| LINKS TO MY PAGES |
Located in
south central Oregon (on the Williamson River) - a beautiful area with BIG lakes (Klamath & Agency Lakes),
near to Crater Lake National Park and within sight of two snow
covered peaks - Mt. Shasta & Mt. McLoughlin (well, snow covered much of the year with
McLoughlin).
The Klamath Basin is located on the extreme western edge of the high and "cold desert" of eastern Oregon at over 4100' (valley bottom; mountainous elevations go up from there). Not real high for the Intermountain West, but just right for cold (but not too cold) winters and warm (but not too warm) summers. It's flora and fauna reflect its proximity to the Great Basin - the so-called "sagebrush ocean."
I (Bill) am a collector (44 years!) of all kinds of older, mouth-blown (not machine-made) American bottles and flasks produced by hand methods from the late 18th through the very early 20th century (pre-1910 + or -). My collecting tastes run the gamut from medicinal tonic bottles (more later), early American figured (aka "historical") flasks, bitters, California gold-rush era soda & mineral waters and other Western American bottles, early American utilitarian bottles & flasks, Oregon bottles, etc. I really don't have huge amounts within many of the recognized types or categories of 19th century bottles, but do have something within virtually all types - even some canning jars which are among the most fascinating bottle collecting genres.
New England & Midwestern "Pitkin" flasks produced between the
1790s and 1830s...beautiful!
Bottles, Books & Collectibles For Sale
I
offer an assortment of bottles, bottle related items and other collectibles
for sale via an assortment of other pages within this website; see the
hyperlinked list in the green box below. Now retired, I need to pare
down the amount of "stuff" I have including divesting myself of the hundreds of bottles purchased to
illustrate the information and concepts contained within the
Historic
Glass Bottle Identification & Information Website - my other very large,
educational website
(and discussed further down the page).
Click
Bottles For Sale
to access the main page for these items. On that page one will find
links to the various category specific "bottles for sale" pages.
Check back frequently as I periodically add new bottles and items to the
pages.
The links in the box below also takes one straight to each of the category specific "bottles for sale" pages:
I also offer a few Western Americana & history books via my Books For Sale webpage.
My email is -
I ask that people trying to first
contact me please use the email address above not call me by searching out
my phone number on the internet.
Monument Valley (Arizona) just before an
early snow storm - September 1974
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Want to know more
about historic
If the HBW does not answer your questions you may send an email. If you provide a good detailed description of the bottle in question and include a clear digital picture(s), I will try to help...but no guarantees. Be aware however that there were hundreds of thousands of uniquely different bottles produced during the 19th century into the middle of the 20th century and published information is available for only a very small percentage of them. For example, Ron Fowler ( www.seattlehistorycompany.com ) has cataloged well over 16,500 differently embossed Hutchinson soda bottles alone made between the 1880s and 1910s! However, many physical manufacturing related features of bottles give clues to the age and utility of most bottles. I may not get back immediately (I do get lots of questions) but try to answer all reasonably descriptive and friendly emails within a couple weeks. |
Medicinal Tonic Bottles
My one incursion into bottle collecting specialization is MEDICINAL TONIC bottles. Not hair tonics, but medicinal tonics where, for example, the word "tonic" is used in the place of the word "bitters" or "cure" - i.e. a Fever & Ague Tonic instead of Fever & Ague Cure. I do not generally collect items where the word Tonic is descriptive instead of the actual product, i.e. Dr. Jayne's Tonic Vermifuge is not a tonic, but a vermifuge with "tonic effects". But I would consider the Wilson's Tonic & Sarsaparillian Elixir to be pretty much of a true tonic bottle. It's a fine line of course, but I'm just after what I consider to be "true" tonic bottles.
I am in the process of compiling a list of all the known, embossed medicinal tonic bottles (though I am also interested in label only ones). My goal is to get as complete a list as possible, including different embossing patterns of the same brand; color, lip and size variations; and all the unique American and Canadian brands. I'm currently well over 400 different tonic bottles! I am striving towards some kind of book (or website?) on the subject in the future.
Click on
Medicinal Tonics to see my most updated listing of tonic bottles and
for more information on the subject. I am also looking for
good quality images of unusual tonic bottles.
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If you know of any embossed medicinal tonic bottles (as defined above) not listed on my Medicinal Tonics page, please contact me at the email link below; proper credit will be given in a future publication - traditional or web book. My email is - I ask that people trying to first contact me please use the email address above not call me by searching out my phone number on the internet. |
Smith Rocks in Central Oregon's High Desert
(near Redmond) - August 2008
© Copyright 2010
Last updated:
8/18/10
