Tips for cleaning old pop bottles? Polishing compound or cleaning agent?

[clovis97]

I recently bought a large lot of old pop bottles...and boy, these are filthy!

Nothing rare or valuable. Most bottles date from the 1940's to the late 1960's.

I'd love to get these cleaned up for resale at a flea market. Vintage pop bottles can be good sellers if they are priced cheap enough. These won't sell to bottle collectors...most will go to decorators and antique collectors who like nostalgic items of yesteryear.

I watched one YT video, and the guy was using a bottle machine. He added a few small scoops of "polishing compound" to the inside of the bottle, along with snips of copper wire and water.

The compound appeared to be in powdered form.

Any ideas of what he was using?

Is there a substitute, possibly?

I'd love to hear more tips about cleaning old pop bottles. If you have a link, or suggestions, I'd love to learn!!!!

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!

 

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[mrmozambique13]

A bottle cleaner will run you around 500-600 dollars. If you buy a used one or build your own its about 300-500 and a pain in the ass....Are they Pyro Labels? Try soaking in pool acid or wood bleach for a couple days. Always use chem gloves and keep away from kids and pets. If its just some mud and gunk, clean with soap and hot water.

 

[Diggin-N-Dumps]

I actually just cleaned up a bunch of old dug bottles..I was looking into the Bottle tumbler, but it was WAAAAY expensive for what i wanted.

I did find out thou, that i would let them sit in CLR or fill up the bottle with CLR and let sit for a few days helped alot.

Then I found out that wiping them down with Mineral Oil and coating the inside with Mineral Oil made a HUUGE difference, it took alot of the rainbowing out . And now they look pretty damn good.

They arent perfect, but the Oil give them a nice clean sheen and look

 

[mrmozambique13]

To resell, I would skip out on the mineral oil part.....your sure to piss off someone who knows the difference and its consider "not of ethical practice" in the bottle collecting hobby.

 

[Diggin-N-Dumps]

To resell, I would skip out on the mineral oil part.....your sure to piss off someone who knows the difference and its consider "not of ethical practice" in the bottle collecting hobby.

Not arguing...but is it "not ethical" to shine the bottles up for display? It was the only way I could clean mine to make them not look so dried out. I do this with Mason Jars too...thou I dont sell them. I just dont want them to look like fresh dug glass

 

[mrmozambique13]

I was just saying because he wants to resell, but at a flea market go for it...Ebay you will get burned if you do that kind of stuff...Hell, what anyone does with their own personal stuff doesn't bother me one bit....Mineral oil away.

 

[mrmozambique13]

Also the compound used to polish bottles is the same for rock tumbling, cerium oxide, tin oxide, aluminum oxide, or various grit of silicon carbide powder.

 

[Diggin-N-Dumps]

I was just saying because he wants to resell, but at a flea market go for it...Ebay you will get burned if you do that kind of stuff...Hell, what anyone does with their own personal stuff doesn't bother me one bit....Mineral oil away.

Oh Ok, I wasnt sure if doing something like that was equivalent to cleaning a silver coin with brasso or something..lol I was just happy to see that worked for some of my bottles

 

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[clovis97]

Thank you so much for the replies so far!!!

These are low end bottles. The best of the whole lot is a double dot Pepsi, but the screen printed label is badly faded. I think there are a few old Coke bottles with the local bottler's name on the bottom.

Overall, these are $2 to $3 bottles. I'll probably ask $6 for the double dot Pepsi, pray that some dude wants it for his man cave, and buys it because the deeply faded label looks cool.

Honestly, they are probably not even worth the time to clean. I bought them all for $3, and there are probably 75 bottles in the lot. Sometimes it is nice to have this little stuff sitting around for the days that I have some down time. While they are incredibly cool, a bottle machine would be major overkill for this project.