Jeff's column- The Bottle Market

As an auctioneer, I am often asked, "How's the bottle market?" and "Are bottles a good investment?". In essence, they want to know where the market is and where it's going. People often ask the latter question with more money than experience. I don't have a problem with investors buying bottles; it puts money into the hobby and gives the market a stronger base.

Over the years, my standard answer regarding these questions is that even though I sell bottles at auction, I can't answer your question. Maybe it's time I at least look at what I've seen over the last few years and give a slightly educated opinion.

First, anyone in this great hobby knows that bottles don't run necessarily in the same pack. They are as individual as different types of furniture and paintings. Whiskey bottles don't have as many collectors as, say, historical flasks or bitters bottles. There is also the eastern versus western scenario and, of course, where the hobby fits in among the many, many areas of collecting. Can bottles compete with stamps or comic books? If a comic book or baseball card can sell for a million dollars, what's so strange about someone paying $50,000 for a rare flask? A lot of people would agree, that to see an early and rare bitters bottle is a greater sight to behold than a small piece of cardboard with a picture of Honus Wagner on it. Maybe, maybe not.

Markets are funny…stock market, mineral market, collectible market, fish market, supermarket (just kidding). They all change for a myriad of reasons... the economy, a war, new collectors entering and exiting the hobby… they're all factors…especially, the last one.

Exiting the hobby... did you know in 1970, bottle collecting was the number one hobby after stamps? I'm not sure where it fits in now but it's nowhere near there. Where'd they all go? A great example of the exodus of collectors, in a particular area of collecting, is the western whiskey collector. Reserved for the modern day cowboys, who were willing to shake out some serious greenery, it reached its pinnacle about five years ago. Western whiskies, and especially flasks, can be quite rare and carry that wonderful western saloon mystique that bring out thoughts of Marshall Dillon and the Bonanza boys. At the time, there were probably 30 or so serious collectors, and maybe only half of those could, or would, fork out $10,000 or so for a particular fifth. That's a lot of after tax moola. Suddenly, five or so of the top collections were out of the market and most of their bottles were bought up pretty quickly. Things were still relatively strong. The problem was that instead of 30 or so buyers now, there were between 20 and 25. Not to mention, they had all purchased pieces to add to their collections and didn't need as many to enhance their collections. Also, they didn't have an endless pit of discretionary funds to keep forking out. The result... western whiskies in the multi-thousand dollar price range are harder to sell. It's all about supply and demand.

On the other hand, western whiskies truly are a treasured area of bottle collecting and we see new collectors coming in all the time. Believe me, as an auctioneer, it doesn't take a whole lot of new and well-off collectors to bring everything back to where it was, and beyond. So, should you buy? As my friend Rich says when one of his stocks goes down, "I haven't lost a dime until I sell it". In ten years, we may see celebrities and millionaires entering the market in droves. Why won't a whiskey, of which there are only four known examples, go to $250,000? No reason whatsoever.

Another area of collecting bottles that did just the opposite is, of course, the bitters market. Besides becoming more popular when a couple of books came out that specialized in bitters, they also had a unique appeal to a lot of collectors... they could be had for a little as $20. You could collect figural, square, round, green, applied top or tooled top versions... western, eastern …the choices were endless. As much as $70,000 passed hands for one bottle and the race was on. Like Beanie Babies, when people see other people going after something, look out. There's nothing like obtaining something someone else wants. Some people will do anything to get it. You know who you are! Bitters are still strong and why not? What will they do over the next ten years... who knows? We can speculate... if something is that popular now, why shouldn't it be down the road? We all know what happened to Beanie Babies.

Exiting the hobby... what about entering the hobby? When you go to a bottle show now, how many kids, teens, or even young adults, do you see? It depends on the show of course. Sometimes it seems like I don't see anyone under 50 years of age. And, at other times, I see plenty of teens with great interest in the hobby. That's a tough one to gauge, but once again, it comes down to supply and demand. I know of collections that, if they went on the market in one or two large auctions, would literally cause a collapse in that area of collecting. There just wouldn't be enough money out there. And, even if there were, collections would be more complete and the demand in general would suffer. It's not too confusing.

Another example of supply and demand would be the western beer market. Frankly, my favorite beer is a bottle that is very cold and full, with preferably Samuel Adams or Sierra Nevada in it. Don't get me wrong, I love the early applied, and even tooled top western beers. They're fantastic... with their pictures of bears, deer, eagles and even goats. The trouble is, that these bottles weren't made in huge numbers. Also, they were expensive and were used until they either broke, or were thrown away. We've probably sold only four early western beers in the past ten years... that's how rare they are. Even the tooled top variants are climbing in price. So what do you do? Get a chance at one, once a year? That's not collecting, it's waiting. Hence, when a rare beer comes to the market, even though the audience of buyers is miniscule, it sells high, very high. Once again, it's supply and demand... but this time, there is no supply. Rare beers will hang in there in value unless collectors either exit that area, or a major cache comes up for sale. Adjustment is a good thing.

I'm not through with this subject... the state of the bottle market. We'll call this part one. I still want to get into collectors who bitch and moan about the price of a bottle, but when it comes time to sell their collections, they want the absolute top price, damn it! How about different areas of collecting, e.g. tableware (like Sandwich candlesticks and creamers)... even marbles and small rabid monkeys (well maybe not that). Is Ebay hurting the hobby or helping it? Why aren't more books written? What's up with it being a mostly male hobby? Are bottle shows suffering because of auctions? Are the bottle magazines out there worthwhile? Is the Federation doing its job? A well-known national antique personality asked me what the deal is with all the infighting in our hobby... what IS with that? I'd also like to discuss the royalty of the bottle collecting hobby, historical and commemorative flasks. All good topics and questions... most of which, I can't answer... but I'll try.

Jeff- Thanks for putting your thoughts into a public forum via your website. As the editor of a bottle periodical, I have been spouting off about some of the things you touch on in my columns.

You are correct, bottle collecting in the 1970’s was recognized as the second most active hobby in America. Did they all go away? I doubt it, but our hobby is not organized to the levels of others that you mentioned. There are rifts in the hobby, especially in certain categories. The western and eastern bit is somewhat true, but people collect what they want. Western whiskeys can indeed be rare, but they are not as widely collected as flasks, bitters and medicines or inks. This is also true of any geographically collected item. As you stated “supply and demand”. To believe that a localized bottle would ever challenge a rare piece in an overall pricing war would be ludicrous.

The problem exists with the fact that we are not organized as a hobby. There is no grading system, which we are feverishly trying to point out in a number of articles on that subject. There are no accurate price guides, and probably will never be without a standardized system.

Let’s explore your analogy to baseball cards or stamps or even coins. What is just one thing they all have in common? A grading system and therefore a pretty accurate price guide as well. In our hobby, we justify condition with elaborate or non elaborate descriptions. We are all guilty of it. Just what does attic mint or near mint signify? Not a hill of beans.

Let’s regress here for a moment. As we were growing up, we all had easy access to coins, stamps and of course baseball cards. Parents helped along with the interest if any shown in these types of collectibles (maybe I’m showing my age here). They were an inexpensive way to occupy a young persons mind. Albums were also available, and you could have the thrill of finding that 1955D penny and adding it to your collection. Just what have the youth in today’s world been collecting? As you mentioned for one there were Beanie Babies, there are trade cards for video game heroes and villains and so on. Really nothing to peak a youthful mind on the historical or intrinsic beauty of folk art or the detail and craftsmanship of a collectible. Today’s youth collects fads.

Little boys and little girls will always collect baseball cards. Those of us who started with stamps and coins had a better chance of migrating into those hobbies, since we had guides we could refer to in our later years. Both of my daughters had endless hours of fun picking up baseball cards, putting them into albums, and later upgrading and even expanding into older cards. They would save a few dollars and buy a 1980 Mike Schmidt card or a Pete Rose card. Why? They did not really have an idea of who these people were, but they had a guide, and a grading system to learn from. Our human nature is to collect or to hoard or something like that, but what to collect seems to be the question.

Chris Hartz did a good job of stating the condition of the hobby years ago. It is true that if you look back through the older auction catalogs, there was a plethora of goodies available. The more that would come out, the more you would see in subsequent auction catalog offerings, and these were great items for hungry collectors. The common items always turn up, be it on ebay or at the shows, but the real tough to find items seem to have left the face of the earth. Let’s take a look at this phenomena. To me it just proves that there are a good number of collectors out there. The good items seem to come up, and then maybe come up a few times as there are profits to be made here and there, but finally they find a home in a true collectors grouping. This is when they do not show up anymore. It would appear that most of the goodies that both Chris and I remember are swallowed up in someone’s collection. This is not a bad thing. It just makes the rest of us crazy in our attempts to gain these prizes. On the other hand, when you can’t get an addition to your collection for quite some time, you lose interest. Not all of us are computer savvy, and quite frankly 43% of the population still does not own a computer or know how to use one. This makes the items offered by ebay and the internet auctions available to a very small part of the collecting or potential collecting community. For the rest of us, there is an endless amount of items offered. They do not prove to escalate in value, because they are the more common items being offered. Great for a new collector trying to fill his or her pipeline, or for dealers and want to be dealers in bottles. I venture to say that 90% of the items offered via the auctions, ebay and shows are bought for resale. Once again not a bad thing, since this keeps the activity alive in the hobby. It on the other hand, also shows us just how many items there are out there.

Years ago, before the advent of the electronic selling ground, you had to go to a show, or wait for an auction to come up, or find an item in the classifieds of the magazines in order to get a shot at something. If you were lucky, you might find something for yourself or resale at an Antique shop, but not so much today. When you had to wait for items to show up, you naturally were willing to pay more. We thought that these items would not continue to come along. An amber Old Sachem barrel for instance, you might see several via this media for sale in any given year, now you can find several in any given week! Communicating to the masses is the reason. We now have an immediate solution to selling an item, and if you pay attention you will also realize just how many items there are available. It makes sense that if you can buy a given item almost anytime you want, then the prices will be generally low. Take this away and limit the availability, and whammo, the prices will skyrocket. This is exactly what happens with the most desirable pieces. They are rarities as can be witnessed by their lack of availability, and the prices of these items will continue to escalate. I guarantee that if in our life time, another Jared Spencer flask, or blue Columbia, or Olive American System ever comes out. Hold on to your hats, for you ain't seen nuttin' yet as far as prices.
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> Enough of that band wagon. Let me get back to the grading system, and as you mentioned the lack of new books on the hobby. A grading, and eventually a rarity, system would help not only the novice collector, but the advanced collector as well. It would also perpetuate prices to higher levels on the better graded items. With the assistance of Christopher Woods and many of our readers, we have just such a system proposed in our June issue. If this system comes to fruition in it’s present proposed form or some other that is widely accepted, there will be little gray areas for the collector or potential investor. You will be able to quickly realize just what you are dealing with. No system will ever be foolproof, but there is a need to do something. None of us are perfect and we will always miss something in the description, but a system would at least give us credence with the rest of the hobbies, and would generate interest in finding perhaps a better graded item than we currently house.

You also mention the fact that there are few new books available. This is true to some extent, but as was stated by one of the people in your response section, there are some new books that have been published. They are of a more regional or specific nature, and not geared to the hobby as a whole. We do know that there are several being worked on now, that will be more general in their messages. These are time consuming operations since they challenge the core of what we have taken as gospel for many years. I wish these up and coming authors luck. The biggest hurdles we face today are standardization of our hobby and overcoming the egos of some that feel threatened. You are correct that the hobby has more than it’s share of infighting. Most of this is because those that feel they are the king of the hill have had their egos challenged with new and fresh ideas and competition. Greed and apathy rule the bottle collecting hobby, but this will change as well given enough time. There is room in our hobby for all, and overall they are the finest people you will meet. Let’s just keep our noses where they belong, and concentrate on bettering the hobby rather than trying to destroy it for personal gains. -Rod Walck, Editor, Bottles and More Magazine, www.bottlemagazine.com

Just a quick note to say that I'm very impressed with your new ABA website...I just spent a very happy, thought-provoking half-hour reading through all of your interesting articles. (Unfortunately, I don't know the answer to "What Is It?") Anyway, keep up the good work...I'll be back! Regards, Mike Dickman

Like everyone I want to value the bottles I now own high and get the ones I still lust after low. Human nature I guess... The advice for all collectors of any collectibles, art, antiques, etc. has, is, and always will be "Buy what you like, then you'll never be disappointed." Even if the value never goes up, you're happy...and you always have the intangible aspects of the historical connection with times past. (In your picture at the top of the page I can imagine that if your eyes were shut and you had a "Mona Lisa smile on your face, I could visualize you thinking about the gold miner that consumed the product in the bottle you are fondling). Investment potential should always be of secondary concern...though many of the bottles I bought several decades ago have beat
the hell out of most of my "mainstream" investments (if I were to sell them).

About the future of bottle collecting...Are there really many other antiques where the potential to last for thousands of years exists with the exception of glass? Honus Wagner and Spiderman will be a puffs of dust in a few hundred years, but a Plantation Bitters sitting on the shelf that is mint now can potentially sit there for thousands of years and still be mint (unless you live in that Western earthquake country of course...ha!). That in itself speaks to collector & collectibility continuing indefinitely. More books aren't written because it takes a lot of time to research and do up a good one (like your bitters book), there is no real profit in it, and there are too many distractions in the modern world to divert attention. Having said that, I am constantly amazed at the number of books that do come out considering the hurdles. A lot of the recent ones are miracles of home
publishing - computers, laser printers, digital cameras, and Staples supplies. Recent books by Ron Fowler (sodas), Eastern Califorian bottles (Chapman), Wisconsin & Colorado sodas (Peters & Oppelt) and others show that there are people out there still taking the time to research and do things that have way more significance and staying power than those price guide books that are inaccurate and/or out of date before they hit their second birthday. Look at Dr. Julian Toulouses "Bottle Makers and Their Marks"...that is a book that is still in high demand by collectors and archaeologists because it is good and has - as they say about good cow
horses - "bottom."

I love your first couple "Viewpoint" articles. Its a great idea....keep up the good work. Bill Lindsey, Klamath Falls, OR.

I read your article with great interest. I have been collecting bottles since 1970, and I remember the hobby in its early stages. I can clearly remember sitting watching the news in the mid 1970s when the Gardner Collection made national news. Bottle collecting was fun, the shows were great (e.g., Lancaster, York, Keene, Ohio) many people were enthused, .....it was a great time. Another thing was the live auctions, there is nothing like a live auction for the whole experience. For the most part, those days are long gone, and will never return. At that time, many of the best collections were held by older collectors, collections which were put together in the 1940s thru the 1960s. All of this excitement attracted new collectors, especially young people who then got their parents involved, as is the case with me. You could actually go out and look for bottles on the ground. I never found a good bottle, but I sure had fun trying. This was before the days of people risking their lives by going down 20 feet in a privy. (If you think I am kidding, calculate the impact velocity of a standard red-brick falling 15 feet out of a bucket!). All of this changed in the mid 1980s with the absentee auctions. For established collectors, including myself, catalog sales like yours, Hecklers, Chuck Moore, a Glassworks was a godsend. I have never seen so many good bottles come on the market. During the 1980s and 1990s most of the old collections were broken up, (e.g., Gardner, Scholl, Blaske, Brown, Salisbury, Mebane, Pollard), the result, great bottles for sale. Prices skyrocketed due to people using money from their stock portfolios, 401Ks, home equity, etc. But there is a down side to all of this, that being the new collector. Simply stated their are few new collectors of antique bottles. As the hobby continues to grey, the supply of good bottles for sale will remain constant, or even go up, but I feel the prices will drop because there are few new collectors to step up and lay out large sums of money.

From my own standpoint, I think some bottles (e.g.., Historical Flasks, Figural Bitters) are greatly under-priced when compared to other categories of antiques. Although bottles are not really folk art, a market that is crazy, they can be compared to toys. If you look back in time, you will see the toy market grew during the same time bottles have. But if you look prices, several toys have sold for over 100,000 even excluding the "Mint and Boxed" fiasco. Back in 1976, I remember sitting Charlie Vuno's hotel room at Stouffers Tower in Saint Louis. Charlie along with Mark showed me an American System flask, I almost died. I asked him what it was worth and he said 10,000. Today, you can still buy an American System flask for around 15,000, 19 years later, with no provision for inflation. My advice to people is this, buy bottles because you like them and that's it. When you sell them, you very well might loose money especially when considering inflation. It is hard to tell what the future will hold, but I see no one taking the lead to promote the hobby. For example, when was the last time you saw a bottle on the Antiques Road Show, answer almost NEVER. There is also no unifying voice for the hobby, in this regard the Federation is a complete failure. Lastly, there is little scholarship done with relation to early glass, although exceptions to this would include recent investigations at Pitkin and Amelung glasshouses. My best guess is that in the next 20 years, prices will drop, and drop dramatically in some areas. -Chris Hartz

If you start to write (or express your thoughts and opinions) on some of those other topics such as "... more books," "... bottle magazines ...," "infighting," "the Federation" and its misnomer - of Historical Bottle Collectors (Federation is a grouping of organizations [check Webster's], not individuals - a long-time pet peeve of mine when they changed the name when I was an officer and summarily removed me from the organization), "...royalty ... historical and commemorative [figured] flasks ..." and all that "tableware ... Sandwich," etc., e-mail me and I might have some time to lend my historical opinion from past experiences dating from Helen McKearin, Charlie Gardner, etc.

Jeff, great story. Tell it like it is! I can see the market changing in many hobbies and can understand the effect of big collections coming on the market. Also the changes that ebay has brought to us with a 24/7 place to buy and sell. Just like in the casino chips- there's just not enough rare stuff to go around. Right now I am working on a million dollar collection that I will take to auction. This will change the market. Speaking of books- they only spur the market. We have a lot of great books in this hobby- more than most. I just released my 3rd edition of "The Official US Casino Chip Price Guide" and the hobby is jumping! Items like Beanie Babies that are made to be collected are always just hype- they quickly fall. Unlike bottles that were made to be used originally- and now we can enjoy them in our windows and display cabinets. I collect a lot of things but still nothing is as beautiful and historical as some of our old bottles. Keep up the good work! See you at the shows. -James Campiglia- collector for over half my life!

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