Glenn Poch's Bottle Collecting Newsletter 4

Bottle Newsletter #4
May/June

I Attended the Mansfield Ohio Show this weekend - Lots of quality examples
to be found there, including a Universe Bitters (ladies leg) in olive
green pontiled - asking $14,000 - a opalescent monument cologne bottle
(open pontiled - only one know so far) $2,500 - not for sale but shown to
me was two (of the 4 or 5 known) binniger cannon bottles with a label for
great gun perfume!!! all of the known cannon bottles having a perfume
label have broken tops which leads me and others to think that this
company produced a handful of bottles and decided that they required too
much perfume (as they are large bottles) and stoped producing the
bottles, it is assumed that one of the workers then busted the tops off
the bottles so that they could never be used and threw them away.

- Show reports from anyone are always welcome to this format!

The show in Mansfield, Ohio also had a table set up outside that
contained nothing but hundreds of dark purple radiated bottles for sale,
from a distance I could see coke bottles, fruit jars, whiskeys etc. as I
nor many other individuals went to look at his table.  He had a sign
saying they were color inhanced bottles, but I also saw a few of the
bottles already on other dealers tables (fortunatly not many) - the most
common color of these "color inhanced" bottles is a very dark purple - so
be on the look out and don't get fooled.


the following article was submitted by Ed Faulkner (written by his wife)


Turtle Inks

by L.C. Faulkner



 Have you ever wondered about the 'turtle' ink bottles that are commonly seen
 at bottle shows?  These bottles were originally designed to be attractive to
 school children and were used mainly in school  houses for over thirty years
 from about  1865  until the 1890=D5s.  There are no known pontiled examples,
 nor any known ABM examples.


 Although just about every major manufacturer used these bottles at some point,
 J. & I.E. Moore, of Warren, Massachusetts, was, by far, the largest user of
 this type bottle.  John M. Moore started the business in 1858 under the name
 John M. Moore Co.  Later when his son Isaac joined the company, it became J.
 Moore & Son, and finally J. & I.E. Moore.  According to Isaac Walter Moore,
 grandson of the original founder, the first  Moore bottles were made from
 wooden molds hand-whittled by his grandfather, the founder of the company.


 Although these bottles are known to have been made in various shades of aqua,
 green, amber, and cobolt blue, only the aqua are easy to come by.  The other
 colors, if found, will be expensive.  Amber and emerald green are occasionally
 seen at shows.  I have never seen a cobolt blue for sale at any price.  These
 are in the hands of collectors, and very rarely even come up for sale in
 auctions.  Some companies also used an embossed cardinal on this type bottle. 


 A lot of companies used only a paper label, and no embossing, so if the label
 is missing, there is no way of identifying the manufacturer.  Besides J. & I.E.
 Moore, I have seen embossed bottles in aqua from  A & F,  FDA (Frederick D.
 Alling), Butler's, David's, and Harrison's Columbian at bottle shows.  The
 only Harrison's Columbian I have seen is aqua and octagonal, rather than round.
 It is listed in the Covil book.  The  J. & I.E. Moore bottles can be purchased
 for as little as $5.00 for a stained aqua, to mint with label for $75.00 or so.
 The other manufacturers will tend to be higher.  Everyone who is fond of ink
 bottles should have at least one example in his or her collection.



References:

INK BOTTLES AND INKWELLS
 William E. Covil, 1971

OLD INKS
 Lavinia Nelson, 1967


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The show in Ohio had two J.I.E. Moore turtles for sale one in Medium Dark
Amber for $275, and one in a honey-yellow amber which sold for $650. I
have also seen multi-faceted turtle ink bottles for sale that are made of
metal (iron or lead?). If anyone is interstead in collecting turtle ink
bottles I have a cardinal turtle for sale, you can E-mail for details.
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-

a question arrised concerning how one describes a color of a particular
bottle. For example a bottle that is amber with a redish-purpleish tone
has been called - red-amber, puce, strawberry puce, gasoline puce, etc..
It has been a problem with this hobby that there is no standardized color
chart for determining a proper color, one problem is that everyone seems
to see a different color then the other person.  For example I had
someone ask me last month what a particular barrel bitter bottle would be
worth in a greenish tone, I had to know what shade of green because a
hint of green may bring only $300-400 while a deep green would bring
$2000+, he showed me a fruit jar that was  "simliar" in color and I
informed him that in that color maybe it would 1000-1300, well he bought
the bottle for close to 1,000 and showed the bottle to me, I didn't see
much green in this bottle and feel he has over paid for it since it is a
more common barrel to begin with.  But this was something I warned him
about and will warn anyone about - there are a number of dealers that are
jumping on the bandwagon about color right now.  Color is king in the
bottle market right now and bottles that were once selling for $250-300
are now being labeled as "great color - puce" $650. This is trend is
growing and growing and it seems that almost every bottle now has what
someone thinks to be a great color, I must warn those who are serious
collectors not to buy into this philosophy, sure a bottle with good color
is worth more then a bottle in its standard color, but artifically
suggested good colors is another thing all together, this color trend has
had a tremendous impact on my purchasing of bottles for my collection, I
would guess my purchases has been down at least 45% or more because of
the prices wanted due to color.  But I'm getting of the subject of how to
determine correct color on a bottle, there was a while back some rumors
of someone putting together a color chart that you could dial on a wheel
that would overlap various colors and then you could hold that chart to
the glass and know the color - I have no idea whether or not he or she
finished or started this project. The idea is good and I challenge
someone out there to make something like this because it is needed - if
anyone knows of a good source let me know, who knows maybe I'll try to
put something together, the problem is all those various shades.

I would like to get a opinon poll on how the fellow collector as yourself
feels about quality bottles or antiques going into auctions to be sold,
the reality of the situation has made it harder to find good bottles at
shows, because they can usually get more money by auctioning the item,
however auction books provide great references and allows collectors to
see items not always readly avialable.  E-mail me with your thoughts!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

e-mail me with your wants I do some bottle shows and see many bottles
that you may need. Also looking for figural bitters, inks, and pontiled
colognes.

and as always submit your questions and ad's for placement in the
newsletter.

Upcoming Shows (e-mail for more info)

Knoxville, Tn. June 95'
York, Pa. July 95'
Chicago, Il. Oct 95'


(is alt.ccds working? or is no one posting?)

---------------------------Glenn