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We buy, consign and sell antique bottles in our online auction - including old whiskey, bitters, sodas, water,

beers, inks, flasks, spirit, medicine, historical, fruit and pickle jars, utility, barber, gin, Dutch onion, nippers and more!

Mrs. Carolyn Kerr

Mr. Alex Kerr

Brochures are in the mail! The Kerr auction is set to begin May 12 and will close May 20th at 8pm Pacific. You should receive your brochure in a few days, if you do not receive one or have not requested a brochure, please call and we will be happy to send one out. Remember, when the collection is gone, it's gone.

A recent email to American Bottle Auctions turned out to be quite interesting. The sender mentioned he had a jar, his father had recently passed and before he did, told his son to sell the jar, it was time. The seller whose name is Bill said his father had bought a jar at a flea market years ago and it had remained safely in their house ever since.

We had another interesting email a few months before this one. It ended up resulting in the Dalbey jar, which by now has sold in our recent auction. This time the potential seller, Bill, said he had checked the landscape and decided he liked the way we did business, he decided to consign it and we didn’t mind that one bit. I told Bill that we are more than happy to give opinions on bottles, we do many everyday.

After some brief small talk I asked him what he had. "A fruit jar that has Lupton’s embossed on it," was his reply. As I talked I went to the bookshelf, pulled out Doug Leybourne’s Redbook and Jerry McCann’s Fruit Jar Annual for 2008. Not a Lupton jar in sight. I figured it was a turn of the century jar made in his area of the country that just didn’t have the interest of either author. "Does it say anything else" I asked? "Yes it does," he replied. "Self Sealer Pat May 29th 1866." He had my attention. Surely Doug or Jerry would include a jar from the 1860’s? I needed more information.

I called Doug Leybourne who told me he was not familiar with the jar. I called Bill back and told him the news, unlisted, no real news to give him except that it could be an exceptionally rare and possibly valuable jar. I needed to see it.

The next day we sent Bill a Fed X label, which comes in handy. You email a label addressed to us and he prints it out, glues it to the box and it is back in our hands within a day or two. Dave told me his dad, Fred, and his family had settled near New Jersey. He had done some research on the jar and pointed me in the right direction. I went to the Google Patent search and there it was as plain as day. Not only the entire patent, number 55128, but a picture of the jar and its unique lid. Designed, according to the patent abstract, to be pressed onto the mouth of the jar, placed in boiling water with some weight added to the top and the contents, when the jar and contents cooled, would seal itself. A self-sealing jar, just like the embossing said.

As I read the United States Patent Office abstract dated May 29, 1866, I could tell the Lupton brothers thought they had a unique and possibly groundbreaking invention. They explained "by means of which fruit cans can be sealed air-tight in such a way that the fruit can be kept sound and sweet for any length of time, and the stopper can be removed when required without difficulty and without injuring the stopper; and it consists of a fruit-can stopper formed by combing an india-rubber or equivalent lining or surface with a wooden or metallic cap; as hereinafter more fully described." A novel idea indeed. The patent went on to describe the different materials that could be used for the container including, tin, glass or earthenware. "Among the advantages," the patent reads, "our invention it may be mentioned that the operator can always tell whether the can is sealed or not…for if the sealing is not perfect the stopper can be lifted from the can." Joshua and Nathan Lupton signed the patent on February 19th, 1866. Witnessed by a Mr. I.F. Oshel and a Mr. Levi Morris. The patent also states that the Lupton brothers were from Stafford, Ohio. A town that as of 2000 still had a population of only 86. A lot of jars were made in Ohio. In addition, a picture of their invention is shown, the jar or can, exactly as it appears now in front of me, without the embossing. A most unusual lip applied to the top of the jar, the very top a ground or polished finish. It’s called a fruit-jar on the abstract and a fruit can on the picture.

Looking at the jar or can, it is a nice bluish aqua with some good overall character. Lots of tiny bubbles, plenty of light whittle overall, and that odd flat top with signs of grinding or polishing. It’s obvious they wanted the flattest lip possible to insure a tight seal. The bottom has no pontil, just a slightly indented 2" diameter circle in the center of the jar. The condition is about perfect; it appears it wasn’t used much. As it turns out, it held right around 60 ounces, almost a quart and stands 8" with the base being 3 3/4" in diameter. An odd size for an odd jar.

Well, it’s a guessing game now, what happened with their new invention? Why didn’t it catch on? Did the first user die of botulism? Did the brothers die in a fire? Even the oddest of the odd have some place in record books. Even a blind squirrel finds an occasional nut. The fact that they went through the process to patent the "can" as they called it had to be something they felt was a promising venture. It should have been more important than this. How could one jar survive? Just one?

So a man named Fred, gone at age 79, many years ago, strolling through a flea market reached into a box and pulled out a jar he liked enough to fork over a few bucks for. Just a glass jar that might have held the dreams of two men, brothers who like so many others during their time, pursued that pot of gold near a rainbow. What is the price or value of a dream? Was it all for naught, the remains of two visionaries found at a flea market? How can the smartest of the smart and the strongest of the strong not succeed? It was a self-sealing jar for God’s sake. Now, besides the patent and the jar, what is left? Is there a Lupton family in Ohio? A great grandson or daughter perhaps? What are dreams truly made of, what makes a dream come true? And do they have to become true to be a real dream?

Editors Note; we did find a Nathan Lupton who died in Warren County, Ohio in 1916. Also, this jar will be included in our next auction.

An email arrived a couple months ago and like the dozens I get almost daily, I read it and said I would investigate their bottle. This bottle in particular was called the People’s Favorite Bitters and as there was no picture, I sat with my fist on my chin, trying to picture what the bottle looked like. I know, I know, I should know but remembering literally thousands of different bottles made from coast to coast, not to mention remembering every McKearin number (which I don’t), is no simple task.

I grabbed The Bitters Bottles book originally written by Carolyn Ring and followed up by a new version written in tandem with Bill Ham, and went to the P section. There it was, P 41 with a drawing of this most unusual, barrel shaped bitters with an odd row of swirling lines enveloping the entire bottle leaving an area in the middle that left room for the embossing. It read PEOPLE’S FAVORITE BITTERS POWELL & STUTENROTH a date on the shoulder area that read PATD JULY 28 1868. I then grabbed the updated version that Bill had written on his own with new photographs that I have to admit although somewhat reluctantly, rivaled my own in quality, maybe better. There on page 155 was a picture of not one, but two Favorite Bitters, one without the embossed "People’s" and a little shorter in stature. Wow! I was thinking how beautiful the bottles looked, the People’s variant light amber shining like a million rays of sunlight, well, maybe not a million.

What was interesting was that the other variant was not only shorter, it was a little stubbier and had larger ridges also swirling around the body of the bottle. Time to investigate a little more before I returned the email. As it turned out, the Favorite variant was the first one made and was then changed to the People’s Favorite Bitters on July 28, 1868, the date on the shoulder of the bottle. Now I was intrigued, as the People’s variant seemed to be extremely Rare while the other was rated as Very Rare. This bottle was getting better by the minute.

I emailed the woman back and conveyed what I had learned and I asked her to send some pictures and I would find out it’s value. I also asked, "where did you find this incredible bottle?"

The picture came the next day and it was the identical bottle, ridges, golden amber, nearly identical to the one in Bill’s book. I had meanwhile talked to a few people and asked what they thought it was worth. "Lots," was the general reply. "Three or four known," was also mentioned. In U.S. dollars? "Oh, nearly $20,000, maybe more." Way better by the minute. The person was excited as I was. "Can you send it out?" I asked. The answer was yes and before long I was one foot away and staring at a masterpiece of mold making and a rare one at that. So where did it come from? The story goes like this;

The woman, Kristi, who knew nothing about old bottles, has parents that owned a house next to their own. The place? Kansas. And where did it come from? She conveyed that her parents had decided to tear down the old house and during the tear down, this bottle turned up. Oh there were others but this one, this time, was special. Turns out the partners Powell & Stutenroth were from Naperville, Illinois. Since the house was pre-civil war, the timing was perfect. An Illinois bitters in Kansas. Found while tearing down a house. In need of a little sprucing up, if you didn’t like a bottle like this, cookie jars might be your thing.

Well, after a light cleaning it sits waiting for our upcoming auction in March. Will it sell for as much as $20,000? Who knows. All I know is when I asked these gracious people in Kansas if they wanted to risk cleaning it, the reply I got astounded me. "We didn’t pay anything for it so if it breaks, that’s the way it goes," she said. When was the last time I heard anyone saying anything like that? The woman on the end of the email turned out to be a lovely, caring person who knew that there was more to life than money, much more. As the family spokesperson, she and her family were happy with their decision and Lou Lambert cleaned it up like he’d just washed the evening dishes. "No sweat," he answered when I asked him if he could try not to break it. He didn’t, it’s drop dead gorgeous and everyone so far is happy. It will be one of the highlights of the March auction. And, as I told Kristi, we will get the word out on her amazing find. How a wonderful bottle like this made in the 1860’s ended up in a house so far away from California and will now go to auction and then to some lucky bidder is just another amazing story in the collecting world. Kristi sounded excited and as I hung up the phone, we both thought about the past and future and I said, "trust me, it’s going to do well, after all, it’s not in Kansas anymore."

Once in a while people get lucky. So do auctioneers, once in a while. While American Bottle Auctions has had good fortune shine upon it this year, some other reasons to smile have come our way. The Dalbey Jar shown here is one of them. Upon receiving a couple emails from a woman by the name of Kathy in Ohio, I dismissed them as newer bottles with little value. I had not yet come to the end of the second email. As I scrolled down and looked among the many screw top, clear bottles, I noticed a jar, a canning jar that looked pretty old. I emailed Kathy back and asked if she could identify the jar a little more. She said it said "Dalbey" and had the date 1858. I told her I would get back to her soon. As I scrolled through The Redbook and Jerry McCann’s Fruit Jar Annual, my jaw dropped. Surely I was reading this wrong. Not being a jar collector, and as much as I appreciate these wonderful containers, I was astonished to read that the jar was valued at around $7,000, but more amazing was that no known original closures had been accounted for. Or had they?

I called Kathy and asked her what the story was, in other words, where did you get the jar? She answered that her husband, age 69 inherited a farm that's been in his family since 1842 and there was a cupboard in the house that contained a number of different items including some glassware. The house and its contents were pretty much the same as it was when he was a child. The Dalbey jar, as it turned out, was in the back of the cupboard behind some other lesser Mason jars and such. For all she knew, the jar had been sitting around for years, decades, but over a century and a half?

I called Doug Leybourne, the source of all sources on issues like this. His Redbook is the Bible of the jar-collecting world and if anyone knew more about this jar, it was Doug. I told him the story and like many similar stories before, the jar was an amazing find, but the closure was most likely a reproduction. The odds were astronomical that it was an original top. I emailed some photos to Doug and he wrote me back in obvious excitement. The real McCoy was one term he used. It was apparently, the real thing.

I called Kathy again, giving her the good news. The truth was, I had a good feeling from the start that it was right. Why would an elderly woman who lived in this house (which by the way was built in 1842) go to the trouble of having a reproduction lid made for a jar that was probably used by her and most likely her mother? The odds would seem that it was used, maybe once, maybe more but soon replaced by the likes of a newer and much easier to use Mason or Lighting jar. This is how unique, priceless objects are found. People just had them, didn’t think much about them and they eventually came to light at a yard sale or antique store mercilessly before they were tossed away forever. Remember the copy of the Declaration of Independence that was found behind a drab painting, which was purchased, simply for the frame?

The jar was shipped to me and I immediately knew Doug was right. The jar, in Mint condition, still had it’s leather guides, everything, perfectly intact. It appeared as if it had been used once, and set aside, forgotten for a century and a half. Sitting through the Civil War, endless presidents and, finally, the 21st Century.

The Dalbey jar will be presented in our upcoming auction in March. It is so primitive but like all things so old yet so perfect. A jar that held preserves sat in front of me, preserved as well as the contents it likely once held. How someone long ago thought this jar would catch on was beyond me but history prevailed and now I think how luck found both a woman in Ohio and a bottle auctioneer in California.

The Washington Bottle Collector's Association
& Emerald City Insulator Spring Show & Sale
Saturday May 9th and Sunday May 10th
Saturday 9AM - 4PM (early buyers Friday 2PM - 7PM)
At the Southwest Washington Fairgrounds, Chelais, WA
Info: Warren
Phone 206-329-8412
email is wlbottleguy@yahoo.com
Or: Robin 206-522-2135 robin3250@comcast.net

The Reno Antique Bottle and Collectibles Club
45th Annual Show and Sale
Friday & Saturday July 18-19th (Dealers 10 AM/Early Birds 12 PM)
Admission: Early Bird $10
At Sparks Convention Center
4590 South Virginia Street, Reno
INFO: Helene at 775-345-0171
INFO: Willy at 775-746-0922

The Los Angeles Historical Bottle Club Proudly Presents its
Antique Bottle Fruit Jar, Antiques and Collectible Show & Sale
Saturday September 13th 2008 from 9 AM to 4 PM
Admission $2.50/Early bird $5.00 starts at 8 AM
At the Arcadia Masonic Temple
50 West Duarte Road, Arcadia, CA
Info: Don Wippert/818-346-9833
Info: Dick Homme/818-362-3368
Website: www.lahbc.org

The Phoenix Antiques, Bottles & Collectibles Club
Annual Show and Sale
Friday October 10th 2008 from 10 AM to 5 PM (Early Bird 10 AM - 12 PM) &
Saturday, October 11th 8 AM- 4 PM
Admission: Early Bird $10, General $3, Children under 12 are FREE
At N. Phoenix Baptist Church (NPBC) with over 10,000 sq. ft. available for setup!
NPBC is located at 5757 N. Central Ave., Phoenix, AZ
INFO: Betty Hartnett at 602-317-4438
email is bettchem@cox.net
Website: www.phoenixantiquesclub.org

Jefferson State Antique Bottle & Collectibles Show
Saturday October 18th 2008 from 9 AM to 3 PM
Dealer set-up/ Early admission Friday 12 PM to 7 PM
At the Seven Feathers Hotel and Casino Resort
I-5 Exit 99
Info: Bruce Silva, PO Box 1565, Jacksonville, OR 97530
Phone 541-899-8411
email is jsglass@q.com / http://www.ecandm.com/canyonville/

The Bryan Grapentine Auction Part II ended on August 29, 2007.
To view Part II please click here.

The Bryan Grapentine Auction Part I ended on April 11, 2007.
To view Part I please click here.

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All photographs and editorial copy appearing on this website are the exclusive property of American Bottle Auctions and may not be reprinted, quoted or re-published without the permission of Jeff Wichmann, the owner of American Bottle Auctions.