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I’ve described this section as “Advertising” as I couldn’t think of anything else to call it to be honest!

My interest was born out of an article that appeared in the AA Magazine; my Grandfather was a member; on collecting old bottles by digging them up on Victorian rubbish dumps. The article was written by the godfather of bottle collecting Edward Fletcher who also wrote several books on the subject that told you everything you needed to know. The great attraction was that it was like poor man’s archaeology, anyone could go out and dig up history!

In the late Victorian period it became much cheaper to produce glass bottles and stoneware jars, so it became possible for many local enterprises such as breweries, mineral water manufacturers, chemists, wine and spirit merchants to obtain their own containers and to enable them to be distinguished them from those of their competitors they had their names and trademarks embossed or printed on the side. They also put deposits on the bottles too, so if you returned the bottles after you emptied them you would give you a little money back. Who said recycling was a new thing!

As the embossing or printing is permanent when you dig them up 100 or more years later it’s still there! Whilst production techniques had made them cheaper to produce they still have a great beauty and a handmade charm. Whilst some are relatively valuable, the majority of them can be obtained very cheaply and make a very attractive display.

The Victorian imagination showed no bounds and the range of items that can be found is limitless and whilst the hobby is still relatively young at 50 or so years old, new discoveries still turn up all the time. It’s not like collecting stamps where they are all in the Stanley Gibbons catalogue!

Bottle collectors started to look for items to enhance their collections and there is plenty of scope there with such items as enamel signs and advertising showcards which came about from the new printing and manufacturing techniques that again made them affordable in the relatively small quantities that the local enterprises required.

Brewery “go-withs” such as ashtrays, matchstrikers, soda syphons, trays and water jugs go under the collective name of “Breweriana.”