| KALAMAZOO
ANTIQUE
BOTTLE CLUB NEWS |
| Vol. 21
No.
2
Member Club F.O.H.B.C.
October 2023 |
Theme this month: Seasonal bottles,
Halloween, Cider etc.!!
THIS MONTH'S OCTOBER MEETING 10-10-2023 |
| Newsletter Written By
Allan C. Holden |
| Hello
Friends! If for some reason you missed the last meeting . . . well, perhaps you had a very good reason, but, you missed a good one! So I am told! I sure didn’t want to miss it, and up until a few days before, I didn’t foresee any problems. But, only because my brain is not up-to-speed anymore, I knew the meeting was Tuesday evening, and my I knew my colonoscopy was for 7:30am on Wednesday morning. I didn’t see any issue with that . . . right? Different days! I have had about 4 of these because I am prone to cancer. With each about 4 years apart, I forgot about the prep! And, I forgot that the prep started on Monday! After mixing 3 bottles of Gatorade, with 2 bottles of Miralax, and taking 6 Dulcolax tablets, you need to be ready to launch into orbit, and without a countdown! Well, they removed 2 pre cancer polyps and one that tested as positive as cancer . . . Thankfully it was removed completely. That is why I go through this malarkey. Trust me, you don’t want cancer! Had I waited another 5 years . . . well it would have been too late. They prepped me for the procedure and started an IV. I have to get this done at Bronson Hospital because of my past throat cancer. The other locations are afraid they may have trouble starting an airway should I have a reaction to the anesthetic. As I rolled onto my side, this cute little nurse was leaning over the bed rail just inches from my face with her thumb on a big syringe hooked-up to my IV port. I told her the last time I did this, I was going to be a Ninja! With focused mind-control, I was going to try and defeat the effect of the Propofol. But, despite my effort, I couldn’t stop my eyes from rolling back! She replied, “I always win.” Yep, seconds later my eyes rolled towards back toward my brain, and I strolled off into Munchkin Land! And, all this as my doctor traveled up that long and winding road. That’s why he makes the big money. I no more got back home when I got an alert from “My Chart” they posted photo’s of the tissue before it was removed! I am going to have 8 X 10 glossies made and some wallet size! Maybe some Christmas card ideas right here! Last Meeting Thankfully, I have some notes Vincent sent my way, about the September meeting, thanks Vincent! But let me start out by quoting a Facebook post on our Kalamazoo Antique Bottle Facebook page. I suspect this was written by, President Rob Knolle. “The KABC hosted guest speaker Mike Bruner, avid glass insulator collector/expert! Mike shared his knowledge and passion of North American glass insulators with our group tonight with an interesting, story filled, energetic trip through a portion of his extensive collection. It seems 99% of the insulators you see at the flea markets and antique stores are very common, with hundreds of thousands to millions mass produced by one or two companies, BUT! that other 1% is a small number of rare, sometimes one of a kind, valuable collector pieces. The insulators that they literally made millions of, the common hemingray #42's for example, are worth very little, maybe a few bucks. Some of the rare ones, however, can bring thousands to tens of thousands of dollars! Thank you Mike! Great job! OH, by the way, Mike is also the keyboardist for the bands Rare Earth and Magic Bus! Right on! If you haven't been to a bottle club special event, you should really consider attending! We do cool stuff!” Also, with this Facebook posting; I found some wonderful photos of Mike’s prize insulators! What a colorful, beautiful collection!   The September meeting’s sign-up sheet went like this: Mike Bruner (our guest speaker), Rob Knolle, Ron Smith, Gary Dean, Mary Gale, Bill Riley, Kevin Siegfried, Scott Hendrichsen, Katie Wages, Brian Wages, Janet Grossi and Vincent Grossi. Mike Bruner from Clarkston, Michigan was our guest speaker. Mike is a member of the Huron Valley Bottle & Insulator Club of Highland, Michigan.  Ever since a kid, I have always had a fear of missing out on something great! When I was in Junior High School, we lived on the property where my store is located today on M-89. I loved going to the drag strip at Martin every Saturday . . . but sometimes the money just wasn’t there. The time trials always started at 4:00, with class racing and the featured shows starting at 7:00. We were about 7 miles straight south of the drag strip, and on a quite night I could hear the cars, I could hear them so well, that I could identify some cars by their sound! For real! But, I can tell you, it was pure torture not to be there! I was always afraid I would miss out on something big! Well, it happened again! Next time this happens, I will rent a porta-john for the meeting! Past Featured Bottles I located some ‘once believed’ lost photos of bottles from our last Bimbo’s pizza party! Kind of like finding the Dead Sea Scrolls! Rob Knolle had a bottle I recognized as belonging to him! It is a really very-special bottle. It is a late 1890's Hutchinson bottle with the internal bail- stopper still inside.  This bottle has a slug-plate with the company name embossed which is: “The Middle State Ice Company,” from Tallahassee Florida. This bottle features a very cool 9- paneled mug base. The color, a purplish-pink tells us the bottle is from the American glassmaker’s age of "solarized glass" a.k.a. Desert Glass. The hardest color to make in glassware . . . was no color or colorless. Glass takes on different shades-of-color as a result of different mineral elements found in the sand that is being used in the glass making process. In my business, of metal detectors we also deal with problems with ground minerals. The minerals which hamper us are the conductive minerals like iron and wet salt. Next time you are at Lake Michigan, pick up a handful of beach sand and take a close look at the individual grains of sand. The tiny grains of “black-sand” is ‘magnetite’ or iron. If you drag a strong magnet through the sand it will attract the iron and it will appear to be growing hair! 
I am told the iron mineral will produce a blueish and
greenish aqua colored glass.Manganese dioxide is believed to have been first used as a de-colorizer in glass as early as the second century B.C. From Roman times onward, glass often contains about 0.5% to 1.0% manganese oxide. By the early 1900's manganese dioxide was called "glassmakers' soap" for its ability to make “Clean Glass.” If pieces of de-colorized glass containing manganese are exposed to ultraviolet light for long periods of time, the manganese becomes photo-oxidized. This manganese breaks down back into an oxidized form, which imparts a attractive purplish color to glass. And yes what better place to create a lovely purple hutch-soda than in the  Sun Shine State! I found a banner ad from a Tallahassee, Florida Newspaper from 1909 which read: “NOTICE!” Middle
Florida Ice Factory has added Bottling Works!
Our Machinery is of the Newest Latest Improvement! (I suspect this was to say Corkless Bottles) We are now prepared to furnish the public with Bottled Soda, Ginger Ale, Mineral Water, made with pure distilled water, at the following rates: Ginger Ale, 30¢ Per Dozen! Soda Water, 30¢ per Dozen! IN STOCK, WE OFFER THE FOLLOWING FLAVORS: Lime, Lemon, Vanilla, Orange, Strawberry and Sarsaparilla! Also, special rates made to dealers! Strict attention given to the family trade. Prompt Delivery! We are the only bottling works in the city using distilled water! Telephone “No. 9" I think most of the bottles I took pictures of, back at the June Bimbo’s Pizza meeting, were bottles belonging to Rob Knolle.  Two were quart size
dairy bottles. One was from Maple City Dairy, Paw Paw,
Michigan. It is really a pretty bottle with an applied
color label in orange and black. The background is a early spring scene showing a maple forest with syrup- buckets mounted on the trees. Framing the graphic, in the background, we see the orange rays of a morning sunrise. The center of the graphic is the head of a dairy cow. The reverse-side of the bottle shows a bowl of cottage cheese with strawberries on top. It reads, “Cottage Cheese with Berries is Delicious!” Most of you are tired of hearing that my grandfather started the Michigan Cottage Cheese Company in Otsego, MI. Growing up us grand kids were treated to many different way to enjoy cottage cheese and berries, pineapple and peaches all work well. My favorite to this day is chives. Rob was traveling around in the south when he happened upon a place selling antique bottles! One of the bottles was a baby-face cream top 1-quart milk bottle from Petersburg, VA. where he was recently involved in a metal-detecting Civil War relic hunt! Small world indeed! That bottle is from the GREEN LEAF DAIRY, Petersburg Va.  One more bottle I took a picture of. . . at the Bimbo’s meeting, was a 1880's era medicine bottle in light aqua color. “Chamberlains Colic, Cholera and Diarrhea Remedy.” Stomach pain you say? Well, step right up! Dr. Chamberlain can quickly ease your pain and suffering and quickly restore your love for living! One dose of this magic elixir, the milk of the god’s contains 45% Alcohol, 11% Ether, Chloroform and Tri-Chlor-Tertiary Butyl Alcohol. Why suffer at all? This stuff will remove the rattle in your hub-caps! Otsego Historical Society Museum Note: Our meeting place will be the location for a special unveiling of a historic and extremely rare 35 Star U.S. flag from the American Civil War. This special event will be held on November 11th at 1:33pm at 218 North Farmer Street, Otsego, MI. Truth be known! I had to go in for my 6 month check-up last month. When I returned home the wife asked, “How did it go?” Well, the Doctor was very surprised. He said; "Since I last saw you, less than three months ago, you have lost 18 pounds and your A-1-C has dropped over 10 points! And all of this without changing any of your meds. . . what's your secret?" So Deb asked, "What did you tell him?"  I said; “Well Doc, as you may know, Robin and I are very private people and we closely guard our secrets. . . and we do indeed guard them at all cost. But, like you, we are sworn servants of the citizens of Gotham City. If one of our secrets can be used to help our fellow citizen, well, it must be set free to serve those in the greatest need. Doctor Dandois, I can sum up my formula-for-success in just one word.” "Oh please do Batman!" That word is one very familiar with professionals like you Doc . . . "Discipline" my good man. . . "discipline." Deb responds, "So you didn't tell him you have one molar left to chew with . . . and it is loose?" Yes, the real truth is, I do having trouble chewing. There is little anyone can do about it. It wasn’t a matter of my teeth going bad, I still have most of them. The problem is with what radiation did to my lower jaw bones. Having dentures are out, as are implants. An oral surgeon told me implants would be an option if we could do a bone graph . . . but the bone is too far gone. Back in 2021 I sold a Vaseline (Uranium Glass) pickle caster for a friend, and I brought it to a meeting. In our newsletter I wrote about; “The Radium Girls.” These were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting radium dials – (watch dials and hands) with self-luminous paint. The incidents occurred at three factories in the United States in the late teens and twenties. After being told that the paint was harmless, the women in each facility ingested deadly amounts of radium after being instructed to "point" their brushes on their lips in order to give them a fine tip. Some also painted their fingernails, faces, and teeth with the glowing substance. The women were instructed to tip-point their brushes in their mouth and lips, because using rags or a water rinse caused them to use more time and waste material. The paint was made from powdered radium, zinc sulfide (a phosphor), gum arabic, and water. During World War II the U.S. Government hired women who were paid extremely high wages to work with radium knowing it was going to shorten their lives by decades. The first thing the radium destroyed was their bones. I have been told that I received as much radiation as I can be legally receive. When the dentist wants to do x-rays, Please make sure it is really necessary. CLUB DUES! Last month I was suppose to encourage everyone to belly –up-to-the-bar and pay-up! (A little Rob Knolle Bar Tender Lingo.) Speaking of President Rob Knolle, I hear he finally tied the knot with Jean, “Miss Kitty.” (When I think of bars, I think of Gun Smoke) The club dues went from a low rate of $10.00 to $50.00! But, if you act now, we will honor the old rate of $10.00! But you must act now! Some of you are paid already, but others have been getting a newsletter for over a year without paying! You know who you are! NAME____________________________Address_________________________________________________________ City_______________Zip___________Phone_____________________E-Mail__________________________________ Mail Dues to: Kalamazoo Antique Bottle Club 2132 Chaparral St. Kalamazoo MI 49006 Pay by Pay Pal Send dues to the account "prostock@net-link.net" Call with credit or debit 269-685-1776 The
Kalamazoo Antique Bottle
Club
Meets At the Otsego Historic Society Museum  Meeting date is OCTOBER 10th at 7:00 pm The Museum is located at 218 N. Farmer St. Otsego, MI 49078 Meeting starts at 7:00 Information  |