5cent store bottle

[dollarbill]

hey all dug this one yesterday 5 cent pint milk saw were a 5 cent half pint was listed by Koveles for 40 bucks so ? . would the larger for less be worth more. thanks for look an any help yall could give . good luck diggen .bill

 

[DiggerBryan]

Hey Dollarbill, sorry to say Kovels are waaaayy off. I have a bunch of these and if I'm lucky I can sell them for $5.00 a piece, any size. But I have a hard time finding anyone who wants them even at $5.00 []

 

[dollarbill]

hey thanks for the reply DiggerBryan. wow those guys were way off for sure. oh well i think its cool iam hopen i dig a half pint next anyway .thanks agian an good luck diggen.bill

 

[DiggerBryan]

Yeah no problem. I should have mentioned one more thing. It doesn't have a dairy name on the bottom or anywhere does it? There are 5 cent store bottles that had dairy names on them and that makes them worth money. If not though they still display nicely. I have about 3 or 4 on my shelf.

 

[madman]

here are some 3 cent and 5 cent bottles in my collection mike

 

[madman]

kmd?

 

[madman]

shaker grove

 

[madman]

5cent

 

[madman]

3cent cream

 

[walkingstick]

listed by Koveles for 40 bucks

Kovel's, and other so called "Price Guides" sometimes don't use auction results. One of the methods they use is to ask a dealer what price they are asking for an object. Of course, the dealer would want the more $$$ in a price guide so there would be an "official" listing at that higher price, so they would quote a higher price.

A bottle, or anything else in this world, is worth no more than what a buyer is willing to pay for it. Rarity alone does not always drive the price. Desireability + rarity + condition drives the value. I believe that desireability is the strongest driving force. I trust auction results rather than price guides. And then I want to watch several auctions for the same item to eliminate the "bidding wars" from influencing the value. Also, if an item comes up for auction and sells for a high price, sometimes shortly after that the market will be flooded with others of the same item and there will not be as high of a result. Reason, I believe, is the collectors that want the item bad enough to pay a lot for it already have theirs, and the remainder of the buyers who desire that item and are not willing to pay the higher price can now bid. I am constantly watching auction results on e-bay and use that as a quide. YES! I am one of those folks who will watch an item without making a bid, unless it is something that I want and can afford. I always wait for a flood and then will bid, sometimes winning that item in better condition and for much less than the original. Of course, most of the time the market is not flooded.

If a manufacturer of any item could not sell at the price he wanted, in order to survive, he would have to lower the price to a level in which the consumer is willing to pay in order to sell the item. Case in point ... A local antique shop here has dozens of screw top cobalt Bromo Seltzer and Milk of Magnesia bottles with a price of $25 each because "They are cobalt". I reckon she would be shocked at the cobalt Laxol bottle I got for a buck. I also suspect that all those bottles will still be collecting dust on a shelf waiting for a buyer after all the members of this forum are long gone.

Then there are the "snipers". The last 30 second of the auction mini bidding war. Wil raises his hand on that one. Dealers love snipers. Ok snipers, 'fess up and raise your hands also.

So, if you really want to know how much you could get for an item without actually selling it, the least expensive way I can think of is to take a good picture and put it up for bidding on e-bay with a ridiculously high reserve. Be sure to list all negative and positives about the item, i.e. chips, cracks, dings, stains, haze, odd spelling or backwards letters etc. I have seen one bottle within' the last month put up for auction 3 times with a reserve the first two times and finally without a reserve on the third time. I guess the original "custodian" wanted to test what people would be willing to pay for it before listing it.


borrowed from an e-bayer