Real or fake?

[bikerchic]

I'm wondering how you can tell if a bottle is an actual antique or a fake.

 

[jays emporium]

For those of us who have been doing this for 40 years it is easy, and even then we get fooled once in awhile. The easy ones are if they are embossed Wheaton or Tiawan on the bottom they are not old original bottles. Then some bottles were originally made with hand finished tops which have no mold seams on the lip and the reproductions have mold seams all the way to the top. There are other ways that vary from bottle to bottle. 99% of the people don't have a clue if a bottle is old or not.

 

[coboltmoon]

That’s a tough question. What to look for depends on the type of bottle. Know what fakes exist and how to tell them from the real thing. The quality of the glass or embossing is generally different from fake to real thing. 99% of all old bottles have wear on the base and elsewhere. Fake wear can sometimes be spotted.
Flask with odd colors or machine made marks are not a good sign.
Fake labels are all over the place, many recently applied labels just don’t look right.
A repro jar may use the same mold number over and over again. Jars that have smooth lips that should be ground.
Many milk and soda bottles with painted labels can be faked. The quality of these can be very good and you have to know what fakes are out there.
New mexican glass has lots of small bubbles and has lots of impurities in the glass.
Bottles with CB on the base are Clevenger repros.
Repro 1923 Christmas Cokes have smaller embossing on the base.

 

[RED Matthews]

This subject is scary! I just today had some conversation with a mold maker that has had work making molds for prime old bottles, for some of the best of museums. It just is hard to believe, that famous museums would do this without honest posting of the facts of what they are selling. This man indicated that some molds were even made of wood.

All I can say is know your marks on the glass, the type of pontils that should be showing, and the glass color characteristics. If the price is low enough it might be ok to have them, but why? Just to look at or look good in your window. It sure tears me up to realize what is happening to our sense of values.
RED Matthews

 

[glass man]

IF NOTHING ELSE IF A BOTTLE [ORIGINAL] IS WORTH NO MORE THE $5 -$10,THEN NO ONE IS GONNA TAKE THE TIME TO REPRODUCE IT,BOTTLES LIKE BROMO SELTZER.

 

[GuntherHess]

fortunately bottle collecting has so far been less affected by fakes than most other collectible fields. Probably because the cost of making a mold and blowing a few bottles is more than the expected return on the faker's investment. Not to say that there arent some fake and fanatasy bottles out there. THey are just much less prevalent than in hobbies such as Civil War relics or art collecting. The vast majority of the fake bottles are fairly easy to identify with some reasonable study. There arent a lot of really good fakes in most bottle categories.