Plumbata
Well-Known Member
Well, I have always loved embossed pharmacy bottles. I believe that it all started when I stumbled upon an absolutely sparkling mint perfect 6 ounce bottle from a business not listed in the local books on the surface of the ground in the drip-zone below the eaves of an abandoned farmhouse. I was 10 at the time, and as such the experience had a strong influence upon my fascination with old glass. That is partly why I think I will be collecting quart pharms.
(skip the rest if you want to get right to the image)
Pharmacy bottles are relatively inexpensive compared to the more popular categories (which is good for me) and they are often quite rare, even if the market demand does not reflect the fact. They are imbued with a greater degree of "personality", in a sense, since they were largely filled by the person marked on the bottle according to the specifications of a particular individual customer/consumer, unlike beers, sodas, milks, or essentially anything else aside from canning jars. They reflect the honest entrepreneurial spirit of a long-lost America far more faithfully as well, in my mind (though this is open for debate).
Anyway, considering the rarity of 32 ounce/quart handblown pharmacy bottles which almost never survive due to the fragility of the design, the sub-par glass utilized and the relative scarcity compared to the smaller sizes commissioned en-masse by the pharmacists, I feel that they represent an awesome collecting niche which has not been exploited by the multitudes of people who instead collect spirits, beers and sodas just like most of their bottle collecting friends. I love me a nice blob or hutch, but a new druggist is what truly does it for me. Perhaps I need to get into some privys, eh?
After finding a Peoria pharmacy in the 32 ounce size, still holding the original contents of what was presumably a disinfectant soap, I continued my excavations in a state of surreal weightlessness; constantly looking back at the gargantuan, heavily embossed bottle which had been left standing upright on the bank, feeling as if I was not actually digging but rather merely paying my dues so that I could justify going to feel it in my hands once again. Despite the fact that it is not "worth" nearly as much as a number of my other finds would be on the open market, it is one of the most precious of the insignificant and inherently transient atomical configurations of the many little peronal treasures I keep around. I know that it will shatter oneday, perhaps during my lifetime or perhaps in 800,000 years, but it is inevitable that it will break sometime in the future. It certainly cannot outlast the universe, anyway, and if you believe in an afterlife then you cannot take it with you, though it would be pretty nice to compare collections with God if it was possible! [
] The cosmic futility of collecting anything which is inherently fragile is almost agonizing, isnt it? Perhaps most of you act as stewards over the fantastic items entrusted to our short-term care and try to ignore or mitigate for several decades the relentless pressures of global flux which threaten our hollow blobs of amorphous silicon dioxide? Beh, I digress. After a while, I decided that I should slowly try to amass a good collection of 32 ounce pharmacy bottles, since they are so huge and awesome-looking, and since they are pretty darn rare when you think about them on an individual basis. When you get down to it, if you can get a bottle for 20 bucks that was one of probably less than 1,440 ever made, and which is one of a very minor percentage of that low number which has survived intact for more than 100 years, then I'd say you got a good deal. That's my take on it, anyway. I figure I'll have a good 50 or 60 years to see if my investments end up being worthwhile. []
Another class of "undervalued" items that I believe will be gaining value in my lifetime is slugplate flasks from large cities or currently collector-poor towns. You will see these things going for 5, 10, or 15 bucks a piece and they are absolutely beautiful for the price. Historicals are awesome moneymakers and/or investment items, which will continue to command top prices and maintain positions of prominence in personal collections displayed for the benefit of its observers, but I would almost invariably prefer 5 or 10 attractive Boston or NYC SP flasks over a pontiled aqua scroll if I were to collect for the sole goal of satisfying my own acquisitive curiosities. Howabout yourself?
Here are the 2 humble quart druggists that I have in hand:
And a 3rd on its way!
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170391978543&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT
Show me the quarts that you folk have floating around! I want to see!
(skip the rest if you want to get right to the image)
Pharmacy bottles are relatively inexpensive compared to the more popular categories (which is good for me) and they are often quite rare, even if the market demand does not reflect the fact. They are imbued with a greater degree of "personality", in a sense, since they were largely filled by the person marked on the bottle according to the specifications of a particular individual customer/consumer, unlike beers, sodas, milks, or essentially anything else aside from canning jars. They reflect the honest entrepreneurial spirit of a long-lost America far more faithfully as well, in my mind (though this is open for debate).
Anyway, considering the rarity of 32 ounce/quart handblown pharmacy bottles which almost never survive due to the fragility of the design, the sub-par glass utilized and the relative scarcity compared to the smaller sizes commissioned en-masse by the pharmacists, I feel that they represent an awesome collecting niche which has not been exploited by the multitudes of people who instead collect spirits, beers and sodas just like most of their bottle collecting friends. I love me a nice blob or hutch, but a new druggist is what truly does it for me. Perhaps I need to get into some privys, eh?
After finding a Peoria pharmacy in the 32 ounce size, still holding the original contents of what was presumably a disinfectant soap, I continued my excavations in a state of surreal weightlessness; constantly looking back at the gargantuan, heavily embossed bottle which had been left standing upright on the bank, feeling as if I was not actually digging but rather merely paying my dues so that I could justify going to feel it in my hands once again. Despite the fact that it is not "worth" nearly as much as a number of my other finds would be on the open market, it is one of the most precious of the insignificant and inherently transient atomical configurations of the many little peronal treasures I keep around. I know that it will shatter oneday, perhaps during my lifetime or perhaps in 800,000 years, but it is inevitable that it will break sometime in the future. It certainly cannot outlast the universe, anyway, and if you believe in an afterlife then you cannot take it with you, though it would be pretty nice to compare collections with God if it was possible! [
] The cosmic futility of collecting anything which is inherently fragile is almost agonizing, isnt it? Perhaps most of you act as stewards over the fantastic items entrusted to our short-term care and try to ignore or mitigate for several decades the relentless pressures of global flux which threaten our hollow blobs of amorphous silicon dioxide? Beh, I digress. After a while, I decided that I should slowly try to amass a good collection of 32 ounce pharmacy bottles, since they are so huge and awesome-looking, and since they are pretty darn rare when you think about them on an individual basis. When you get down to it, if you can get a bottle for 20 bucks that was one of probably less than 1,440 ever made, and which is one of a very minor percentage of that low number which has survived intact for more than 100 years, then I'd say you got a good deal. That's my take on it, anyway. I figure I'll have a good 50 or 60 years to see if my investments end up being worthwhile. []Another class of "undervalued" items that I believe will be gaining value in my lifetime is slugplate flasks from large cities or currently collector-poor towns. You will see these things going for 5, 10, or 15 bucks a piece and they are absolutely beautiful for the price. Historicals are awesome moneymakers and/or investment items, which will continue to command top prices and maintain positions of prominence in personal collections displayed for the benefit of its observers, but I would almost invariably prefer 5 or 10 attractive Boston or NYC SP flasks over a pontiled aqua scroll if I were to collect for the sole goal of satisfying my own acquisitive curiosities. Howabout yourself?
Here are the 2 humble quart druggists that I have in hand:
And a 3rd on its way!
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170391978543&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT
Show me the quarts that you folk have floating around! I want to see!
