Is there any way to get this terrible white cloudy staining off? Would tumbling work? By some miracle a piece of the metal closure is still on the neck after surviving YEARS in saltwater mud. Would tumbling hurt this? I don't think I can get the metal piece off. Any input would be appreciated.
Okay boys and girls, read carefully. Bottles like this are not stained, and they do not have any foreign matter on the surface. They are not dirty. Dump bottles or any bottles that have been in wet grounds for many years become etched like this, the collector term is "sick". This is because the glass surface gets "dissolved" by acids or chemical reactions in the wet ground, leaving a dull frosty patina. Oh well, that's what the dump digger expects. Now, tumbling a bot will make it wet shiny attic mint, it will polish off the etching, or sickness, and make it look shiny new again. But tumbling a bot is going to cost you a good hunk of bread, maybe thirty bucks or more, and it might take some of the detail off, and it might break, so it is risky, and very few specialists do it. Tumbling takes special equipment, and it may take two solid weeks of turning in the machine to get it looking decent. This blob is horribly sick, some of the worst, and can't be improved with any type of cleaning, or chemical treatment, because it is not dirty. The rusty bail wires add no value to bottles generally speaking, so don't worry about keeping that. This blob is worth about ten bucks, maybe a bit more, if in attic mint shiny condition. So just remember, if it is common, and sick, fuggetaboudit. It aint worth polishing. If it is a rare flask or bitters, or anything that is economically viable, a good tumbling will increase the value by an order of magnitude. But you dont want to polish a ten or twenty or fifty dollar bottle, because when you are done, you still have a ten or twenty or fifty dollar bottle, minus the tumbler charge. See what I'm sayin? Check out heckler auctions, they have a nice yellow historical flask found in a privy in SC that was sick as a dog and polished, it sold for 14 grand. It might have been only worth a thousand before polishing. You catch my drift? Good digging to all!
