Bottles Have Arrived -- Attained New Status in the Antiques World

 

Clear Indian Bitters Brings $37,000

 

Jeff Wichmann's American Bottle Auctions just completed another successful auction, and is getting some nice press coverage about it. With 375+ lots sold, 400+ bidders, and 100,000+ website-hits, the online auction grossed around $300,000. The highlight, a mint condition Brown's Celebrated Indian Herb bitters bottle, patented Feb. 1868, sold for $36,960. Jeff says, "...Overall I felt the sale was a great success and may have been our best auction ever..."   "Bitters and flasks are hot sellers right now. I have to believe they are entering a new age. People are beginning to realize they just aren't coming up at auction like they did, and everyone is scrambling to get the rarest and most perfect examples out there. Whether this is a tulip craze or real people with real money in it for the long haul, I don't know."   ***   What do you think? Tulip craze? It seems that bottles have been steadily increasing in value for several years now, and becoming more noticed by the rest of the antiques world, which leads me to think that this is not a bubble, but that it means bottles have "arrived". They have aged-in to being considered antiques, worthy of serious collectors. It is their time to shine.   Which all bodes well for the hobby, although maybe not for the majority of pocketbooks. But there are still deals to be found, and many under-appreciated bottle categories are still affordable -- for now!   So, you'd better get to as many bottle shows as you can, and build your collections now. Read the entire article, with many more auction results, here, detailing the sales of some very interesting bottles.