New to the bottle forum. Looking to learn

[michigan michael]

Hello everyone. I am new to the bottle forum. I started buying up every bottle that I can find at garage sales and flea markets. I was told some bottles have dates on them? Sorry. like I said I am extremely green in this field. Here are a couple of my finds today. I bought 2 bottles that have a Federal warning about selling the bottles. I did find some research on one bottle as a hair bottle from the 1800's That one was exciting. Thanks for looking. Anybody have any ideas how old these are or where I might find more research tools?
Thanks everyone. -MM

 

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[gleaner1]

Memorial Magnet, for age: New stuff is ABM (automatic bottle machine, so its machine made, around 1900 or so) BIMAL (Blown In Mold Applied Lip, these are handblown and finished by professional glass blowers) and Pontiled goods, these are the older ones, blown in mold, rough glass scar at base, phased out in 1850-60 or so.

There are other types, like free blown, no mold. Machine made bottles have nice crisp, thin mold seam lines extending all the way to the top of the lip. BIMAL stuff has concentric rings around the top where the tool was twisted to shape the lip, obliterating the seem in that area. Rarely a nice piece comes out of flea markets or garage sales. I see you have a repro, you have a good eye for color and form. The whole subject involves color, form, rarity, condition, manufacturing methods, many things. It takes a long time to get and eye for the good pieces, and you are best off concentrating on one type if you want to become a serious collector. Sometimes a piece is common pontilled, but rare without, and vice versa.

For top end (expensive) pieces, check out HecklerAuctions or Jeff 'n Holley Nordsey's web sites, but there are many good sites if you search a bit. There is a lot of great info covering everything you would ever want to know or see about glass on the net. Tnet is a very good source for learning.

 

[timekiller]

Here's a good site I found a lot of useful info. when I started!
http://www.sha.org/bottle/dating.htm
Timekiller

 

[dirt diva]

Here's another site that is good for glass factory marks.

myinsulators.com

 

[allen]

thank you all for the tips and good research !

 

[timekiller]

thank you all for the tips and good research !

Right on Allen,glad to help!Another site I use alot is this.Good for maker marks and time line.Sorta like the site Dirt Diva mentioned.
http://www.angelfire.com/tn/traderz/marks.html