1975 Gardner Sale Retrospective-Part I

The auction of an important collection can change the way we think about a particular collectible. The Charles B. Gardner bottle collection (1975), Andy Warhol cookie jar collection (1988), Samuel Wagstaff collection of mixed metal and whimsical silver (1989), and Harry Burstein advertising collection (1990, where a Campbell’s Soup flag sign sold for $93,500) all brought high prices, attracted new collectors, and changed the face of the hobbies.

We went to the 1975 Gardner bottle sale to report on it in our newsletter and in the fourth edition of our bottle book, then titled Kovels’ Complete Bottle Price List. (We have just finished the new 13th edition, Kovels’ Bottles Price List, available March 14, 2006.) The auction was held at Robert Skinner Gallery in Bolton, Massachusetts, for six days in September and November. Gardner had collected for 46 years and was parting with 3,200 bottles. Many were rarities in form or color. Bidders had to pay $100 to get into the auction, but the money could be applied to a bottle if you won it at auction. Each bottle was sold with a sticker to show it came from the collection, and even today a stickered Gardner bottle is of extra value.

We met many important bottle collectors, authors, and experts at the Gardner sale, and some of them are still researching, auctioning, and collecting bottles. But this was the first sale we had attended where collectors, not just dealers, were inspecting the merchandise and bidding for themselves. Auctions in the 1970s were for dealers who bid for store stock or on orders from client-collectors. But bottle collectors were independent spirits and knew that few, if any, dealers knew what they knew about bottles. We think collectors of bottles do their own judging and bidding more than collectors of just about anything else.

We didn’t get much chance to bid, but we spent our $100 (plus more) for a honey bottle shaped like a hive and a pickle bottle with a paper label to add to our food advertising collection. After seeing the auction’s prices, we were glad we had started collecting bottles before the sale.

Prices were high, higher, and record-setting. For the first time in our bottle price book, we indicated that some bottles came from a special sale-the Gardner sale. After all, some values were higher simply because the bottles had once belonged to Charles Gardner. The amazing $21,000 for a cobalt blue Columbia pint flask, GI-119, was a record price for any American bottle at auction. Other records were $16,500 for a sapphire blue Old Homestead Wild Cherry Bitters patent, 3/4 quart, and $11,000 for the cannon-barrel-shaped amber bottle marked “Genl Scotts New York Artillery Bitters,” W298. An olive amber square cathedral pickle bottle, 2 quart, auctioned for $3,500.

Watch next month for our article on what the Gardner bottles have sold for since 1975.

to be continued…