Questions June 1999
©1999 DIGGER ODELL PUBLICATIONS
Good afternoon,
I have a bottle that I found in the Susquehanna River in about 2
feet of water near an island. I'm not a bottle collector but I am
an Indian artifact hunter, so I have no clue about this one
except it's in perfect condition which leads me to believe it was
probably washed from the banks this winter. I have found
bottles before there, old alcohol bottles I guess but always
having been damaged. Well here is the description. clear
glass- 3 7/8" tall 1 3/8 wide-- it has two sets of
measurement scales, the left side has what looks like the English
pound sign with #'s 2 4 5 with half marks not numbered. These are
~3mm apart the right side cc at top with 10 20 marked and half
lines in between. The center of the bottle just before the
neck has an upside down English pound mark next to a lower case
i. It looks like the bottom and top were connected
separately because the line on the side does not match the top
half and the bottom has it's own line. the bottom has
either a 1u 110. There is a decorative looping apron
around the neck where the neck and bottle meet. The opening at
top is ~6mm and the hole is 3mm. I hope I gave you enough
information. This island was used by both the native
Americans as well as the Europeans when they arrived. Some
of my artifacts have been dated to 6000 BC. It would be
interesting to see what time period and what was actually in this
perfect specimen. Thanks for taking the time out and helping folks
like me out. J.L. Holt
Your bottle is a
prescription bottle. It is close to 6000 years newer than your other
artifacts, probably dating to the turn of the century. You can check the
mold seam to see if it runs up and over the lip or stops before the lip
which indicates a hand tooled finish to the neck and lip. Prescriptions
are written in combinations of Latin and English abbreviations.
The
system used is known as apothecary weights. Your bottle probably looks
similar to the one shown at the right. The symbol, you describe as a
"pound," is the symbol for ounce it looks much like the number three
with a fancy top. The quantity is either expressed in numbers, usually
Roman numerals. In the example on the right are shown three"iii" or
three ounces. The scale on the left of the bottle shown has the numbers
1, 2, and 3, indicating the capacity in ounces. The scale on the right
side of the bottle in the one shown has the "cc" marking and the numbers
"30", "60", and "90". This is because one ounce equals roughly 30cc.
Your bottle is a smaller one ounce size, I believe.
As a matter of interest, the Rx symbol or superscription is an abbreviation of the Latin verb recipe, which mean "take thou". Today, prescription pads usually have the Rx symbol printed right on them. Today, the name of the drug appears first. At one time it was list of ingredients which the pharmacist would compound into the required medicine. Digger
I have just found an old bottle dump behind my house and I don't know the 1st thing about bottles. I have a few interesting ones and all that I have found have the seam ended before the lip. , I have one just plain clear bottle with the seam ending before the lip on the bottom it says Dr. S B H & CO and in the middle of the bottom there is a number 69. I could sure use some info. on whether these bottles have any value, how to clean them and how I would go about selling them. The most interesting one is light green, has 12 faces to the sides and has raised lettering that says, Dr. S.A. TUTTLE BOSTON MASS. Any help that you could give me would be greatly appreciated.
 |
 |
| Sounds like you have found
a turn of the century dump. The Bottle marked Dr.
S.B.H. is a Peruna bottle. Peruna
was a top seller around 1900 and was a true cure-all. One
testimonial says, "I am happy to say that my little
boy, five years old, is cured of deafness by your Peruna."
The medicine was for catarrh, cough, weakness,
consumption, grippe, dyspepsia, stomach and bowel trouble
and a host of other ailments. Dr. Samuel Hartman first
started in the patent medicine business in the late 1870s
with his LA-CU-PI-A. Around 1879 he began making
the Peruna as well as another medicine MAN-A-LIN.
He moved to Columbus, Ohio from Pennsylvania. Where he
successfully sold a bitters he had purchased from
Benjamin Mishler, Mishler's Herb Bitters. By
1905, Peruna, which Hartman preferred to spell, PE-RU-NA,
was perhaps the top selling brand in the country. One
reason was a voluminous advertising campaign and another
was it was 28% alcohol. A bottle of Peruna was
made from about a half pint of cologne spirits, 190
proof, with a pint and a half of water, adding a little
cubebs for flavor and a little burnt sugar for color. The
cost to Dr. Hartman was about 15 to 18 cents for a bottle
which sold for $1.00. Your other bottle, is a product for Man or Beast. Samuel A. Tuttle was the proprietor. He moved from stable owner in 1883 to medicine manufacturer in 1885. The Tuttle Elixir Co. was established in 1894. The Peruna bottles sell for $2-5 and the Tuttle's probably would bring $10-12. As to cleaning them, soap and water is about all you can do. If the bottles have stain, it cannot be removed except by professional bottle cleaners. Ebay is a good source to sell them, but you might just enjoy them as they came from behind your house and are a part of its history. Digger |
|
Hi, my name is Paul and I am a
new bottle collector. I have been checking online for bottle
auctions and one thing that really puzzles me is bottle prices.
The three books I use for bottle pricing are Kovel's Bottles
Price List, Jim Megura's Official Price Guide, and Hugh
Cleveland's Bottle Pricing Guide. Many times I'll find a
bottle that I think is a real deal because one book prices it
around $100. The next book will say that it is a $2 - $4 bottle.
A good example is a Atwood's Jaundice Bitters that I just
purchased. All three books have different prices that differ
widely. Any insight would be very appreciated!!!
Thanks, Paul Davis
Great question Paul. First,
unlike the coin collecting hobby, there is no Red Book of values.
The price guides you mention serve a useful purpose. They list a
wide variety of categories to try to satisfy everyone. It can't
be done, but it appeals to the general public. There are just too
many different bottles for any one book to list them all.
Secondly, we need to examine how these price guides arrive at
their prices. The Kovels, well known and reputable in the antique
world, have been publishing their bottle price guide for more
than 20 years. Several times, I have met them at bottle shows
where they come to get bottles from dealer's tables to photograph
and include in their next edition. They typically use the
dealer's price tags together with their expertise and sources to
arrive at a price. In many cases, this is an "asking"
price. Dealer's knowledge of what they sell varies as their
asking prices. Auctions on the other hand represent selling
prices, but auction conditions, which as many of us know, can
cause people to behave unpredictably. Auction prices are almost
always higher than prices at bottle shows . With regard to the
Atwood's Bitters example, critical information may have been left
out of the description of the bottle (such is the nature of these
type of guides). Was the bottle machine made, pontiled, damaged,
stained or labeled? I can believe that over the years Atwood's
have sold for both $2-4 and for $100. I will have to agree with
you that I still find bottle pricing a bit of a mystery. Even the
experts can't always predict what a bottle will sell for. The
better the bottle the more true this is. The truth is a bottle is
worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. Now that you
bought that Atwood's for $4.00, it's up to you to find that one
person who'll pay $100.00 for it. Digger
Also see Determining
Values on this web site.
| I have a cousin bottle
collector. Wants info on a bottle DR.
D. JAYNE'S TONIC VERMIFUGE
84 Chestnut St Phil A
(pontil - wooden mold) glass =
light green milky glass possibly clear at one
time 4 3/4" x
2" Thank you Linda Longcore
Dr. David Jayne first began advertising his medicines when he was in Salem, New Jersey in 1836. His first product was his Indian Expectorant. A few years later, 1838, he introduced his Tonic Vermifuge (worm syrup). The earliest bottle for the vermifuge is square and does not bear the 84 Chestnut St address. Your bottle, although you do not say so, is probably oval in shape. This was the second container for this product and dates to the 1850s. The product was one of his most successful, the other being the Expectorant. The brand was continued by his son into the 1870s and was still being produced well into the 1900s. Your bottle was almost certainly not made in a wooden mold, but rather an iron one. The glass might seem wavy as though it had been in contact with wood. These so called "whittle" marks result from the introduction of very hot glass into a cold mold. The color was aqua and the milky color is stain, accumulated from years of being buried. His is a dug bottle. The value of this bottle in this condition is about $15-20. Digger |
 |
..HOME.................................................... BACK TO QUESTIONS