# Cleaning bottles vs professional cleaning



## petepal (Dec 7, 2010)

I expect what I am about to say is really going to draw up some controversary.  You dig up an old bottle it's full of mud, rust or who knows what.  You wash it out  and sterilize it.  You've done a nice job it looks cool, and it's collectable so you decide to have it professionally cleaned and put it up for sale.  Now it looks like it just came off the assembly line.  No more effects of aging the history is wiped out but it doesn't matter to you.  So you see your bottle on line next to someone else's bottle that looks like it just came off the assembly line too.  Well guess what it did just come off an assembly line.


----------



## chosi (Dec 7, 2010)

Here's my humble option:

 If I you were buying an old house, wouldn't you want to clean it, put a fresh coat of paint on it, etc?  Maybe that's an apples to oranges comparison, because you have to live in a house but not a bottle.  But if you restore an old house, it doesn't really look like a new house, it looks like an old house did back when the house was originally built

 I think the same way about bottles - after I tumble a nice squat blob-top soda bottle, it doesn't look anything like a new twist-off crown-top bottle that you would buy at the grocery store today.  It looks like a really old bottle, but it looks like it did when it was new (if the tumble went well).

 If you agree that you should wash the mud off of the old bottle you dug up, then is it just a question of how much mud you should wash off?  Rinsing the bottle with water leaves lots of mud, soap & a bottle brush leaves less mud, a chemical clean will leave even less, and a tumbler might not leave any mud at all.


----------



## chosi (Dec 7, 2010)

Oops - I think my spell checker changed my humble "opinion" into my humble "option".


----------



## cyberdigger (Dec 7, 2010)

> ORIGINAL:  petepal
> 
> I expect what I am about to say is really going to draw up some controversary.Â  You dig up an old bottle it's full of mud, rust or who knows what.Â  You wash it outÂ  and sterilize it.Â  You've done a nice job it looks cool, and it's collectable so you decide to have it professionally cleaned and put it up for sale.Â  Now it looks like it just came off the assembly line.Â  No more effects of aging the history is wiped out but it doesn't matter to you.Â  So you see your bottle on line next to someone else's bottle that looks like it just came off the assembly line too.Â  Well guess what it did just come off an assembly line.


 
 I feel like I don't quite get what you are trying to say here.. you saying you dug a repro? ..or is there a repro out there we should be aware of?
 Or, worst of all.. did you send your bottle out for tumbling and got back a switcheroo??[]


----------



## GuntherHess (Dec 7, 2010)

> sterilize it.


 
 that's a new one on me[]


----------



## petepal (Dec 7, 2010)

What I am saying is read between the lines.  I don't want to be rude or take any thing away from any one especially if someone makes  money restoring old bottles to their origional condition.  My point is this;  If a bottle looks like it's just come off the assembly line, how does one know if it didn't come off a assembly line?  You can't or won't carbon date the bottle, so does it matter if it's 100 years old or 1 day old?


----------



## blobbottlebob (Dec 8, 2010)

> If you agree that you should wash the mud off of the old bottle you dug up, then is it just a question of how much mud you should wash off?


 Hey Chosi,
 I like the term OPTION in your first post. I think collectors do have the option to tumble or not. I never tumble my stuff. I also know that there are guys out there cutting the living daylights out of the surface of found bottles. In MHO, this is damaging them far worse than a few little stains.

 Some guys do a really nice job, though. They use the minimum of cutting agents and are only trying to clean (not re-surface). Those guys are worth every penny if you're into sparkling glass. Its not for me, though.


----------



## petepal (Dec 8, 2010)

Sterlize bottle confusion.  Ok sorry what I meant was when ever I clean an old bottle I add a little bleach which kills all the germs and bacteria.  Got that from the health dept. when I was in the food business.


----------



## suzanne (Dec 8, 2010)

Tumbling does not restore a bottle to its original condition.  It removes the top layer of glass, after which it can never be restore to original condition.  Old bottles are not naturally slick and perfect like a window pane.  

 The only way it is not going to remove a layer of glass is if you just use it as a polisher.  I think that would actually be the best way to use tumblers.


----------



## GuntherHess (Dec 8, 2010)

> If a bottle looks like it's just come off the assembly line, how does one know if it didn't come off a assembly line?


 
 reproduced bottles are almost never exactly like the originals and collectors can usually identify them with little trouble. There are a few passable fakes but they are a tiny percentage of the bottles on the market and not a big concern to most collectors. 
 Many old bottles are found in attics and other protected spaces and look exactly like they did when they rolled off the factory floor. These are the most sought after examples ("attic mint"). 
 A tumbled bottle can be made to look much better but it can never be restored to mint condition.


----------



## Plumbata (Dec 8, 2010)

I almost invariably prefer uncleaned bottles to cleaned ones. An "Old" looking old bottle is far more interesting, attractive and dynamic to me than a "New" looking old bottle. I collect coins and other similar things, and to clean a nice, decently valuable coin or ancient bronze or copper object would be both heretical to the goals of historic preservation, and idiotic in the realm of the marketplace. The reasoning behind and preference for cleaning bottles probably lies with its different and less-venerable development as a hobby. For a while, bottles were only considered to be psuedo-antiques, more like collectibles, and far inferior to antique furniture or coins or sculptures, for example (except by the few early scholars of glasshouses/pontiled flasks). Without the rigid standards (reflected by many years of realized prices) which guided collectors of other antiques to strive to maintain the natural patina, rockhounders-turned-bottle diggers/dealers probably approached a hazy bottle the same way they approached a rough gemstone; as something to be crafted and polished into a more superficially attractive item to be purchased by uninformed buyers more concerned with having a few elements in their windows to trigger some incorrect sense of ersatz nostalgia (or merely bought for the colors and shapes, deemed "pretty" by the purchasers) than concerned with having semi-contextualized elements of history (from the surface etching/deposits/wear) which can tell a far greater story than a cleaned bottle (was it tumbling around in sand for decades? or was it used for years as indicated by base wear? or was the soil it was excavated from high in this-or-that mineral content? or was this beer bottle last used as a container for laundry bluing?)

 Perhaps another reason was that for a while, the supply of un-dug old bottles in basements and attics was enough to satisfy the demands of the early collectors, but when dug bottles started to enter the market those collectors who had amassed collections of generally mint bottles became annoyed when a few out of hundreds in their collection stood out by virtue of their superficial non-mintyness, and then sought to maintain uniformity via tumbling.





> ORIGINAL:  GuntherHess
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 

 I have an old local hutch, sick and hazy as heck but the wire stopper and rubber gasket were in such excellent shape that someone uninitiated would think the stopper was less than 10 years old. The rubber was perfectly pliable so i got the idea to sterilize the bottle, decant some cola into it, and see if it would seal. It sealed perfectly, which was exciting, so i placed it in the fridge, allowed it to chill, then popped the seal and greedily consumed the soda, magically made far more delicious because it was issuing forth from a 100 year old local bottle.

 Also sterilized an old, debossed 14 quart (or liter?) OP demi to use in the brewing of some tasty mead, but generally sterilization isn't an aesthetically necessary part of my bottle cleaning process.


----------



## rockbot (Dec 8, 2010)

I believe the hutch stopper is made with lead?


----------



## GuntherHess (Dec 8, 2010)

I donâ€™t think the preference to clean bottles has much to do with the sophistication level of collectors, there are certainly very sophisticated bottle collectors. I think it has more to do with the particular nature of glass. Some bottles look ok with an old even patina others have stain that masks the true beauty of the glass. The owner has the option of how they prefer their glass.

 While modern coins are generally not cleaned, the majority of ancient coins have been cleaned in some way and it seems to be a generally accepted practice. Modern coins normally donâ€™t need cleaned because most are not excavated.


----------



## cyberdigger (Dec 8, 2010)

If I had a tumbler, I'd only do the insides of the bottles.. that's usually where the ugliest stain is.. I don't mind a nice patina, or a matte finish, or opalescence, because these things make it look as old as it really is. I don't mind nice clean attic bottles either, but
 the over-tumbling and shining em up like a mirror is not sitting well with me these days..


----------



## Plumbata (Dec 8, 2010)

> ORIGINAL:  rockbot
> 
> I believe the hutch stopper is made  with lead?


 

  Hmm never thought about that, is it some sort of pewter that the gasket  is attached to? Either way a little lead doesn't bother me. I play with  depleted Uranium, caustic and poisonous chemicals, Mercury, and smoke  cigarettes to boot so a few atoms of Pb in the soda certainly won't kill  me, at least not before the other stuff does! 




> ORIGINAL:  GuntherHess
> 
> I donâ€™t think the preference to  clean bottles has much to do with the sophistication level of  collectors, there are certainly very sophisticated bottle collectors.  The owner has the option of how they prefer  their glass.


 
  Hmm, that is not what I was going for but I understand where you are  coming from. I was more musing about the potential reasons that tumbling  started in the first place, decades before my birth. It is clear why  people do it now, however, and naturally it is their option, as is  shattering the bottle. Neither was I suggesting that bottle collecting  and the collectors aren't respectable or sophisticated; it just seems  that it wasn't really considered to be respectable until 50 years ago or  less, and even presently some antiquarians scoff at old bottles. 

   I was reading a book from 1949 about finding treasures in truck and  trash and the author, in the section on glasswares, indicates that plain  bottles with pontil marks, pontiled decanters, pontiled flasks, and  bitters bottles either with pontils or not, were of value. "There are  bitters bottles worth one hundred dollars, whiskey bottles worth two  hundred and fifty dollars (historical flasks or something else?), and  drinking glasses worth one thousand dollars." Most of the emphasis is on  non-bottle glasswares though. 

   It is interesting how now, the top prices paid for bitters bottles are  damn near  1,000 times higher than those paid 61 years ago. I wonder if there are  drinking glasses out there worth a million dollars currently?  Regardless, it shows rather well how far this hobby has developed and  expanded over relatively short period of time. High-end bottles may  indeed be a splendid hedge against inflation if in the next 60 years  prices continue to rise dramatically and the hobby keeps growing (doubt  anyone will be spending 100,000,000 on any American bottles in 6  decades, though that would be pretty sweet).

  Perhaps someone a tad older than 23 can throw some wisdom and experience  regarding the development of this hobby my way?




> ORIGINAL:  GuntherHess
> I think it has more to do with the particular nature of glass. Some  bottles look ok with an old even patina others have stain that masks the  true beauty of the glass.


 
  You provided a very telling indicator of why people may prefer tumbling;  because of "stain that masks the true beauty of the glass". The reason I  started collecting bottles when I was 5 was not because of the beauty  of the superficial appearance of the glass, it was because of the beauty  of the age and associated history indicated by the glass (and I just  loved all sorts of bottles, old and new, because they were so magically  useful in their sequestering of contents from the external environment).  Typical aesthetics were, and are secondary to me, though certainly very  important. 

  Perhaps this is where the division lies; some collectors see the bottles  more as attractive works of art which should be allowed to shine and  sparkle approximately as they would have just after manufacture (after  the evidence of potential damage accrued over time is eliminated), and  others may see them more as artifacts from an age long past, venerable  by virtue of the age (and potential damages) that they show? Why else  would there be such a deep rift of valid opinions? 




> ORIGINAL:  GuntherHess
> While modern coins are generally not  cleaned, the majority of ancient coins have been cleaned in some way and  it seems to be a generally accepted practice. Modern coins normally  donâ€™t need cleaned because most are not excavated.


 
  Decent point, but the highest value coins are generally the ones which  require the least cleaning, or nothing but a rinse. Often ancient coins  come out in splendid shape, and they are not tossed in with the 1-2  dollar bulk lots of tumbler-scoured crusty roman bronzes because they  are far more desirable as-is. It is generally accepted in part because  after the dissolution of the Soviet bloc some profiteers had amassed  millions of uncleaned excavated coins and they had to find a way to make  them appealing enough to sell to the widest number of people possible.  Many people who own ancient coins have no other numismatic interests, so  having a bunch of hokey-looking cleaned bronzes presents no problem to  them or the opening of their wallets. If it makes money, then naturally  it is generally accepted, but it doesn't automatically make it a  preferable practice. The majority of ancient coins that are cleaned in  this way are the least valuable, most common examples which are not  particularly desirable by actual collectors. Likewise, I doubt many coin  collectors would care much if you polished up some wheatback pennies on  a burnishing wheel, but if you did the same to a nice 1652 Pine Tree  Shilling those same collectors would be looking to string you up on the  nearest coniferous tree! If you've seen uncleaned ancient bronze (the kind that  then gets cleaned), then the carbonate and dirt deposits are commonly so  severe that the coin is entirely unattributable. This is not really an  issue with old American bottles, not this millennium anyway.



  To switch gears slightly, would you carry your assertion that since  these ancient Roman bottles/containers possess "stain that masks the true beauty of  the glass" they should be tumbled clean and smooth, along with more  recent excavated hand-blown American glass (provided they wouldn't break, in this scenario)? Or are they more "artifacts"  than "art" which should have the patinated "context" preserved?


----------



## GuntherHess (Dec 8, 2010)

I would never argue that every bottle, or any bottle for that matter, should be cleaned. I think its up to the owner to decide what they want to do with them. I have some tumbled bottles and some stained bottles in my collection. I decide about cleaning on a bottle-by-bottle basis.
 There was a time when people were cleaning bottles by dipping in hydrofluoric acid. It gave bottles a very unnatural look not to mention being dangerous. Tumbling was certainly an improvement in cleaning technology. Who knows, in 20 years tumbling might be considered an undesirable method. I do predict people will still be cleaning bottles by some method whatever that might be.


----------



## suzanne (Dec 9, 2010)

I don't think they are made of lead because they get rusty.


----------



## suzanne (Dec 9, 2010)

Hutch stoppers I mean.


----------



## epackage (Dec 9, 2010)

> ORIGINAL:  cyberdigger
> 
> If I had a tumbler, I'd only do the insides of the bottles.. that's usually where the ugliest stain is.. I don't mind a nice patina, or a matte finish, or opalescence, because these things make it look as old as it really is. I don't mind nice clean attic bottles either, but
> the over-tumbling and shining em up like a mirror is not sitting well with me these days..


 as usual Charlie and I are on the same page, I was thinking the same thing the other day Charlie while going thru some bottles....Jim


----------



## epackage (Dec 9, 2010)

> ORIGINAL:  suzanne
> 
> I don't think they are made of lead because they get rusty.


 From Hutchbook.com


 The Hutchinson Stopper is made very strong; the spring being of heavy tinned brass wire, which is not liable to break or get out of place from hard usage.  Unlike the other stoppers made, which, in order to save time and money, are too light to stand hard usage, or the hinged or jointed stopper, which is easily broken or becomes unjointed inside of the bottle making them useless, and almost impossible to extract them from the bottle

 http://hutchbook.com/Bottling%20Hutch%20Stopper%20Repair/Default.htm


----------



## Lordbud (Dec 10, 2010)

I live in earthquake country although there hasn't been a noticeable (by me) earthquake in this area since 1991-92. I save my bottles as artifacts from when this entire Metro-Bay Area wasn't paved over, and over-built, and in a state of constant congestion. I like thinking back to when every corner in San Francisco had a saloon or drugstore and the economy could support such businesses. A clerk in a drugstore had a living wage, rented a room or apartment, paid for food, clothes and perhaps a nice quart of beer at the local bar after work.
 Since I cannot in good conscience display any of my bottles due to possible destruction and/or damage from a potential earthquake, I keep them safely wrapped inside divider boxes. Once a year or so I will go out into my storage room and unstack a couple of boxes to bring onto the back porch to unwrap bottles and take a look-see at some items I haven't viewed in years.
 Since I choose not to display my bottles in lighted cabinets or sun-lit window shelves I find the surfaces each bottle was found with acceptable to my eyes -- whether the bottle has a "Benecia effect", haze, white streaks or even when they're darn near mint. 
 Of course I notice a chip or crack or flash. I'm always looking to upgrade any of my bottles - but with "as found" examples.
 Virtually none of my bottles is "Top Shelf" although some come close...but basically that doesn't matter since I have neither a top shelf nor a bottom shelf nor any shelves in-between!
 I also have a few more examples of this J.J. Mack & Co. in nearer to mint condition but look at this bad boy!


----------



## RICKJJ59W (Dec 19, 2010)

> ORIGINAL:  slcholt
> 
> The tumbler restores it and gives us a chance to see all of the character that is so addictive to collectors.  The age of the bottle and all of the flaws that prove it is of an earlier time, remain intact.  Collectors can keep the one they dug instead of searching the world for one in better condition.   I know which ones I would keep on my shelves....


 
 oPPS YOU MISSED A SPOT.[]


----------



## petepal (Dec 22, 2010)

I wouldn't clean this one !


----------



## Dragon0421 (Dec 22, 2010)

I had to reply on this one i had 2 bottles that had alot of sickness to them the bottles were cleaned in the usual method in the first pics. Then i have a friend that has a tumbler aka dewdog tumbled these for me. all i have to say is it made a big diffrence.


----------



## Dragon0421 (Dec 22, 2010)

After seeing the bottles when i got them back made me want to buy one. I will have to say i enjoy them more now cleaned up like this.


----------

