This teakettle ink bottle sold for $560 at a recent American Bottle auction.  Bottles were a favorite 30 years and have been regaining popularity. Bottle collectors often have pet names for their favorites. Ink bottle collectors use nicknames like cones, teakettles, turtles or umbrellas, names that say some something about an ink bottle's shape.

“J - & - I – E – M” turtle ink, America, 1865 – 1890, 1 5/8 in. h., $1232 at American Glass Galleries.

Teakettle ink, Sandwich Glassworks, 1875 – 1890, 3 1/2 in. w., $560 at American Bottle Auctions.

Umbrella ink, America, 1870 – 1880, 2 ½ h., $392 at American Glass Galleries.

Bottles were a favorite 30 years and have been regaining popularity. Bottle collectors often have pet names for their favorites. Ink bottle collectors use nicknames like cones, teakettles, turtles or umbrellas, names that say some something about an ink bottle's shape.

Left to right: a teal green c.1875 turtle ink that sold for $1,232; a fiery opalescent milk glass teakettle ink, made at the Sandwich glassworks about 1885, that sold for $560; and a sapphire blue umbrella ink, c.1875, that sold for $392.

Ink bottles are made to be hard to tip over and the shape usually tells the age. Cones and umbrellas were used from the early 1880s to the early 1900s, teakettles were made from about 1825 into the late 1800s, and turtles were introduced in 1865 and were popular in schools until about 1895.