Carter's Ink Bottle

robertk · Jul 10, 2025

Bottle Vitals

	Date	Color	Shape	Size (Height x Diameter)	Value*
Carter's Ink Bottle	1910s	Clear	Round	2.5" x 2"	$10.00

Bottle Views (click to enlarge):

Front	Back	Side	Side	Bottom

				Carter's Made in USA

Carter's Ink company started in 1858 by William Carter, as an offshoot of his father's business publishing and selling books. Apparently at the time, the ink used for writing was not the same as ink used for copying/printing, so when Carter introduced an ink that could be used for both purposes, it was seen as a major innovation in ink. Click to enlarge.

Carter's started out as a small "laboratory" in a loft above the bookstore, but rapidly grew into its own business. Unfortunately the facility burned in the the "great fire" of 1872. But this let them build their own facility, and production rapidly grew from only 100,000 bottles a year to five million.

Carter's offered ink in various colors and scents, as well as adhesives. It was well regarded and at one time, Carter's was the largest single ink manufacturer in the world. It was used by bookkeepers

and by city governments:

As well as the Department of the Navy and other government agencies (click to enlarge):

And it was recommended to be on all steamboats

But it was not recommended to put your goldfish in it (click to enlarge).

The company later moved to Cambridge in 1910 and got another new building

They continued to operate there for many years, expanding into typewriter ribbons, ink removers, fountain pens, and other writing implements. They even "invented" the ubiquitous yellow highlighter marker in 1959. One of their chemists used one of their yellow markers on a page of black text, and they ran with the idea of promoting their existing yellow marker as a "Reading Hi-Liter", and the rest, as they say, is history.

But even with the success of the highlighter, Carter's sales were drifting downward. Carter's moved to Tennessee in 1965, and by 1975, sales had dropped enough that the company was sold to Dennison Manufacturing. But Dennison kept the Carters brand alive and you can still find ink, markers, and stamp pads from them today.

This particular bottle would have had a paper label to tell exactly what kind of ink was inside, the color, and so forth. But the label has been claimed by the elements, so all we can do is guess. But I think it would have looked like this one that I found online:

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Finally, here is the before and after cleaning on this bottle. It took a good soap and water bath with lots of brushing and scraping. Click to enlarge.

* Value is based on sold similar examples on eBay at the time of posting, and varies with condition.

villagenut · Jul 10, 2025

I love finding old inks, so many shapes and colors produced. I am pretty certain yours is a bit younger than 1880s though, appears ABM made.

robertk · Jul 11, 2025

villagenut said:
I love finding old inks, so many shapes and colors produced. I am pretty certain yours is a bit younger than 1880s though, appears ABM made.

Hmmm.... I think you are right.

This one was hard to date and I wasn't entirely sure. I could not find many early examples with dates. I did find this exact shape of bottle from the 1880s but it had a cork stopper, not a screw cap. I found examples of Carter's bottles with screw caps from the 1920's through the 1950's, but none of them had this shape. I even saw a catalog image showcasing their products from 1939, which showcased their product line, but none of the visible bottles had this shape (in fact there didn't appear to be any small round bottles at all -- all were cubes).

I knew the screw cap meant it was a younger bottle, but I also saw that Carter's was using screw caps at least as as early as 1890, because they have a patent for an inkwell pump system using a screw cap dated 1890.

This bottle does have a mold seam visible all the way up, so it probably is machine made, but it also has large bubbles and glass thickness variations, so it's a pretty crude example of machine made, which makes me think it's a fairly early one (pre-1920). Taken in context with the other bottles found at this site, I don't think it's going to be newer than that, as no other bottles have been that old, and the majority have been late 1880-1890's.

I've updated the post to call the date 1910's. If you have a more definitive answer, I'd love to know. I'm definitely still learning and appreciate the correction. :icon_thumright: