Collecting Glass Bottles

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Collecting glass bottles has a vast scope. As always you need to collect thematically or to just plainly specialized.

One interesting glass bottle collectible is the Codd glass bottle sometimes know as pinchneck which designed and patented by Hiram Codd in 1872.

Another interesting glass bottle collectible is the bitters bottles. They came in wide variety of shapes and sizes and dated back 18th century in Great Britain and mid 19th century in the U.S.A.

Bitters are originally a form of medicine for indigestion. It consisted of angostura and citrus peel infused in alcohol and flavored with cinnamon, juniper and cloves.

The popularity of the bitters in both Britain and U.S can only be summed up in one word : alcohol. All the while enjoying the intoxicating effect people in those days thought they were doing it for medicinal purposes.

Bitters bottles came in variety of shapes like barrels, lighthouses, cannons and several other shapes. The bottles were in amber, clear and mostly greens and the more rare ones are in blue, amethyst and puce.

Another worthwhile collectibles are medicine bottles in the Victorian-Edwardian era. And some other medicine bottles had labels that are exotic, showing oriental scenes ornate or bizarre designs

Ink bottles are also collectible, although they were made for practical purposes not just merely ornamental.

The picture above is a bitters bottle.

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Collecting Cigarette Cards

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Cigarette cards evolve form an earlier tradition of trade cards. Trade card was a sort of a business card back in the old days. It consisted of the names, addresses and advertisements of commercial companies.

Cigarette cards were used to stiffen the American paper cigarette packets.

The popularity of cigarette cards took off right around the 1880’s when chromolithography was applied to pictures.

But the production of cigarette cards peaked during 1920-40. Collecting investors no doubt would hunt for cigarette cards in this era. The most expensive sets would come from this particular period.

The reason being, there were many, many smaller cigarette companies as oppose to today’s tobacco giant companies, thus each of these smaller companies produced their own garden variety of cigarette cards.

The most expensive sets are from the smallest companies.

You can pick up incomplete sets for less prices but you just going to have to do individual hunt for the missing pieces to complete your set.

During the end of the first world war, several large tobacco consortiums were formed consequently putting the smaller companies out of business, thus the production of the cigarette cards began to decline.

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" Give Pez A Chance”

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Trivia: Ebay was founded because the founder Peirre Omidyar’s partner needed a venue to buy and sell her collection of pez dispensers.

Pez comes from the German word for pfefferminz which means peppermint. Pez candy dates back in 1927. They were first marketed as adult mints for people trying to quit smoking. In the today’s world of Altoids and Tic Tac, pez got there first.

Pez were originally sold in small tin boxes. But right around 1950’s the pez dispenser were invented. They were created originally for truck drivers so they could easily pop a candy into their mouths while driving.

After the second World War pez dispensers came out with character heads, this time to specifically target their market: children. The first character heads for pez dispensers was Mickey Mouse in all different versions. Then came out later many other designs for heads like Zorro, Captain Hook, Santa Claus etc.

Baby boomers are also buying pez dispensers because of nostalgic factors. They want to collect something from their memories of happy childhood.

Most expensive pez dispenser ever held in an auction was The Astronaut B pez with white helmet and green stem which had a winning bid for $32,205.00. There are two of them in fact, the other one has blue helmet with blue stem.

They were made as prototypes for supposedly a joint venture deal but the negotiation didn’t’ came through, so there were no mass production that occurred. So that makes the Astronaut B pez dispenser rare.

Another rare pez dispenser was the do-it-yourself that comes in different parts(eyes, nose, ears etc. ) to make your own face, but the manufacturer thought it was dangerous for children under 12 so they discontinued the production.

The do-it-yourself

Pez dispensers are sold as much as $5,000 a piece.

A lot of pez dispensers that didn’t sell were taken off the market back in those days. They were originally sold for a quarter now commands a two to three thousand dollar price tag like the Mary Poppins pez dispensers.

Today lots of people collect the battery operated dispensers, the value would even more appreciate if they keep the boxes that they come in.
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