Submitted Photo Vince Martonis will be speaking on antique bottle collecting in a special talk with the Clymer Historical Society.

CLYMER — The Clymer Historical Society will be holding a special program on Antique Bottle Collecting.

Presented by Vincent Martonis, Hanover town historian, the program will be held at the Abbe Reformed Church — 595 Clymer-Sherman Road — at 7 p.m. Oct. 16. The public is invited to attend and bring their own antique bottles for evaluation.

Martonis said when he was asked to speak at the meeting he gave the historical society a choice from a number of topics he could talk about and they chose antique bottle collecting.

“It’s usually a pretty popular topic,” Martonis said. “If people don’t own their own they’ve probably seen them and want to know the history. People are pretty interested.”

Martonis is an avid bottle collector and he said the hobby is very active in the local area. Other types of collecting such as stamps have decreased, but bottle collecting remains strong.

“You can get antique bottles for free if you do a little digging with permission,” Martonis said. “I have friends that do some privy digging like where old outhouses used to be and they find a lot of things that have been thrown or lost there. Bottles are free if you’re willing to dig, but they’re also found for a low price at the flea market.”

Martonis will be bringing a wide assortment of his own bottles to the meeting. This includes items such as fruit jars, medicine bottles, mineral water bottles, poison bottles, and grape juice or wine bottles. He said a lot of the bottles are related to Chautauqua County history, including a fruit jar he has from Jamestown in the 1880s that is a James Gilberds jar. A current street in Jamestown — Gilberds Street — is named for James Gilberds and he has a specific type of bottle called the Gilberds Star Jar. Other more rare bottles include one from Milo Harris, which Martonis said he does not have.

Martonis said he will also be evaluating attendees’ bottles if they bring any into the meeting, and there are two different levels of evaluation.

“First is the historical evaluation,” Martonis said. “Looking at the historical piece, if it is an Automatic Bottle Machine, or ABM bottle, it will come from 1905 onward. A Blown In Mold of BIM bottle is from before 1905. I will help people age their bottles.”

Martonis said the way to age bottles is by looking on the bottom where it usually lists the manufacturer, company, plant and age. He will show people how to read this for themselves.

He will also tell people about the companies that certain bottles come from such as Dr Fenner bottles which Martonis has collected for the past 50 years. His current collection is at the Darwin Barker Museum in Fredonia.

Martonis will also teach attendees about the value of their bottles. He said if a bottle is rare it does not necessarily make it more valuable, but the color is usually what changes what the bottle might be worth. Martonis gave an example of having a type of bottle in aqua that might be worth $150, but having the same bottle in cobalt blue might make it worth up to $2,000.

He added that at the event he will be telling stories about the bottles and their connections to historical things. One bottle he has is connected to the Underground Railroad, Mark Twain, Sears Roebuck and a watch company.

For those interested in starting to become bottle collectors themselves, Martonis said the most important thing is knowledge.

“A long time ago when I started collecting I would bring home bottles from dumpsters that were just junk bottles because I didn’t know better,” Martonis said. “Those bottles were actually bottles other collectors had thrown out.”

Martonis said he began to learn more about antique bottles by joining a collectors group in Buffalo. He said these groups are all around, and there used to be one in Erie, Pennsylvania, though he was not sure if that one still existed. Meeting and talking with other collectors allowed Martonis to learn more, and people in the groups do not only collect bottles but all sorts of things like stoneware and paintings.

Martonis said these types of collections can also span into a related collection, meaning a bottle from a drugstore may lead to finding other related items like old rulers and calendars. Besides the club he also encouraged people to look into magazines like the Antique Glass Collector.

This will be Martonis’s last talk of the year as he tries to avoid doing events during bad weather months, but he has two big events planned for next year already in Vermont and Rochester which are focused on bottle collecting.

For local people, he said the most important thing when it comes to collecting is asking questions.

“If you find something you are curious about, find someone to ask questions to,” Martonis said. “You can talk to your local historian. As Hanover historian I will get calls from people in Sheridan because we are neighbors, and they will be looking for things I can help with.”

He gave an example of a Sheridan woman related to the Pattison family and whose ancestor was a famous brick maker. She was looking for help finding famous paintings of this ancestor and Martonis was assisting.

“That’s what happens when you ask questions,” Martonis said. “There are a lot of knowledgeable historians in this county.”