My hobby is milk bottle collecting. It all started many moons ago when my aunt gave me my first milk bottle from my family's dairy, "Gillette & Sons" from Watertown, NY. I then proceeded to hunt for more bottles from the dairy and came across many interesting and pretty bottles from local dairies. Then I started going to bottle shows and before I knew it my collection had grown to over 200 bottles! Now, it doesn't really matter where the bottle is from but if it has a nice picture of a cow, farm scene, or just something unusual on it, you can be sure that it will pique my interest.
While my collection is growing, I am always looking for more milk bottles.....
Here are pictures of some nice milk bottles from my collection:
Here you can see bottles from O'Brien & Cullen-Watertown, Patterson's Dairy-Watertown, Thousand Island Dairy-Clayton and the back of a Gillette & Sons-Watertown featuring the "Happy Calf".
These bottles are my pride and joy.....The top row shows some creamtop bottles, including some rare and hard to find creamtops that are in the shape of a baby's face. There is also a Dairylea Hopalong Cassidy bottle. The second row has a Gillette & Sons Bottle from WWII as well as a bottle from Seneca Dairy with an indian's head on it.
Of course, my other passion is milk bottle caps. You can only have so many bottles but caps - oooh baby - you can collect alot of those. I have them coming out the wazoo!!!
The "white stuff" inside the bottles is tiny styrofoam pellets ground up fine for milk bottle collectors. Here's where you can get it: Contact Ralph Riovo, 686 Franklin Street, Alburtis, PA 18011-9578 or call 610-966-2536, or e-mail him at: [email protected]. The styrofoam beads they sell are a very fine "class C" size which is the size of a pinhead. It is available in the following sizes: A 2 cubic foot box (approximately 66 quarts) for $21.00 and a 3 cubic foot box (approximately 100 quarts) for $27.00. Quantities may vary according to how full or compact you fill your bottles. These prices also include shipping, and are shipped via UPS. Be sure to include a street address as UPS cannot deliver to a Post Office box. For dealers or large collections they also ship a 6 Cubic foot double box for $48.00 delivered. There is also a small 20 quart box available which is shipped Priority Mail. Please call for pricing on the small box. This is the best price I know of online for quality bottle fill! Ralph is a veteran milk bottle collector and is a very reliable, trustworthy individual. Do not hesitate to do business with him.
A Wonderful Book - Take A Look!! De Laval, Sharples & Other Cream Separators Memorabilia..
For some information on fakes or reproductions, see Debbie's Tips for Buying Bottles & Known Reproductions/Fakes.
The National Association of Milk Bottle Collectors has given me permission to copy an interesting article from their past issues. Here's an article about The Evolution of Elsie the Borden Cow!
I took my email off the site for awhile because (sigh) I was getting so much spam with the clickable link it was just
unbearable but I am going to try to put it here as a non-clickable link if someone wants to e-mail me.
The only thing I ask is to please not write just to ask me what your bottle is worth...I have no idea since I am not really
an authority on values at all, especially in today's marketplace. Your best bet is to check Ebay and follow bottle
prices for a few weeks to get an idea or feel for bottle prices. Here's my email - [email protected]