$1000 dollars for a collection of commons , whats the most overpriced you've seen

[beendiggin]

I guess people figure a bottle of any kind is worth a dollar, so 10,000 bottles must be worth $10,000 in their mind.

It's really just 10,000 worthless bottles.

 

[botlguy]

Kind of an interesting thread. In all my years experience I have found that diggers who are mostly accumulators value their dug bottles way too high. They seem to think they ought to get paid a wage for the work. Also, it's usually a sentimental deal. If they are true collectors also they have learned what "Value" is.

I was an avid digger and have bought several collections and accumulations. I have to admit to both good and bad experience but it's the 5 or 6 FANTASTIC buys that makes the wild goose chases worth while. And for me, it's the "hunt" that is exciting more than the possession. At one time I would buy any collection, pay any price if it was woth it. I once paid $10,000 for a true collection and more than doubled my money. I have traveled hundreds of miles to look at far more junk but enjoyed every single trip including the one where I got thrown off the property for a "insulting" offer. Lucky he didn't have a gun.

 

[RIBottleguy]

I remember a guy on Craigslist who was a real job. He had a very rare Dr. Flint's Stomach Bitters from Providence. He said it was the only one in existence, and wanted a couple thousand for it. I saw in the picture that nearly half of the lip was chipped off.
I sent him a very polite email stating that he could get maybe $50 on a good day, and that I knew someone off the top of my head who had the exact same bottle.
Well, his reply was massive rant on how little I know about bottles, and how he knew every detail of this bottle. The stuff he pulled out of his posterior was appalling. Even when I sent him a picture of my friend's example (which was a dead ringer besides the chip), he said THAT BOTTLE IS DIFFERENT, it's clear and his was aqua. But, my friend's was clearly a deep aqua.

I have no clue why he acted so irrational, but I decided even if there was a remote chance of getting this bottle there was no way I was going to meet the guy in person!

 

[Plumbata]

A while back there was an eBay auction for a bottle collection in northeast Ohio, pick up only from the father's pole barn. Pic was of a bunch of boxes full of blown bottles, some rather nice ones by the look of things, and just the visible demijohns alone in the image were worth well more than what it sold for. I overslept by 10 minutes and it sold for around 260 bucks. The biggest steal for a collection I ever saw. I would have bid thrice that. Still kicking myself over it.

Wouldn't be surprised if someone here snapped it up.

 

[NYCFlasks]

I have seen a number of these. Lets see. There was the young couple who contacted me, this must be about 20 years ago, perhaps 25 years. The mother had passed away, and she was an antique collector and dealer, and left them her collection of bottles, and the book she used to collect them with. They were talking about 15k, yes, 15,000 buck a roos. So I went to check it out, I never pass on nothing. They had the largest collection of repro/contemporary historical flasks I have ever seen, couple hundred of them. The book, was THE flask book by Helen McKearin and David Wilson. The late mother had carefully noted each flask, checking them off in the book, labels on them noting how rare they were, and so on. As a collection of repros, it was outstanding, in terms of value, not much.

Then there was the lady who had lost her husband recently, and wanted to sell his milk bottles. Ok, so I check it out. In the garage was a Divco truck, full of milk bottles. Truck was pretty sad looking, and the milk bottles were all ultra common/throw in the recycle bin common. I asked her how did this come to be? Seems her husband drove this milk truck, and in a big milk strike in this area, his employer pretty much closed up shop and left. So he brought the truck home, with the bottles, hoping to use this as leverage to get his back pay. Never happened. She wanted to sell the truck and bottles, as she was selling the home and needed to get it out of there. I passed, really did not need a shot truck and hundreds of recycle bottles. She wanted a fair pop, 3 grand for everything.

Many people believe that the words "old" and "valuable" are interchangeable..............not.

Had some good ones too. The gentleman who called me, had some drug store items he wanted to sell. Ok, so I go. He had hundreds of LUG in his home. The house was sold, and he was leaving in 2 days. I had to get it all out by then. I threw out a number, a buck a piece and he took it, and it took 3 trips with my pickup to get it all home. Took a number of years, but was able to find it all new homes.

There was the family who dug bottles for decades, and kept everything. They were moving and wanted to get rid of it. The price was 500 dollars. Looked good for the money, and the deal was done. Took me 9 trips with a rack body truck to get it all home. 8 loads went at the curb, and there was one that I am still selling and trading today, this was about 20 years ago. The garbageman did not like me that year..........but I was good at Christmas to them.

Plenty of others............

 

[mctaggart67]

I've had the mixed results, too, in going to see collections for sale by the uninitiated. I had one older lady become so incensed at my offer, which was about 50% more than standard value to send the message that I was a serious collector, that she screamed at me for trying to rip her off. She wanted $200, I thought $15 was generous, and $10 was about what the typical bottles of its style, etc. would sell for in the collecting world. Whoops, what a backfire!

On kijiji, I found myself giving out a lot of free appraisals, in that sellers were courting offers. I give them, but then would be met with a query about how I arrived at my offer, which seems like a reasonable request from an unknowledgeable party. However, the sellers were just testing to see how valid my offer was to get a free and accurate appraisal, so they could delist online (yes, the ads were dropped) and then, presumably, sell directly to another party. I don't make any offers at all, now.

However, sometimes you win as a collector and even more as a person. The best score I made was when I was still in my teens. A retiree responded to one of my newspaper want ads (remember those?!). His late wife had been a hoarder, who just happened to have liked milk bottles. She didn't collect them in the fashion we do. Instead, she would keep one different example she could get her hands on from each local dairy that she did business with (her hoarding started in the 1940s). I collected local milks at the time, and was blown away, since the retiree pulled out from long-stored boxes and crates embossed and silk-screened variants from small farm-based dairies that no collector had seen before. I kid you not -- really rare stuff! By the time, he had finished showing me everything, there were around two dozen distinct "new" local milk bottles before my eyes, along with a sizeable number of duplicates and more common stuff from larger incorporated dairies.

I was jumping for joy, almost literally, until my euphoria immediately evaporated, when the retiree asked that question, "So, how much are they worth?" I crashed back down to reality, and, since I was only 14 or 15 at the time, meekly yet honestly replied, "I can't afford to pay you what they're worth." He responded, somewhat matter-of-factly, "I didn't ask whether you could afford them. I asked what they're worth." I thought the gig was up, the deal was over, but still felt compelled to tell the truth and said, "Around $25 to $30 bucks each." And that was pretty good for such rare milks back in the early 1980s. His next question was, "I can tell that these bottles mean a lot to you as a young collector, is that so?" I acknowledged that. This guy was class all the way, and with gleam in his eye, he finally said, "Well, young man, I want to reward your honesty and I'm impressed that someone your age is interested in the past and has a hobby to keep him from getting into trouble. I think a dollar a bottle is fine." I damn near fell over and actually had enough cash in my wallet to cover the total. The retiree even drove me and the bottles back home.

I felt lucky that day, but only because I added some truly great bottles to my local collection and had a few left over as traders or sellers. As an adult and a high school teacher, I now have a much greater appreciation of what he really gave me that day, and it certainly wasn't a bunch of glass antiques. Money meant nothing to him -- he was eighty-something and happy with life -- but he understood the greater value and wisdom in feeding the curiosity of a young person. That is a very powerful gift to give a teenager. Thanks, Alan Smith, may you always rest in peace.

 

[RCO]

lately i've been having really bad luck with people on "kiijji " which is a canadian version of craigslist if your from the US and never heard of the site before .
i actually put an add up on my local kijjii site saying i was looking for bottles a month ago and got 5 replies from people who had bottles but each reply fell apart , either they were too far away or wanted way too much money .
one lady wrote in who had 9 bottles , 4 were NDNR coca colas and i figured they were worth nothing but she had 5 other bottles from 40's-50's and a couple were interesting so i offered her $20 which i though was a very generious offer , she wrote back saying she was expecting more $ , so i offered $10 just for the 1 bottle i really wanted , she still rejected that offer . i finally wrote back saying i wasn't interested anymore so she angryly wrote back saying i was a jerk and had no life , what a crazy lady .

but last summer i did have some luck on kiijji , one lady had an assortment of bottles for sale and i offered her $25 . turned out there was a local milk jug and rare local flavouring extract bottle in the mix so it was a good buy . another guy had maybe 5 40's - 50's pop bottles and i paid $15 for them which was another good buy but this year its been a challenge to say the least

 

[riverdiver]

Sheesh, great experiences all around. I just lived this very nightmare in the past two weeks. The sole occupant of a house built in 1850 passed away and the adult children asked if anyone local knew bottles, my name got dropped and a week later I am walking through a very damaged house looking at a large mint collection of 1970's Avon and Wheaton repro bottles and a smattering of local beer, soda, milk and druggist bottles. I was fair and tried to educate the family about real vs repro flasks and the reality of selling a collection in this economy with all of the silly digger shows making folks think they are sitting on a gold mine...long story short, I contacted several members of this forum for their respective collecting areas and received excellent offers only to have the seller decide to go with a local antique mall and flat out refuse all offers due to this "we believe the ( NH ) bottles are valuable and we are going to research on our own and get the "right" price. Funny, they came to me, I refused payment for the appraisal and was given an antique oak dresser and a couple of bottles (their choice) for my time.

Repops on a window sill...

 

[riverdiver]

more fakes

 

[riverdiver]

still more...