"Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my Strength, and my Redeemer." Psalm 19:14

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Sunday, August 12, 2007

Collecting OLD bottles









Long ago, before I really had considered Pharmacy as a career, my dad and I took up bottle collecting as a "hobby". (I think I was the only one of the kids interested.). He found the sites and I went with him to dig. They were really old garbage dumps but after 50 years or so everything has rotted except for glass. It was like treasure hunting and we found a lot of OLD bottles. I tell MY kids that is what they will inherit. I really liked finding a bottle with a label which was REALLY rare. (The ones in boxes are from old stores I've worked in - I did not dig those up!). The most valuable bottle I have (I think) is a brown Pepsi Cola bottle. But my most prized bottles are the drug store/medicinal bottles. That long thin bottle is a tinc. of opium bottle from the turn of the century era. They are fairly common. In fact the brown bottle on the top shelf, to the far left with the label, contains tinc. of opium as well. It was a common
ingredient in many medicines.
Lydia Pinkham's Curative Syrup for Women's ailments
contained it. It was a best seller. Many baby's teething
syrups contained it (or cocaine).Coca-cola originally
contained cocaine (hence the name). When the Food
and Drug laws were pasted all those wonderful
old medicines were taken off the market.
Listerine is about the only product to survive.
(It's okay...really!). Now, many of them like
Dr. Thatcher's, were variations of laxatives
to clean the blood by cleaning the ...oh never
mind...
I have to wonder what was in the many
"eye water" bottles I have.
I now have all of daddy's bottles too.
I'll have to take some photos
of them and post as well...
Pax

5 comments:

Jen said...

Cool!

DeEtta @ Courageous Joy said...

Great collection!

berrypatch said...

I grew up on an old farm. We had all kinds of old bottles up back as well. We used to go dig them up. It was fun to see what we could fine. I love your collection!

Michele said...

I had a printer's drawer that I had some bottles on as well - not as many as you though. I wonder what happened to it in the move?

Cynthia said...

We also like to collect antique things, but we get most of them from our parents' garages (LOL)! I have my grandpa's bottles from his medicine cabinet. Some still have his handwriting on them.