Any info on this bottle appreciated!

nitanitro · Mar 8, 2004

My Dad found this bottle, it is in pretty good condition but a bit dirty still, I'm not sure of the colour it could be green or clear. From looking on the internet I have found out it is called a Hamilton, but don't know any more about it than that.

The writing embossed on it reads;

TO THE
ROYAL FAMILY
R. ELLIS AND SON
RUTHIN
MANUFACTURERS OF
SUPERIOR AERATED WATER

Any information anyone can give me about it would be much appreciated.

Thanks
Julie

IRISH · Mar 8, 2004

Hi nitanitro, welcome to the bottle forum.
Those are indeed called Hamiltons or torpedo bottles, the idea being that they won't stand up so the cork stays wet and won't shrink. They almost always had soda water in them (some may have been lemonade).
The colour of your one is called aqua and is the colour glass turns out with no colour controlling additives in it (the depth and exact colour is dependent on the amount of Iron Oxide in the sand it's made of).

Hamilton bottles are very collectable, good find for your dad [

] .

nitanitro · Mar 9, 2004

Thanks Irish. So, any idea how old it is, would it be worth anything?

IRISH · Mar 10, 2004

Torpedos date from about 1820 till about 1910, your bottle would date between about 1880 to 1900 going by the blob top and shape of the bottle (they tended to become a bit more uniform in shape in the later bottles). As for value, I don't know anything about the prices of UK bottles but someone here will [

] .

Bluegrass · Mar 10, 2004

Having bottled in the U.K, I can tell you that they rarely have much value unless they are coloured (other than aqua) or have a unique pictorial embossing. As Irish will know from the Aussie market, they were mass-produced in the 1890-1910 era and it really takes something special or rare to give them any value. The hybrid-Hamiltons with the marble stoppers are the ones to hunt down; they're worth a bit.
I was thrilled when I dug my first Hamilton as they're such a cool shape. They're nice to have despite their commonness. The first one I dug was from The Isle Of Wight and had a swan on it. Even then it was only worth ten bucks!

John.

IRISH · Mar 11, 2004

One big difference between the UK and Australian market is the price of "normal" aqua aerated water bottles, an aqua dobson type Codd (with no patent name on it) here can be worth anything from $5 to $1500 plus, just due to a different company name and trade mark. It's funny how collectors in different places put values on some things that others don't even look at [

] .

Any info on this bottle appreciated!

Welcome to our Antique Bottle community

Be a part of something great, join today!

nitanitro

New Member

Attachments

IRISH

Well-Known Member

nitanitro

New Member

IRISH

Well-Known Member

Bluegrass

Well-Known Member

IRISH

Well-Known Member

Similar threads

Latest posts

Members online

Latest threads

Forum statistics

Share this page

Online statistics

Forum statistics