continued…

Prices were high, higher, and record-setting at the 1975 sale of the Charles B. Gardner bottle collection. The 1977 edition of our bottle book indicated, for the first time, that some bottles came from a special sale-the Gardner sale. At least some of the value of those bottles could be attributed to Charles Gardner’s ownership. The amazing $21,000 for a cobalt blue Columbia pint flask, GI-119, was a record price for any American bottle at auction.

We compared our priced copy of the original Gardner catalog with recent bottle sales to check the prices of Gardner bottles that have been resold. We are 99% sure the bottles listed in the table below are the very same bottles originally owned by Gardner. Every bottle sold at the Gardner sale had a sticker that helps identify it now, and auction catalogs always include Gardner’s name as part of the provenance. The chart’s recent prices are from Glass-Works Auctions’ sales of the Mebane collection in 2002 and 2003 and other sales in 2005, from American Bottle Auctions’ sales in 2004, and from published reports.

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Bottle Description

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Gardner Price

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Recent Price

Cologne, octagonal, cobalt blue, corseted, Boston and Sandwich, 1840-1860, 6 in.

$130

$850 (2005)

Flask, Scroll, GIX-34, golden amber, 8-point star and dot above fleur-de-lis, reverse same, 1845-1855, 1/2 pt.

$425

$1,120 (2005)

Free-blown globular storage bottle, olive amber, applied string lip, Continental, 1820-1850, 16 3/4 in. (thought to be American in Gardner sale)

$90

$275 (2005)

Flask, GX-21, green aqua, “American System”/paddle wheeler, “Use Me But Do Not Abuse Me”/sheaf of wheat, 1824-1828, pt.

$10,500

$13,000 (2002)

Black glass seal bottle, medium olive green, “JNO/Jackson/1751,” English, rectangular, wide beveled corner panels, 1751, 9 in.

$525

$15,000 (2002)

Black glass seal bottle, olive amber, “T. Biddell/Evershot/1720,” English, onion, 1720, 6 in.

$700

$6,000 (2003)

Whimsey, hat, olive amber, blown from Pitkin-type ink mold, swirled to left, 1780-1810, 2 13/16 in.

$1,000

$4,500 (2003)

As collectors and reporters we will always remember the Gardner auction by Skinner. Although our names were known through Kovel books, our faces were not. We met and talked to many important collectors and to many other people who later went on to become important dealers or auctioneers. Antique Bottle and Glass Collector (October 2005) ran a long story about the experiences of many collectors who were at the sale. It included photos of the crowd (we didn’t find us) and stories of the tailgate sale in the parking lot. But our clearest memory of the auction was driving into the parking lot to see cars from different states with license plates that said “Inks” or “Bottles” or “Bitters” or “Flasks” or some abbreviation that fit the state’s limit for letters. Collecting bottles was the primary after-work activity of everyone at the sale. And after 30 years, many of us are still friends and still collecting.