Full Bottles

[Holindaze]

Are soda bottles worth more if they are still full? I have seen a few old ones at a small shop near my home and although he rarly gets anyone who collects bottles his prices are high. The bottles are very dirty as they have been there for years and will probably stay there for many more. i would imagine the market for full bottles would be a lot smaller than that for the empty ones and that there would be more dangers of having a full bottle break than an empty one and the postage for mailing such a bottle be more than an empty one. Anyone have any opinion on this.

Also, I am looking for any King Cola bottles that I do not have so if anyone has any for sale, please let me know.

 

[TJSJHART]

I HAVE GOTTEN A FEW FULL BOTTLES..BUT I CAREFULLY REMOVE THE CAP DUMP THE OLD LIQUID THEN REPLACE THE CAP...

 

[BellwoodBoys]

For some odd reason I like them full, it adds character to the bottle![][]

 

[CALDIGR2]

If they are sealed whiskey I drink 'em. Nothin' better than 100+ yr old whiskey. Bitters, meds, or sodas, dump those.

 

[VTdigger]

For me it depends on what kind of bottle it is, I usually dump full bottles or bottles with stuff in them. Sometimes they smell funky. in Spring, I dug a Glover's imperial mange medicine with the stuff in it, It stunk up my basement, plus the bottle looks better with it dumped out it anyway, it was basicly black goo staining the bottle. on another dig I a found a Father John's medicine with the stuff inside, and again it just made the bottle look nasty so out it went.

But on the other hand, Tuesday, I dug a clear Paris perfume Co. bottle from Jersey City NJ, That one, I'm gonna leave as is, I think it enhances the bottle, plus the cork is really stuck in there and I'm worried I might break it anyway if I were to try and empty it. There's no smell at all seeping through, though I wonder if the perfume would still smell ( it's a late 1800's early 1900's bottle.) I'll never know, because as I said I'm leaving it as is, cork and perfume in the bottle.

.
I've also found some (clear) ink bottles with Ink residue still left inside, that I don't bother to clean(except the dirt on the outside) because In my opinion it makes the bottle look more unique, it looks black as opposed to just another clear ink bottle if I scrubbed it out.

 

[Wheelah23]

I'm sure some bottles look better with their original contents. I have a few sports commemorative Coke bottles from the 80's that were never opened. I'd leave the contents in them until you sell them, because once you dump the contents, they're gone for good.

So far, the only sealed bottles I've dug look better WITHOUT the contents... I've dug 5 of these chemicals, and only this one had the original contents... Needless to say, I dumped it... Smelled horrible, like sulfur. [:'(]

 

[Bottles r LEET]

A lot depends on the collector. I prefer contents, but a lot of collectors don't.

 

[Holindaze]

I recently read about a museum that had a collection of old med bottles with their contents in them and one crystalized and became very explosive, the local bomb squad had to get rid of it.
so be careful

 

[Holindaze]

Picric acid A common response to a potential explosion in New York City involves picric acid. An old, forgotten, bottle of dried-out crystallized, picric acid is often discovered by a teacher in a school or the owner of a factory calling the fire department and the bomb squad to the scene for advice. Picric acid is a mixture of nitric acid and phenol. After mixture, it is highly unstable. However, the addition of water over 10 percent by content renders the mixture stable. When the water evaporates and picric acid returns to its dry state and crystallizes, it becomes a high explosive. A bottle of picric acid with dry powder inside can explode by the shock of dropping or heat of fire.
I responded to an emergency alarm in a luxury high rise apartment house in a wealthy neighborhood in Manhattan. A bottle collector was showing several colored bottles to a friend who happened to be a chemistry teacher. The teacher noticed a picric acid bottle partially filled with crystals. He told the collector of the danger and they called the fire department. The first responding fire officer arriving in the apartment was shown the bottle. He did not disturb it, but explained the danger and asked the people to leave. He ordered the response of the bomb squad and the evacuation of four floors above and two floors below the apartment in the 42-story residence. A protective hoseline was stretched from a standpipe and all firefighters withdrew to a safe distance. The bomb squad responded and took away the bottle and its deadly contents
from an article not written by me.

 

[VTdigger]

That's scary, But I do think of things like that, I know some of the things they used to have in some of these bottles, stuff that was later found to be deadly, like the Mange medicine bottle, I simply didn't know what was in it, and if it was even safe to breathe the fumes everytime I enter my bottle room so that's part of the reason I dumped the contents. I know I've dug rusty old paint cans contaning lead and god only knows what other sorts of chemicals is/was in this stuff I dig. I'm sure if they tested the soil around some of the sites I dig they'd label them contaminated with some sort of poisons, That's why I take a good long shower after I dig any old site.