction, but authentic pieces can fetch top dollar. According to Collector's Weekly, these include the following types:
Early glass bottles featuring a domed glass lid and a metal bail
Bottles made of white or green vintage milk glass, rather than standard clear or amber
Thatcher brand milk bottles with an embossed label of a cow and farmer
Bottles featuring Walt Disney characters and images, Hopalong Cassidy, and other popular characters
Bottles with labels that have war slogans
Examine Current Pricing
When you've dated your bottle and examined its condition, you can look at current pricing for similar bottles on eBay and from sites specializing in milk bottles. This will give you a general idea about the value of your bottle.
Consider a Professional Appraisal
If you have a rare bottle, it may be worthwhile to get a professional appraisal. Although few appraisers specialize in milk bottles, many are qualified to assess value. Ask the appraiser if he or she has experience in determining the value of old bottles before you decide to have your piece appraised.
Ask for recommendations of local appraisers at antique stores in your area.
A Satisfying Hobby
Whether you're a serious collector in search of really rare bottles or a casual enthusiast who loves buying area antiques, there are thousands of these bottles to choose from. Educating yourself about old bottle identification and the market in general will help make this an even more satisfying hobby. In fact, you might as well explore rare, valuable jars too!
Before you buy or sell a milk bottle, it helps to know how much it's worth. These bottles can range from about $10 to $200 or more, depending on a number of factors. Assigning value to your bottle isn't an exact science, but it's important to get some sense of the price it should fetch.
The earlier bottles can be identified by “a hand tooled lip, no cap seat and [used] a tin top.” These earlier containers mostly held buttermilk (Tutton 1994:25). Later amber milk bottles often held chocolate milk. These were often square in cross-section and were in use during the late 1940s and 1950s.
Machine bottle scars on the base of milk bottles, dairy names embossed on the base of milk bottles and milk bottles with war slogans or popular characters are very valuable. Common fakes include colored labels that easily scratch off of the glass bottles or those bottles marked “Wheaton glass works.”
Rarity can be hard to determine but look for colors and sizes you don't see every day. Also, watch for bottles that are unusual sizes or shapes. Something rare is often higher value, but a rare bottle is not always more valuable than a bottle that is more readily available. It's also about demand.
In most cases, one- or two-digit numbers are actually mold numbers that indicate the specific bottle mold or section in an automatic bottle machine. If numerous molds were identical, each one received its own number. Base numbers also indicate bottle styles or shapes, manufacturing dates, or factory location codes.
Most bottle manufacturers molded the year into the glass at the bottom of the bottle in 2-digit format. You'll often find it in the lower right portion when looking at the bottom (some dates are much easier to distinguish than others). This will usually tell you–within a year or two–when the whiskey was bottled.
The Selinko mobile app is free and available on Google Play and the App Store. To identify your bottle, simply download the Selinko app on your smartphone and scan the NFC chip located on the back label.
From the 1960s onward in the United States, with improvements in shipping and storage materials, glass bottles have almost completely been replaced with either LDPE coated paper cartons or recyclable HDPE plastic containers (such as square milk jugs), depending on the brand.
Bottles are also collectible because there are many kinds of bottles, so a collector is sure to find a specific type that they want to focus on, like medicinal bottles, cola bottles, perfume bottles, or ink bottles. Some bottles are valuable because they are rare, but others have little or no value.
Some of the most collectible types & styles of antique and vintage glassware include Depression Glass, Carnival Glass, Milk Glass, Moonstone, Hobnail Glass, and Jadeite. One of the most popular styles of antique glass was a Hen on Nest, also known as Animal Dishes because of the variety of animals they come in.
If your antique glass bottle has excessive staining and water damage then you will need more vigorous cleaning session to bring these back into a good condition. However do avoid delicate thin glass for this routine. Fill your bottles with water and let them soak to softens the dirt and debris.
Where can you Find Old Bottles? Most bottles are found in places that are associated with finding old glass. This includes former trash dumps, old privies (or outhouses), construction sites, and waterfront areas. Any area that served as a dump site for a long period of time is a bottle digger's paradise.
Bottles that are in pristine condition – those that are free from damage, chips, discoloration, or blemishes of any kind – hold the highest value. Bottles that are near perfect or in very good condition have minor wear, but are near perfect and therefore worth almost as much as bottles in mint condition.
Mold lines or "seams" can indicate the piece is older and more valuable. Look on the base for a maker's mark or patent number that might identify a valuable original piece. Compare an unknown piece to pieces in collector's guides and manufacturer catalogs to help identify it.
As long as it's still in decent shape, selling your old baby gear is a great way to recoup some of the money you may have spent buying items for your little one. Word of mouth and online marketplaces for used baby gear are two popular ways to sell your old stuff.
The pontil is a definitive mark that dates glass. Be aware that reproductions can have smooth, molded pontil marks or sometimes an authentic looking jagged mark. Numbers and Letters- Such markings on the base indicate late 19th century to present time day manufacture.
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