TURN TRASH INTO TREASURE

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Dry or contaminated wells are also likely sources of valuable antique discards. You can make some great finds in the old water holes, but please remember that they were abandoned for a reason. It could be that the water carried typhoid or that the walls were unsafe (and if they were unsafe then , imagine how dangerous they must be now ). Take all necessary precautions . . . you don't want to get buried, drowned, or infected before you can haul out the prize of the century!

GOLD OR GARBAGE?
After you've located a good spot and dug up a few old relics, you've got the additional problem of deciding whether your discoveries are worth cleaning up. Most items will be what we call "leavers" . . . some will be "dammits" . . . and a scant few will be the kinds of bottles collectors covet. Leavers are best left right there where you found them, unless they're not in an established dump ... in which case you can do the environment a favor by hauling them away. The typical dammit is a lovely, rare container—perhaps even the find of a lifetime—with a missing neck or a hole that renders it worthless. (In the case of an extremely valuable-if-it-weren't-damaged item, it might accurately be referred to as an "O. Dammit" bottle.)

The first obvious clue to the age and value of a vessel will be its color. Generally speaking, colorless glassware is not really old, since bottle glass that holds its clarity is a comparatively recent innovation, introduced around the turn of the century. Old glass is typically purple, aqua, amber, or olive. In addition, metallic oxides were sometimes used to intentionally produce red, cobalt blue, true blue, green, and yellow bottles . . . which are often particularly rare and valuable.

Purple is the most common hue to be found in old glass, since that color was typically used in widely circulated patent medicine and whiskey bottles. Furthermore, from 1880 to 1914 manganese was used extensively to produce a temporarily clear glass that had the unfortunate habit of turning purple if exposed to the sun. The deeper the violet hue in such glassware, the more manganese it contains (some bottles are so purple that they appear almost black). And although folks used to wrap their good crystal to prevent such a change, it's a fact that the more intense the shade, the more valuable the bottle today. (You may find that you can deepen the color a bit by letting any purple container or dish soak up the sun's rays for a few weeks.)

OTHER CLUES TO VALUE
Bottles were originally hand-blown, either free-hand or into a mold . . . until the invention of the Owens bottle machine—about 1900—ended the careers of most glass blowers. The Owens bottles, which are marked on the bottom with a diamond inside a circle, lack character and are mostly worthless in the marketplace.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print