Antique medicine bottles

Medicinal bottles are probably the largest and most diverse group of bottles produced during the era covered by this website - the 19th through mid 20th centuries. To quote Fike on medicine bottles - "Literally hundreds of thousands of brands and variations of vessels were manufactured This variety is not too surprising since charter consum health was and still is probably the most important personal issue of all time, made even more important during the era of primitive medical knowledge and practices and universal ignorance about hygiene and even antique medicine bottles causes of disease, antique medicine bottles.

Vintage Medicine Bag. Black and white leather doctor bag with several glass bottles of herbs, tinctures, and home. Set of assorted old fashioned labels with bottle. Just place label over bottle to customize. Old apothecary. Vintage bottles on wooden shelves. Seamless background.

Antique medicine bottles

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Dusty pharmacy. The bottles covered in this section are those that were purchased and used antique medicine bottles local druggists and drugstores with typically only city-wide or otherwise limited geographical distribution.

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Noname Antiques. Many people collect charming antique medicine bottles that come in various shapes, sizes, and colors. Most are beautiful, while some can be dangerous. However, one thing is for sure. Once you start this hobby, you will need a lot of space because your options are practically unlimited. This bottle type produced from the 19th to the midth centuries makes probably the most diverse and sizable bottle group. Since very few medicines were formally patented in those times, you can find hundreds of thousands of produced variations of numerous brands. Medicinal bottles are a large and diverse bottle group produced from the 19th to the midth centuries. They originated in medieval Europe. For instance, over serums and cure-all elixirs existed in England during the 18th century, and they needed adequate packaging.

Antique medicine bottles

Vintage medicine bottles' charm comes from their brightly colored, sometimes unusually shaped, appearance particularly when they are placed against the standard white capped, orange medicine bottles the world is used to today. Given that the pharmaceutical world from a hundred years ago is much different from the industry today, the possibilities are endless for finding vintage medicine bottles in every shape, color, and size. Since there was certainly no lack of sick people in the past, there is currently a bountiful collector's market you can spend hours perusing. Here are a few different characteristics which can help you easily identify a potential historic medicinal bottle or tin. Prior to the advent of the modern pharmaceutical age, medicine often consisted of either natural ingredients or boasted extreme percentages of alcohol. Since these antique bottles are not often found with existing labels, or were perhaps never sold with one, some of the typical categories you may find inscribed into these bottles include:. Most antique and vintage medicine bottles were blown into relatively consistent shapes. No matter the shape and artistic detailing on the bottle, usually these antique medicine bottles were made of glass and were hand blown.

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It was produced in a post-bottom base mold, has a crudely applied double ring finish, a body which has extensive "whittle" marks, and lacks any evidence of mold air venting. Most all? The gentleman pictured in the ca. Brown apothecary glass bottle with cork stopper. As noted in the introduction to this page, the Pure Food and Drugs Act was the beginning of the end for the worst excesses of the quackery that was rampant throughout the 19th century. Another exclusive article published here only; this one on the fascinating history and bottles of another well know product Phillips Milk of Magnesia that is still in production today. A user must be cognizant of the fact that the number of exceptions to this or any medicinal bottle classification is so large that it defies any systematic organization system; there simply was too much variety. Sounds like it was high in alcohol which was very common. The bottle pictured to the left is an example of some of the bottle related adaptations patent medicine producers had to make after passage of the above act in order to continue selling their product without breaking the law. It is also embossed on the base faintly with C. The high alcohol "medicine" Jamaica Ginger was discussed earlier in this section. These pontils are particularly ubiquitous on English-made bottles from that era, though also are seen on American-made bottles - like Jones This observation includes druggist bottles produced as early as the late s primarily square [image to the right] and round bottles up until the almost total disappearance of mouth-blown druggist bottles by the mids. It has also turned a dark amethyst indicating the glass was decolorized with manganese which was common with mouth-blown colorless glass bottles made in the era.

Antique medicine bottles are old-school bottles that have the information needed to figure out the age of the bottle and the location of its production.

Vintage Pharmacy. The following is quoted from Munsey and is a nice overview of these bottles: Many of the more permanent glass containers used by apothecaries This helps show a bit of the diversity of shape found in these bottles: DR. It appears that by far the most popular style of rectangular druggist bottle was the "Blake" style and its variations. The picture to the right is of a three-part "double" collared ring finish and is on a druggist bottle which almost certainly dates from to no later than The pictured example was blown in a three-piece mold with no evidence of air venting, has a crudely applied "champagne" style finish, and a sand pontil scar on the base indicating likely manufacture in the s as sand pontils were quite unusual after that time. Based on the number of questions the author of this site has received on these small bottles a brief overview of the subject needs discussed on this page. Love Potions. A series of articles by the muckraking Adams, originally published in Collier's Weekly in and combined into a book in , viciously but intelligently attacked the gross malfeasance of the patent medicine industry. One example noted above were the square druggist bottles with beveled corners. This bottle has a crudely applied short oil finish, was blown in a two-piece "hinge" mold as indicated by the mold seam crossing diagonally across the entire base , has a sand pontil scar , and of course, no evidence of mold air venting as this bottle pre-dates the widespread use of that technology by many decades. Click IGCo. Earlier bottles are typically various shades of medium to dark green like the pictured example which is from the late s or s with later similar shaped ones later s and early s being shades of aqua. Click William Walton September 23, to see the original patent. The embossed proprietors' names provides the opportunity to date the bottle via the Portland business directories, a check of which found that these two individuals were in partnership in and and were not listed together prior to or after that time.