We have a new article by a Wisconsin antique bottle collector who for the time being wants to remain anonymous.  It's on bottle collecting ethics.  Check it out in the articles of the site. 

Bob, Peter and I are adding listings in the Wisconsin antique bottle galleries all the time now.  Thanks to so many of you for sending good images in with descriptions.  Some very good ones have been added. There is now a Wisconsin antique stoneware gallery and a Wisconsin seltzer bottle gallery. They will be live soon. Now that the Wisconsin antique bottle hunting season is cooling off hit the forum and communicate with your fellow antique bottle collectors.  It's fun and a lot of information goes back and forth in the Wisconsin antique bottle forum!

Check out the EVENTS page for updated show information. The Madison show is no more.  

09/24/2006 Just added close to 100 bottles to the Antique Wisconsin Bottle Galleries & have about 100 more waiting. Check them out!!!

9/11/2006 Okay Wisconsin bottle collecting aficionados you have waited long enough for an update.  In the Antique Wisconsin bottle news Mr. Jim K the Illinois, "Black water diver," or as we lovingly refer to him, "Laboe," has found an unheard of rare teal colored antique Wisconsin medicine bottle. (Looks just like this text) Jim is going to send a digital picture some time soon. His daughter took a picture of the exquisite bottle rarity for him BUT Jim has to go to the library to send it. Mr Jim K is still on dialup... YET... He has seen every bottle in the galleries???...  (He starts the galleries downloading on Monday and looks at the bottles over the weekend is how I think he does it.) I can't wait to see the medicine bottle! When I do I will post it live right away. I GOT IT!!! So you want to see the whole thing? You'll have to find it on the site...  Good luck!

The Kid found the first whole PH Eckhart antique clay beer bottle from Fort Atkinson Wisconsin recently. It looks like the Madison Wisconsin antique bottle show really is called off this fall. I will keep you posted as I learn the details.These may not be Jims teal medicine they are two very nice colored medicines that just arrived for the gallery courtesy of a real big dog collector.  I can't say who until I find out if he wants to do some trading. I'm in the color game now so these are right up my alley. Isn't it nice to see a couple of great quality colored antique Wisconsin bottles show up?  Hit the antique Wisconsin medicine bottle gallery to see them proper!

8-20-06 A big event has come and gone.  The Milwaukee Bottle club picnic was a good time featuring a few extremely rare, 'show and tell,' bottles and an auction with some decent bottles.  The highest  bid of the day went on an antique Milwaukee C.H. Munzinger clay beer at $255.  A couple of others to note were a Grisbaum and Kehrein proprietary mold super crude aqua quart by IGco that went for a low $150 and a footed Graf seltzer that did not make its reserve with a high bid of $80.  The coolest bottle I saw yesterday was this unlisted antique Milwaukee Wisconsin Hutchinson soda bottle from Liginiger & Mcelroy.  The partners are not listed in Roger Peters book.  I do think there is a Liginiger beer in Kroll.  Chris K came up big with this one.  How cool is this? I did get a few more pictures for the galleries yesterday (You'll have to search them out) and you can check out a larger picture of the Liginiger & Mcelroy in the antique Wisconsin Hutchinson bottle gallery .

8-06-06 Wisconsin Antique Bottle web news;  The crown gallery now has over sixty different bottles listed. Thanks to Ryan and Nate who were the principal contributors of crown images and descriptions. There is Wisconsin bottle news being posted in the forum virtually every day now. The Fondulac crew regularly post their adventures and The Kid regularly posts finds from Oconomowoc dives and keeps a pretty regular log of what is happening in the Mighty Rock. Blobbottlebob is a regular contributor in the forum and it is not unusual to see Milwaukee Jon and Wausau Mark in the forum.  There is even a newbie in the forum who goes by the name Carp.

There will be a couple of new antique Wisconsin bottle articles coming soon and the antique Wisconsin bottle galleries have additions made virtually every day. There is always some thing new here for you to enjoy in regard to Wisconsin antique bottles. No other state in the union has this level of overall bottle resource.  If you do enjoy the site please consider contributing.  Email in a couple of photos of a hunt or write out a story of your search for antique Wisconsin bottles or send in an idea for improving the site.  This site is for all Wisconsin antique bottle collectors by all Wisconsin antique bottle collectors.

5-17-06 This is the first bottle to come my way in a long time that wasn't a minor upgrade or the same old same old.  A gentleman from the North Woods contacted me and we arranged for me to come out and check it out.  I assumed when I got the call that this was the one known.  What are the odds that an amber soda bottle would be a variant.  Well, this one is.  It's a lighter color than the known (for Peters sake we will say common rather than known when referring to the other/common variety) variety.  The light amber color is a real bonus.  While I have been pretty negative about some of the cleaned bottles I have seen lately this one will get a very light tumble...  Just enough to get the oxidization off.  The light amber is extremely unusual from my experience with amber soda bottles.  The whole point of making them amber was to block light so they tend to be very dark like the common variety # 4596. 

This antique Wisconsin amber blob soda is different from the common variety in more than just color.  It's embossed on the bottom with a big G&M.  The Madlener on the front of the bottle is about three thirty seconds of an inch from the Milwaukee at the base.  The common variety is more like five sixteenths of an inch apart.  The common variety has the re-cut A&DHC makers mark on the back this one has a clean cut A&DHC.  So there you have it.  While it stung to pay a fairly high price on this one at the time I bought it I feel a little better about it after realizing it was a new variant.  The reason it stung is the bottle has an open bubble in the neck and a nice ding on the back heal.  Even so it's the only one and it's LIGHT amber.  It will find a place with some of my favorites front and center on the shelf of bottles I display including the Hopkins bottles, the cobalt Wolf bottles, the K&D the pontiled blue Lindstrom/Lindstram, the pontiled delf blue Bliss from Racine and it will be very close to where I intend to put my pontiled Blossoms Badger Ale when I get one.  That is as high an honor as I can bestow on a bottle.   

My thanks go out to Anthony, the BEEZ and grandpa for making it possible for me to really improve my collection.  I look forward to meeting up for a privy dig and to seeing the treasures you boys find. 

5-17-06 Here it is...  The crown Ryan known as The Wisconsin Crown Top King sent in that proves we absolutely need a Wisconsin crown top gallery.  This beauty is just so pretty.  Any bottle in olive green has to be considered a super rarity.  My fear seeing this one is that i'll end up collecting crown tops if more of this caliber show up. 

 04/06 With summer looming large and nice thawed out water everywhere some of the regulars are getting out and diving.  The Fondulac crew have come across a very nice spruce beer.  (Unfortunately they test every bottle they find for fragility with a ballpeen hammer across the blob...  As with most they certified the spruce beer as "very fragile") The kid is rolling in glass already.  Rumor has it there is a toddler and a newborn in his dive float cheering him on.  Log into the forum and see these things for yourself!!!  

Ryan has sent in a picture of a crown top beer that flat out warrants the creation of a crown top bottle gallery and milks abound in the forum.  Check the galleries section soon to be one of the first in the new gallery.  John Steiner occasionally adds his crocks, jugs and assorted antique Wisconsin stoneware to a page in the forum and Peter continues his lobbying to eliminate the Hutchinson gallery.  His latest threat is that if the Hutch gallery is not taken down he will use a sharpie on his LCD monitor to cross off the gallery listing on his computer?!!!  Descendants of many Wisconsin bottlers have found the site.  They all agree with Peter the Hutch gallery has to go...   So you better check it out now.  If you're at Peter's house just click on the black line in the gallery menu.     

 03/2006 After review of the entire site Peter has decided we have to remove the Wisconsin antique Hutchinson gallery so check it out while you can.  Peter thinks the Hutchinsons are taking attention away from the Wisconsin clay beer bottle gallery. Good news for all Wisconsin collectors.  Wil Martindale is allowing us to keep our only sided pontiled soda.  The ‘Taylor Brothers' is ours for now.  I need hard core evidence...  Some thing along the lines of one of the Taylor brothers diaries talking about how cold the winter of 1848 was in Milwaukie would do nicely.  Or maybe a lithograph of the brothers hanging out, drinking their famous Mineral Water at Summer Fest in the summer of 48. If you have either please send them directly to me.  

There is a lot happening for Wisconsin bottle collectors to be excited about!!! We have a forum here where we can get and share information. This site is becoming an incredible resource no matter what type of Wisconsin antique or non antique bottle you collect.

As of 3/15/2006 Marty and Donna Kupferschmidt, Dan Gross and Henry Hecker have the joined the ranks of Wisconsin antique bottle collectors published on the mrbottles site.  Thanks to all for their contributions.  If you like what you see and enjoy reading PLEASE contribute. 

Nate keeps sending in more crown top images trying to force a crown top gallery onto us all, The Kid is (a cornerstone Oconomowoc collector) is not living up to his promise of new material every week in the forum... We are expecting him to make it up this summer with no less than TWO postings per week! When will he have time to dive?

Links has many fascinating new places for you to visit on the web.  There are some excellent resources out there and we will do what we can to provide links to sites that really have information that is worth reading through on a rainy afternoon or a sleepless night. Some links like Wil Martendales pontiled soda website require you to go there NOW.  Wil has provided some incredible insight to the origin of some of our earliest Wisconsin bottles. 

Peter Maas, Bob Libbey and I are pounding away at making the galleries on this site a spectacular resource for every Wisconsin collector. We must have your help! Many Wisconsin collectors have stepped up big time!! Thanks to you all! If you have a bottle we don't have listed please send us high resolution images. Send the images to any of the contact links on the site.& If you look in the Hutchinson Gallery you will see a link to "Bob the Hutchinson" gallery administrator. Clay beers you will find a link to Peter the clay beer administrator. Those guys also administer every other gallery too! You can send pictures to the general contact address at Mrbottles and I will disperse them to the boys. PLEASE send only images that are very clear. If the picture is blurry retake it.