October 1^st 2012

Next club meeting Monday 5^th November 2012.

• 18th and 19th Century London Entertainments By David Young

Meetings are held at the Abbey Baptist Church, Abbey Square, commencing at 7.00 p.m.

CHRISTMAS DINNER

The Christmas Dinner will take place on 8^th December and will be at The Shire Horse, Bath Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire SL6 3QA at 7pm for a 7.30pm sit down. The cost will be £19 per person to include three courses. Menu choices and a map are attached.

Please can you confirm if you would like to attend at the November meeting or alternatively, let James know on the number above as soon as possible. The deadline for confirming numbers and menu choices is 20^th NOVEMBER at which point the club will be paying a deposit on your behalf.

NOTICES

• Please thinking some more about Short Talks for January, and Auction lots for February – you now only have two meetings to give them to the committee!

October Meeting

October’s talk by Ross Farmer was dedicated to something just a little different…! Ross is the Chairman of the Surrey Bottle Collectors Club – which should give a clue to the main subject of the evening. Rather than a standard talk, Ross’s approach was more of a show-and-tell with a number of items that he hand brought with him.

The first items were two earthenware bottles approx 8” tall, probably ginger beer – one from Reigate Brewery with a castle stamp, the second from King & Barnes Brewery, Horsham – this has a green top ostensibly for making it easier for the bottle collectors to pick them out of a group!

Next was an old English Mallet bottle (shaped like a modern Port bottle) stamped ‘1772’. This would have been owned by a fairly well-of family who would have owned 30-40 of these, which would be sent to various shops to be filled accordingly to the order – be it wine, beer, oil or even varnish!

Then Ross showed us the oldest bottle he had with him – circa 1680, it is similar in style to the ginger ale bottles previously shown, but with what is known as an orange-peel glaze – where the glaze dries to look and feel pitted.

One of the most interesting items (in my opinion!) was a 3” tall, 4” wide sub-shaped, deep blue, ribbed bottle – this being a bottle for poisons… the unusual shape, colour and ribbing telling you that the contents is not for consumption.

Finally on the bottle front, we were shown a couple of small sample bottles made by Doulton – miniatures of new products for potential buyers to see. These were of exact and exquisite detail of the full item.

Moving on from the bottles, the next item was a Victorian equivalent of a Teasmade – essentially a tin cup suspended over a tea-light used for keeping your tea/water/milk warm during the night. Partial examples of this item are fairly common; however our speaker was fortunate to have a full set – tea-light holder, stand, cup and lid!

The next few items were tobacco/cigarette tins – a Smith’s Mulatto Flake tin (unlikely to be branded as such these days!), as well as a couple of patriotic and wartime tins depicting Kitchener, Jellico, Baden-Powell and Wellington in various combinations.

Finishing with an ‘And Now for Something Completely Different…’ flourish, Ross produced a Doulton isobath inkwell (an 8” egg-shaped device with a molded stand – it has a tiny hole at the top for filling, and a pipe-bowl style reservoir for dipping your quill!). There was also an advertising statuette for Kiwi boot polish – this was a statuette of a kiwi (bird!) holding a tin of polish in its beak. Finally Ross brought out some enamel advertising signs – Fry Milk Chocolate ‘Five Boys’, a Hudsons Soap opening hours sign and a teacup and saucer sign for the local café!

Past Events

• One Year ago – Is This Money?! by Chris & Rachel Moore
• Ten Years ago – Coin Quiz by Michael Gouby
• Thirty Years ago – Club Auction (Raise £185 – almost exactly that at the 2012 auction!)

Club Secretary.