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Antique Labeled Bottles

Very rarely does one find a truly antique bottle with its original label still intact. Bottles may now be considered art-glass to collectors, but their original use was utility, and their quickly pasted labels that once caught the eye of consumers were never meant to last. A label on almost any antique bottle can substantially affect its collector interest, and therefore value, as it gives more information on the product and makes the item more visually appealing. A label can make a common bottle become rare. Sometimes, a company is only known to have existed, as a label has been found at some point by collectors. Products, too, are only known to have been bottled by particular companies, as labels still bear the description when record books do not. But one must be careful, as many labels are reproduced to look old, or old labels are pasted onto bottles they were never on.