What is it that makes milk bottles so unpopular?

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Robby Raccoon

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Seriously, this chat area goes unused way too much. Milk bottles are fascinating and historic. ACLs are popular and after 1900, so why not milk bottles? People tend to use milk (drink/baking) much more often than soda-pops or beers. Since it's a part of our daily lives, one might expect people to like it more. But, no! Milk bottles don't get the recognition or appreciation they should. There are plenty of desired, rare, unheard-of, and local milks out there--in color too! Embossed, ACL. But they never get such popularity. I like soda-pop bottles myself more, but I also come across them and alcohol much more often than milks (all-in-all, one intact, several shattered have I found.) Whereas other people who have the means to obtain them are more likely to collect--but not so heavily as other bottles. What's up with this? I just want to know why. The one milk I have is one of my favorites--moreso than some of my best soda-pop pieces. Why is it rare to hear lots on milks?
 

nhpharm

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Milks are VERY popular in some parts of the country and are far better documented than a lot of the other bottles we collect. I think most of the serious milk bottle collectors just don't frequent this forum. It is like the Pot Lid section...pot lids are VERY collectible but there are not many posts.
 

JohnDeereMoxie

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Agreed. SpiritBear if you're interested join the National Association of Milk Bottle Collectors. They run a publication once a month dedicated to milk bottles and other past dairy related items. I've met some awesome knowledgeable people through the group. But I do agree with you not many folks appreciate milk bottles as much as other bottles I feel sometimes. I'm a nut when it comes to my hometown and the milk bottles that came from it.
 

cowseatmaize

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I know some people that only collect milk and dairy related but like nhpharm stated, they aren't on here. Also, 500 threads isn't that bad since the category only came to be in Oct 2011. [:)]The other thing is that people tend to stick with local dairy bottles when they specialize and are just an addition to a general collector because they are local to them. Churns and other related items don't need to be local but it helps.That's my theory anyway.[8|]
 

NYCFlasks

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I would not say milks are unpopular, not by any means. However, they tend, as a group, to be collected locally. I mean that collectors tend to want/collect milks from the area where they live. Myself, I look for milks from around my town of Sayville, N.Y. and will pay crazy prices for examples that I need. However, if the milk bottle is from say, Columbia, PA, I would not look at it twice.Also, there are a lot of them out there. From my town again as an example, there are 40 or 50 different examples, if you count the quarts, pints, pyros, embossed, variations of embossing, and we were a small town, under 2,000 population until after WWII.
 

RED Matthews

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Well I had to put in my 2 cents. My first bottle, 77 years ago was a milk bottle. When I was nine years old my grandfather took me to Thatcher/s glass in Elmira to see how they were made. About 36 years later I went to work for Thatcher Glass at that plant as a Mechanical Engineer. Over the years I have collected a couple dozen early Thatcher made milk bottles. I also have an Italian reproduction of the original Doctor Thatcher's patented milk bottle, I worked for them for fifteen years and while there I developed a special metal for glass mold parts making improved glass products. Then I left them and started my own company selling this metal to the worlds glass industries, for about 22 years. It gave me a very good life, and I am still playing with old antique glass products - at the age of 85 - and enjoy each days learning more about what there is about glass as a material that is a hell-of-a-lot better than plastic. Which is what I think has now started a lot of the worlds cancer. RED Matthews
 

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