REPRODUCTIONS

EARLY AMERICAN WORKSHOP

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REPRODUCTIONS

A page on identifying Milk Bottle Reproductions

A sad fact of collecting Milk Bottles today is the large amount of Reproduction Bottles sold as authentic. I will try to list a few pointers on how to identify these impostors along with a few photos of known fakes before they end up in your collection. Some of these reproductions are sold as decorative bottles in shops and specialty stores and are easily recognized. There are also people intentionally trying to duplicate Milk Bottles to sell as authentic and turn a quick profit off of unsuspecting collectors new to the hobby.

The pyroglazed Milk Bottle and Dairy Creamer have become so popular that unscrupulous people have been reproducing some of the more valuable bottles, such as war slogans and Walt Disney©. The most popular method of reproducing a pyroglazed picture on a bottle is to take a clear Milk Bottle from any era, use a stencil made from the real bottle, and attempt to duplicate the colors and spray paint or airbrush the bottle. You can easily remove this paint by scraping across the painted area. A real pyroglazed bottle is painted, then annealed, which makes the paint permanent and unremoveable. The con artists cannot do this, so their paint is easily picked off and the bottle identified as a reproduction.

To protect yourself from reproductions, know who you are buying from, beware of bottles priced below fair market value, and check the colors of the pyroglazing with other known bottles of the same manufacturer.

1) War Slogans: Watch out for fakes with the date "1951" on the base and bad pyroglazing.

2) Wheaton Glass Works: These are new bottles manufactured to sell milk in. Easily identified as new glass.

3) The paint can be easily scratched off a fake. Real pyroglaze is liquid colored glass, annealed into the bottle, which cannot be scraped off.

4) If suspicious of a bottle, contact John Tutton for advise before investing your money.

(Click Photo to enlarge pictures)

New Reproduction: Sunnyhurst Dairy, Stoneham - Babe's Choice - Square Quart

Front Back

New Reproduction: Hisler Hill Dairy, Weels Mills Maine 1/2 Pint. This design never used by authentic dairies.

Set of two new reproduction quart milk bottles Hickory Hill Dairy. Sold by a Farm Supply Store

Pint Reproduction, Page Milk Kansas. Rail Road decals put all over bottle. Same decals are found on square, 1/2 pints, and creamers. All are reproductions.

Round Pyro quart- Reproduction of a real milk bottle, looks the same as the real one from Wickenburg Dairy, AZ.

Round Pint reproduction bottle, Coast Guard design. Bottle never existed.

Square quart pyro - Graphic of black children playing - another reproduction bottle. No authentic milk bottles with graphics of dark skinned people exist in any know collection.

Round pyro quart or pint. McVeigh Dairy never existed. War Slogan graphic is a reproduction. Hitler graphic is a fake.

Fantasy Monkey Bottle: Never Existed

Holstein Milk, Clinton, Maine. This Dairy never existed. Quart two color pyro reproduction.

Quart 2 color Goat Milk bottle design fake, Reproduction bottle.

Brookfield Creamery Reproduction Cream Top 2 color quart. Dairy existed, the design did not.

Back Front

Barret Dairy Farm quart pyro. Dairy existed, the design did not.

Back Front

Fake Disney© Pint. Design never used by any dairy.

Back Front

Fake Disney©. Design never used by any dairy.

This bottle is currently being made by a collector in New York State. It is not a copy
of a real bottle but just a fantasy bottle

This bottle is a fake and is just beginning to turn up in New England

This one half pint bottle is a currant fake--fantasy bottle never existed

This bottle was made by Stanpac and is a souvenir bottle. Base is embossed Sun Brokers Inc and anytime you see this on the base, you know it is not a real milk bottle that held milk before 1980. New dairies might be using this bottle and Stanpac is putting real pyro glaze on bottle.

This is a souvenir bottle put out by milk bottle manufacture Stanpac. Note the base is embossed "Sun Brokers Inc".

These are "fantasy bottles". Someone has used an old milk bottle and a stencil with spray paint to make these. The paint easily scrapes off and in some cases peels off on its own. The paint can also be scraped off with a hobby knife, a real pyro glazed picture or lettering on a milk bottle will never scrape off. Please note the missing paint on the examples.

These are "fantasy Milk Bottles". These milk bottles never existed or were used to deliver milk. The Hershey Chocolate World is a souvenir item and is embossed on the base. The southern pacific is an example of fake pyro glazing.

These babytops were originally made as gift items and did not have cap seats. These are now appearing with cap seats and come in clear, green, pink, light & dark blue.

This is a new reproduction that has been seen in clear, blue, green, and pink glass. Some are embossed "Brookfield". All are made of light glass and usually can be identified by the "new' appearance.

These bottles appear to be original, but the pictures were painted on. These are very good reproductions and were found at a wholesale house in PA in great quantities.

This quart Disney© is a copy of a 1/2 pint from Hawaii. This is a clear bottle which someone has used a stencil to copy the picture onto some bottles they found. The paint can be easily scratched off. Real pyroglaze is liquid colored glass, annealed into the bottle, which cannot be scraped off.

Both of these square pyro quarts are reproductions. Anytime you see either Kuhl's or Sunnyhurst with Hoppy© pictures, you can assume it is a reproduction. These are gift items, not collectible Milk Bottles

The liberty Milk Bottle with the Statue of Liberty is from Buffalo, NY. The real one is in the middle. It has been reproduced in clear, blue, pink, green, and teal. The real bottle has a nice, crisp embossed Liberty on it, the reproduction embossing is very crude.

The first Milk Bottle made by the Thatcher© company. The original is on the right (clear). The fake is on the left and has been found in amber, green, dark blue, and clear. The fake does not have the milk protector on the front like the original. Most of the reproductions have "Cranford China 1965" embossed on the bottom. Another tip off is the real Thatcher© used a glass top held by a snap wire, the fake has a wire around the neck. This year, a glass pitcher was spotted with the "man milking cow" embossing on the front, this is another fake which is a gift item, not original Thatcher© glass.

Borden's Condensed Milk Bottle, without cap seat 1970, this bottle was made to celebrate Borden's anniversary in 1970. Borden attempted to sell milk in this bottle, but health inspectors would not allow milk to be sold in a bottle with a tin lid ( no cap seat). A distributor in Texas made some of these bottles and they are still circulated as genuine early Borden Condensed Milk bottles but are actually considered reproductions by collectors.