Trustee Bob McMillian had no idea that the discovery of a glass bottle would lead to a lifelong interest in collecting.

Hi, I’m Bob McMillan and have been a trustee at Linlithgow Heritage Trust for about 10 years. People ask me what hobbies I have and when I answer, collecting Victorian Ginger beer bottles, I get some mighty strange looks. Let me explain.

I moved to Linlithgow in 1978 and the following summer, a section of the canal was drained and in the drained section I found a strange looking bottle with a marble in its neck. I did a bit of research, not easy in pre-computer days, but I found out the bottle was called a “Codd” bottle. Nothing to do with fish but named after the man who had invented it, Hiram Codd (see photo on right). From then on I was hooked and started trawling car boot sales and antique fairs along with digging in Victorian rubbish dumps. Before long my house was groaning under the weight of hundreds of bottles.

Time had come to be sensible and so decided to specialise in collecting ginger beer bottles and butter crocks (see photos on left). In the early days,a ginger beer bottle cost maximum £10 while nowadays, in a recent specialist auction sale,a rare bottle sold for over £3000.

In the late 1800’s almost every town in Scotland had at least one producer of aerated water with bottle manufacturers being mainly sited in Glasgow and Edinburgh. The most famous of these was Buchans of Portobello whose bottles are highly prized mainly due to the quality of the transfers they applied. I’m only sad I specialised in gingers and not early sealed wine bottles where the current world record is over £60,000!

It might surprise you to find that bottle collecting is a serious subject with hundreds of collectors and enthusiasts world wide with collection subjects including cream pots, pot lids, Victorian Christmas fairy lights and mineral water bottles being amongst the most popular collecting themes.

I am always happy to talk “bottles” and keen to give advice and the benefit of my many years experience to potential collectors. During the current lock down, you may be interested in a bit of further reading. An interesting item can be found on a famous case involving a ginger beer bottle called “The Snail in the Ginger Beer Bottle” (search Google).

Part of Bob’s collection of ginger beer bottles and butter crocks.

Please all stay safe and I will look forward to seeing you all back in the museum when we re-open.