1st Chicago Bottle Club

Time for some fun on our “Throwback Thursday” tonight from our club’s January 1986 newsletter! Here’s a Chicago-themed word search! Perhaps you can find some great bottles while you “dig” through the letters!

Share your favorite piece of Chicago history below!

Don’t forget about our club’s monthly meeting tonight (Friday, June 21) at Hinsdale Covenant Church, 412 S. Garfield, Hinsdale, Illinois, 60521. Doors open at 7 pm. Join us for a program on Labeled Beers. See you there! 👍

We know it’s a scorcher out there, but this throwback “centerfold” model won’t cool you down! Check out this gorgeous, smokin’-hot “centerfold” from our club’s November 1986 newsletter. This beautiful “bottle-model” was drawn and submitted by our club’s very own, Frank B!

Share your beautiful “bottle-models” in the comments below!

📅 Mark your calendars for our club’s upcoming meeting this Friday, June 21 at Hinsdale Covenant Church, 412 S. Garfield, Hinsdale, Illinois, 60521. Doors open at 7 pm. Join us for an auction directed by Club President John, and a program on Labeled Beers. Don't miss out - all are welcome! 😊

🏆✨ Recap from our May Meeting: Dug and Acquisition Awards! ✨🏆

We had a fantastic evening celebrating our passionate collectors and their incredible finds! Here are the highlights from our club’s May program - “Dug and Acquisition Awards”:

🥤ACL Soda: Bronson’s stunning Vess bottle

🍻 Beers: Ray’s J. A. Lomax Superior Bottled Lager Beer

🌿 Bitters: Mario’s National Bitters (figural ear of corn)

🍽 Foods: Russ’s Willow Farm Products quart milk bottle & Tom’s Creamery Packing Co. milk bottle

🍊 Fruit Jars: Mario’s The Mason Improved with label

🏠 Household: Tom’s Crow Stove Polish Co.

🖋 Ink: Bronson’s Sanford’s Ink

🥃 Liquor: Mario’s scroll flask & Tom’s black-glass pontiled ale

💊 Medicine: Tom’s Hunt’s Liniment

🏺 Pottery: Tom’s Risque novelty item

🥤 Soda: John’s R. L. Hunt bottle

📝 Miscellaneous: Ray’s J. A. Lomax letterhead

And drumroll, please... 🥁 Best Overall goes to Mario for his remarkable National Bitters ear-of-corn figural!

Congratulations to all our winners and thanks to everyone who made this evening memorable. Stay tuned for more exciting events from the 1st Chicago Bottle Club! 🎉

We look forward to seeing you at our next meeting!

Mark your calendars, bottle enthusiasts! 😁🗓️

For our ”Throwback Thursday” this evening, we are once again traveling back in time to the The 1980 National Antique Bottle & Jar Exposition that took place in Rosemont, Illinois! Amongst the 330 sales tables at that show, were also 70 displays - many of which were from our own club members showing off their incredible collections! Here are some of the amazing displays featured at this superlative event! Several of these displays include extravagant set-ups and creative details that make these wonderful bottles even better to admire.

And, speaking of great bottle shows and expositions, don’t forget, our club’s national show is only 135 days away (Sunday, October 27, 2024)! More information about this incredible upcoming event (including location/contact info for our show chairman/etc.) can be found in our flyer included here with the pictures of the displays. We can’t wait to see you all there!

What are you looking forward to the most about our club’s upcoming show? Leave a comment below!

This evening’s Throwback Thursday takes us to the early 2000s when club members Tom, John, and Dan discovered a privy under a parking lot in Naperville’s historic neighborhood. After getting permission to excavate the privy (since the parking lot was going to be ripped up soon anyways), these three diggers probed and dug another historic location of Naperville’s past! Of course, as you can see, they had creative ways of looking inside the excavated spot before going fully into the hole themselves to retrieve the found relics! 👍

Share your strangest location you’ve dug in the comments below!

Today’s “Throwback Thursday” features a helpful guide to the ‘Identification of Common Unembossed Bottles’ provided by club member, Dan J., that was published in our October 1983 club newsletter! As the weather continues warming up, and now that the ground has completely thawed, when you’re out there digging, hopefully this illustrated index can help you identify and categorize all your unembossed finds! So, join all the emerging cicadas in the ground, and enjoy the digging season!

Share your favorite unembossed bottle in the comments!

This evening’s “Throwback Thursday” features club member John W. on one of his many Naperville, Illinois privy digs with fellow club member Tom M. during the 90’s. The Naperville privy digs at this time often included serval privies in the same yard, and even sometimes privies under concrete or asphalt driveways or parking lots. Great probing from these expert diggers helped them locate the exact spots to carefully unearth great finds from the early days of Naperville!

Share your favorite town to dig in the comments below!

This evening’s “Throwback Thursday” takes us to the late 70s where club member Lou M. digs a railroad dump alongside La Grange Road where mostly railroad china found. “We’re happiest when we’re down in the dumps!” 👍

Share your favorite dump treasures below!

Flowers have bloomed, and so have our bottles! Here’s a re-cap of our club’s April meeting!

Our recent meeting was a treasure trove of vintage delights! Here's a glimpse of the Show & Tell lineup from April:

Frank shared holiday cheer with a commemorative Christmas ornament from Glen Ellyn, a Canadian fruit jar, a Big Chief ACL, an Inca Cola from South America, and a Paige Bottling Co. blob top.

John uncorked nostalgia with five porter beer bottles: W.H.H., J. A. Lomax, Rochester Bottling, Hoffman Bros., and Charles F. Ogren.

Craig’s collection of 7 Natoma Farm milk bottles featured charming cow-themed designs, each with a different picture or slogan on the back.

Russ treated us to Chicago history with M. D. Landsburg bitters, bottles from C. Jevne & Co. Grocers, and more.

Tom’s additions included a Geo. W. Lyon whiskey, a green H. E. Lloyd bottle, Jupiter seltzer, a Clearing Dairy quart milk, W.P. Knickerbocker, Begg’s Dandelion Bitters, a black glass ale, a figural corn cob whiskey, 2 doll heads, a sword, and a flintlock pistol.

Mario wowed us with Ball Bros., Union Fruit Jar, The Van Vliet Jar of 1881, a Torrey’s Egyptian Fruit Jar, and a cast iron fruit jar from the Civil War.

Finally, our newest, and now youngest member, Bronson, shared his discovery of a HI-Q ACL soda from Salt Creek, which added a splash of local history! See more about his amazing find in the Sunday, May 5 edition of the Chicago Tribune along with an article about our club! Reporters were at our April meeting to learn all about our great club!

Share your incredible and unique collections below!

Our “Throwback Thursday” tonight brings us to a section of the October 1983 club newsletter where it featured “Lomax’s Corner” and “Bottle of the Month” submissions from member’s actual collections! Here we see pictures, descriptions, information, and much more about these prized possessions! With our club’s upcoming May 2024 meeting program of “Dug & Acquisitions”, this look to the past here is a great segue to the exciting opportunity for club members to show off the additions they made to their personal collections this year!

Share a fun/interesting fact about a bottle from your own collection in the comments below!

55 years…yet our love for collecting stays strong! Check out our club’s recent appearance in the Chicago Tribune!

Age-old bottles collected by older folks keep fading pastime alive: ‘I just love old stuff’ The group assembled in the church basement on a recent Friday night was awash with gray hair, flannels and trucker hats. They sat scattered between two rows of chairs, with bags of clinking glass i…

Extra! Extra! Read all about our amazing club in today’s Sunday edition of the Chicago Tribune! 📰👍

We’re not traveling far back in time for tonight’s “Throwback Thursday”-were just going back a couple of months to November of 2023 where club members set up their tables in the early morning hours for the 54th annual 1st Chicago Bottle Club show! Last year’s club show was a great event (as always), with a wide assortment of beautiful bottles and other precious pieces! As you can see in these pictures here, club members are prepping their displays, and embracing the wonderful community of fellow collectors and bottle enthusiasts!

By the way, also located here is the club’s new flyer for this year’s upcoming show on Sunday, October 27, 2024! We can’t wait to see you all there-it’s sure to be another amazing event!

Share your favorite club show find or experience in the comments below!

This evening’s “Throwback Thursday” shares an excerpt from the March 1981 club newsletter highlighting the club’s annual “Dug Awards” where club members get to show off their greatest dug/acquired finds from the year! This yearly tradition for the club is always such a great program for the club meetings and a chance to acknowledge the unique acquisitions that members have made during their archeological excursions each year! Some awesome awards were handed out that evening for fantastic finds-one lucky club member that evening even came home with a “grand slam” of 4 awards!

The club’s upcoming meeting this May will be this year’s “Dug and Aquisitions” program, and it is sure to be another amazing display of obtained excellence! Be sure to stop by our May meeting to be part of the excitement!

Share your favorite find from this past year in the comments below!

This week's "Throwback Thursday" brings us to the early 1990's when "pre-club member" Michael M. was still young enough, small enough, and limber enough to fit inside all those very small crevices of digs to help his dad (longtime club member, Tom M.) reach these amazing finds! One example here includes Michael pulling load after load of bottles and other glassware from a tight, but deep cistern in the floor of a summer kitchen! The other shows Michael with his dad excavating the original privy of Joseph Naper (founder of Naperville)! Michael, now in his late 30's, still proudly credits his dad for his own love of history, and they both continue to enjoy sharing their passion for digging and historical collections not only as father and son, but also now as fellow club members!

Share your inspiration for collecting bottles/antiques in the comments below!

Tonight's "Throwback Thursday" takes us back to our club's member dig event in historic Pullman, Chicago back in the 1980s! This exciting event was enjoyed by all participants where relic's of Pullman's turn of the century unique community were uncovered by our diggers! These bottles (among other historical artifacts found that day), give a glimpse into the Pullman neighborhood during it's influential time in the late 1890s! Check out all those great finds!

Share your favorite Chicago neighborhood to find bottles/artifacts in below!

Exciting News from March’s Club Meeting!

Frank's Nostalgic Finds: Frank shared a 1926 Lemont Dairy ad and quirky treasures like a West Suburban Dairies milk bottle. Plus, a Rheingold beer can and an amber hair color restorer bottle.

Russ's Auction Gems: Russ scored big with a Drake’s Plantation Bitters and a rare amber flask from De Steiger Glass Co. of La Salle, Illinois.

Spencer's Hawaiian Discoveries: Spencer showcased hutches from Hawaiian islands, a Geo’s Beverages ACL, a Chinese o***m bottle, and a German bitters bottle.

The highlight of the evening? The grand unveiling of our long-awaited Club commemorative bottles! Originally planned for our 50th anniversary in 2019, the journey to find the perfect bottles has been nothing short of an odyssey.

After a multi-year quest led by Mario and Jennifer, we finally secured golden amber bottles from a private glass house - a fitting tribute to our golden anniversary. But the excitement didn't stop there! The shop decided to experiment with different colors, resulting in a collection of truly unique bottles!

Which bottle color would you choose? Let us know in the comments below!

Today's "Throwback Thursday" takes us to 37 years ago, where our club's very own Frank B. shares his eloquently written poetic notions about the sacred art of digging! This original poem and illustration was featured in our club's April 1987 monthly newsletter! With a shovel in one hand and an inked quill in the other, Frank captures the joy, excitement, and passion for collecting bottles within his humorously written prose!

Become a member of the club and you will be "privy" to our club's monthly newsletters filled with wonderful insights into bottle collecting, news about upcoming events, and much more!

Share your favorite creatively captured bottle collecting anecdote below!

For today's Throwback Thursday, it's hard to believe that this gem of cinematic achievement was overlooked at the Oscars back in 1972! "Bottle Bungle", a 1st Chicago Bottle Club original movie, tells the story of ambitious diggers excavating the grounds at the old Riverview Park site! Become a member of our club to have access to not only our expansive vault of books, but also a DVD of this this incredible film that bottle collectors and cinephiles alike will surely enjoy!

Grab your popcorn, Snowcaps, a tall soda, and share with us your favorite film about archaeological explorations!

Let's roll out the red carpet for this Throwback Thursday! Here, long time club member, Tom M., shows off his impressive collection of Chicago Pharmacies A-Z, all encased within his personally handmade, vintage-inspired storefront! This wonderful exhibit of amazing alphabetical and pharmaceutical Chicago history was showcased at the 1st Chicago Bottle Club's 25th Anniversary Antique Bottle Show in the fall of 1994! That year, Tom won the "Dealer's Choice" and "People's Choice" award for this magnificent medicinal display!

Share some of your favorite collections and displays below!

Let's take a trip down memory lane for this "Throwback Thursday"!

Who remembers the National Antique Bottle and Jar Exposition of 1980 hosted in Rosemont, Illinois? It was an absolute blast with 330 sales tables and 70 captivating displays!

One highlight was the mesmerizing Hutchinson bottling display by our club's very own Bob H. and Sean M. Their exhibit took us back in time, showcasing the artistry and craftsmanship of an era long gone.

But that's not all! Every two hours, attendees were treated to live demonstrations revealing the secrets behind filling Hutchinson bottles. It was like stepping into a time machine and witnessing history unfold before our eyes!

Who else recalls the excitement of exploring rare treasures, learning about the history behind each antique bottle, and soaking in the nostalgia of it all? Share your memories of this great event in the comments below!