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 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- - 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