Glass bottles or vessels are known to date back to around 1500BC, a few examples have been found but unfortunately not intact. The most famous early glass makers were the Romans, examples of Roman glass flasks, vessels and bottles can be found in most Roman occupied countries. Egyptians also made glass and of course the Venetians.
Glass bottles were first made in England in the mid seventeenth century and were very dark brown or green in colour due to the impurities of the flux. They were all free blown, which accounts for the irregularities. Many examples have a circular impressed device identifying the maker or person for whom the bottle was made. These early bottles had squat onion shaped bodies and long slender necks, but as methods improved bodies became taller and necks shorter.
The Victorians packed everything into glass and earthenware containers, the majority of these containers were then thrown away when empty, much as we do today with plastic. Each and every non machine made bottle with tears, streaking, irregularity of shape and strange neck angle has become a collector’s item.
Bottles have to be displayed to be enjoyed, catalogued to be remembered and even broken bits saved for identification and dating information.
To display my bottles I prefer to keep them when possible, in categories, one shelf for ginger beers, one for beer bottles, one for items bought in the chemist shop and another for the grocers shop. A collection on a window shelf, where the sun can shine through and show different shades. Bottles can be displayed in small groups, showing contrast of colour or shapes, or even manufacturers change of design over the years, for which even modern bottles can be collected.
Anyone collecting bottles will probably end up specialising and this in turn leads to collecting items that go with them, either advertisements and advertising materials or, as in the case of ink bottles for example, pen and ink stands.
At the end of the seventeenth century three million bottles were produced in Britain, today it is more likely to be in excess of five billion! So there is plenty of scope, particularly if you are collecting for the future or collecting one particular kind of bottle or bottles showing its development over the years, for example Marmite or Bovril.
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