sorting bottels ??

[Erines lifes wrks]

HI I have the task of cleaning my father inlaws bottels he is a 50+ yrs collector and he keept avery bottle he ever dug. my problme is he would dig them then put them in crates and that where thay stayed. so now thay are all comeing to my house to live. he wants me to have them all 80 to 100 crates of them. so I have taken the last load right into garage and started cleaning. all are very dirty . so heres my qusten as i clean them I would like to kind of sort them . right now iam puting whisky and wine?/small clear /diff colors / alot of them have embossing but are all differt kinds. I think Ill have close to 8-10,000 and fell I need to have a system any advice will help me THANKS

 

[woody]

Pick up a Kovel's bottle price guide and look at the different sections about what types of bottle catagories they have.
There you go............viola!!![]

 

[earlyglass]

If you are dealing with many thousands of bottles... there may be no need to clean and organize them all, in my opinion. It would make sense to have an honest bottle "authority" look them over first. Any desirable or valuable examples should be treated with care, cleaned and catalogued. Many of the dug bottles that have little to no value could stay in the boxes and maybe sold as lots. If you try to clean and catalogue each, it will drive you crazy. Do some research... become a little more educated to what you have, and find an honest collector to help you value these.

 

[Erines lifes wrks]

thanks thats good advise. is there a way to find out if anyone on this forum is from northern cal. ??

 

[cyberdigger]

There must be some members who aren't too far away from you, who would love to come and help ID those bottles.. heck I live in New Jersey and even I am tempted to come out there ..just to see so many bottles and help you out!
If there is any chance you could take some pics of some of them and post them here, we would all appreciate it.. even just a few descriptions and what the embossing says would help us get a feel for what you've got there.

 

[Erines lifes wrks]

yes one of my kids is comeing home from chico state Im hopeing she will help show me how to post a pitcher that would be fun also, Ill start by maybe a couple of group shots and let people direct me in the right direction