LARGE Antique WATKINS Bottle PRETTY PURPLE PANELED Patent Medicine
Item History & Price
A LARGE old 8.5" tall rectangular-shaped exquisitely beautiful DEEP PURPLE LAVENDER colored antique J. R. WATKINS MEDICAL COMPANY house hold remedy / patent medicine bottle. This is an ORIGINAL ANTIQUE CORK TOP bottle, dating a GOOD 100 YEARS OLD - A CENTURY OLD!Bottle embossed: "TRIAL MARK / WATKINS". Condition: Bottle is nice and clean! It has some areas of haze and wear - from age and use, just enough to give it that rustic look though nothi...ng specifically wrong with it. NO cracks, chips, dings, damage, etc. (See photos for overall condition).Age: A mold-blown ABM bottle with a cork-top, ca. early 1900's.Shipping: All DOMESTIC shipping charges INCLUDE insurance. We have enjoyed shipping our items all over the world and are happy to offer most of our items to international buyers. Yet insuring International parcels is very expensive so PLEASE NOTE; we do NOT insure International orders unless winning buyer specifically requests this and we are able to provide an insurance quote. We do not falsify information on the Customs Form, such as a price other than what the actual purchase price is, so please do not request us to do so. We ship several times a week and send payment acknowledgments and shipping confirmations. Your prompt payment will assure a very quick turn-around time. IMPORTANT NOTE: If our shipping charge is much more than the actual shipping cost, we will refund the excess so what YOU pay for shipping/insurance is very close to, if not exactly, the ACTUAL shipping costs! This is especially important for foreign buyers to know as most of our foreign shipping charges are rough estimates.A nicely colored LARGE example of an antique WATKINS bottle. There are several variants of these old Watkins bottle, but as the purple color in this one shows, this is the earliest style. You hear about old glass turning purple ... this purple color is the result of having manganese in the glass. Manganese is a mineral, a rock, that was mined, crushed, and pulverized into a powder, then added to vats of molten liquid glass, and acted as a decolorizing agent to turn the natural aqua-tinted glass into a pure crystal clear colorless glass. Then it was blown into a mold to produce a bottle. But once exposed to the ultraviolet rays of the sun or other sources of UV rays, it triggers a chemical reaction and the manganese starts to oxidize and slowly turns a lavender or amethyst color. The end result is what collectors refer to as SCA (Sun Colored Amethyst) glass. The longer it is in the sun the purpler it becomes. This particular bottle was exposed to some concentrated UV rays which had the same affect as the sun, but a lot faster. It has not been colored, stained, or altered. No matter how an antique bottle has turned purple (direct sunlight or UV rays in controlled environment) they all turn the same purple color as it is the same chemical reaction taking place. The only difference is the time it took to turn purple. What is important is that an item is old enough to turn purple as with few exceptions, only clear glass from before 1915 have manganese in them and will turn SCA. After this, with the start of WWI, manganese was no longer available as foreign imports decreased and domestic resources turned towards the war effort. Selenium sulphate then replaced manganese as a glass de-colorizer and when exposed to UV rays, it turns a yellow / straw color, and a dark burnt amber color. Generally speaking NO MORE purple glass after 1915! Not only does this deep purple/amethyst color make this a great looking antique WATKINS bottle, but it also authenticates it as being truly antique. What is also great about these old Watkins bottle is that old Mr. J. R. Watkins, Mr. household name, Mr. maker of good flavoring extracts, food coloring for cupcakes and candy, was also producing OPIUM HEROIN MORPHINE laced quack medicine products. Opiated liniments, cough syrup laced with heroin and general medicines spiked with morphine. Not to be too hard on old J. R., I am sure that he used these narcotic patent medicines in good faith and believed that the ingredients would benefit the consumers who took it. It is just fun to me to think that such a wholesome maker of innocent household products of old, also had a line of medicines that were laced with such hard-core narcotics such as Opium, Heroin, and Morphine. This bottle could of easily been a Cough Syrup with Heroin or Liniment with Opium bottle, as he used this style of bottle here for everything from a Pain Oil with Morphine to a Lemon Extract for cup cakes! A great example of an antique WATKINS Home Remedy bottle, the SIZE and COLOR are hard to beat, check it out! Terms of Sale: Our goal is 100% customer satisfaction. We put our 30+ years of experience in antiques to use in describing every item we list. Items are sold in a store front format and your purchase is a binding contract, so please don't be hasty when looking over the listing. We find that communication is the key to successful transactions so PLEASE completely read the item description AND ask questions before purchasing, thank you! 261-65s, 4059-66x
