Treasure Hunting

If you’ve recently found an old bottle, probably one of the biggest questions in your mind concerns how much the bottle is worth. Even if you haven’t found anything yet, but are thinking about going out looking for old bottles, knowing what bottles are worth can help you decide if the endeavor is worth your time. As with most collectibles, the worth of an antique bottle can fluctuate quite a bit depending upon the condition, rarity, and demand. Some antique bottle specimens continue to increase in value as time passes and others jump around in worth a lot. Just like with anything else, the worth of the bottle depends on what people are willing to pay.

If you want to know the current value of an antique bottle, one good place to check is eBay. Searching through the listings of recently sold items can give a great idea on what the going rate is on any particular bottle. For those that have little experience with eBay, I’ll give some hints on how you can use the search tools there to get an idea of how much your antique bottle is worth.

First off, to get the most out of the search tools at eBay, you need to have an account there. Before you start pulling out your hair and looking for some other way to appraise your antique bottle, stop a moment. Creating an account at eBay isn’t as bad as you think, and you do NOT have to provide any financial information to create a simple account. All you have to do is provide basic address and email information. It only takes a couple of minutes and it’s well worth it just to search the listings completely. The only time you will need to provide any form of financial information is if you intend to buy or sell or item. So, if you don’t have an eBay account yet, you can create one in just a couple of minutes here. Remember to keep this page open while you’re doing so. That way, you can see the rest of the steps you have to take to search for the value of your antique bottle.

Once you’ve created your eBay account or signed into your already existing account, go to the search page at this link. Now, so that we have an example to work from, let’s suppose that you have an old amber coca-cola bottle and you want to figure out how much it’s worth. Click on the picture below to see a bigger version of the screen.

To search for this on eBay, enter the information as we did in this screenshot. Don’t forget to check the boxes in front of the options “Search title and description” and “Completed listings only” so that you will get as many related completed listings as possible. You want to restrict your search to completed listings so that you can see how much was actually paid for the bottles. After you’ve entered this information, click on the “Search” button and you’ll see a sampling of the amber coca cola bottles that have sold on eBay and how much was paid for them. Now you can have a rough idea of how much your bottle is worth on the current market.

You may have to go back and refine your search a few times, putting in different key words in the “Enter keyword or item number” field to narrow down your search. You can also narrow it further by choosing “Collectibles” from the category drop-down list.

Remember, there are a lot of factors that go into determining how much an old bottle is worth. Just because you see that one sold on eBay for $100, that doesn’t mean yours is worth the same. But it’s definitely a great place to start to get a rough idea for what your antique bottle is worth, and then you can continue your research from there.

I was perusing the National Bottle Museum web site the other day and came across a very interesting fact. I had no idea that bottle making was the first major industry in the United States. Even more interesting is that machine-made bottles did not come into existence until 1903. After Michael Owens patented his bottle making machine in that year, many still continued to make bottles by hand.

Although there are some notable exceptions, its generally the handmade bottles that are real treasure finds. The great thing about treasure hunting for bottles is that you don’t have to plan a long trip out into the middle of nowhere to do so. (Well, I kinda like going out in the middle of nowhere, but that’s beside the point.) Most people don’t even realize how much old bottle are worth. So, a lot of times, you can find them priced for almost nothing at yard sales or estate auctions.

Another good place to go treasure hunting for bottles is in the attics of old houses. Of course it goes without saying that you’ll need the owner’s permission. But you might be able to cut a deal with a family who owns an old home by offering to clean out their attic or outside storage buildings for them. Be honest with them about what you’re doing. Don’t try to trick anyone. But do try to make a deal up front about how the findings will be split should you find anything.

Don’t forget about ghost towns! Sure, people pour through ghost towns treasure hunting with metal detectors all the time, but most of them are looking for old coins or bits of gold. A lot of times, old bottle are just laying around with a lot of garbage and debris. Some of these bottles may turn out to be rare enough that they’re worth the trouble of gathering even if they do have chips and scrapes.