There has really been a jump in the sale prices of IXL bitters in the past few years. The better colors have sold for thousands of dollars with the ice blue example (possibly unique) bring a record price for an IXL. The yellow olive, amber, turquoise, and even brillian aqua examples have all recently sold in the four figure range! These bottles are very early, being first produced in the late 1860s, with the "no circle" being the earliest. The colors for this version seem to be deep and rich when they stray from aqua. To me, there is just nothing that compares to any shade of green in Western glass, from yellow olive to emerald. Here is a deep olive example, and I do not recall one in this color selling at auction. If the going price for a deep fire aqua is $3800, I wonder what this one would bring today?:) I do not believe there are more than 8-10 in this color in collections...maybe fewer. The ambers are very tough, and have sold for $4000-$5000 recently. I think there are maybe 5-8 known in straight amber. These are such a stereotypical Western bottle it is no wonder they are so popular. I have not heard of any nice IXLs being dug lately...some beauties have come from Nevada, Oregon, and California. Any nice finds in other states?
A couple of nice green IXLs came from one of the Aleutian Islands several years back. We dug over 30 aqua examples from a privy at a farm house in Solano Co, CA. Most were later and tooled, but at least a dozen were the earlier applied jobbers with oval around IXL. The house was built in 1879, which was too late for the really good ones.
ReplyDeleteJeez 30 toolies, not so rare now!!! are they
ReplyDeleteI expect that a few more applied varieties very wll could come to light shortly, as soon as we can do the older(?) pit on the property. We have to wait 'til after a BIG family wedding and shindig. It won't be until April, though. Right now, there is far too much standing water that would make digging a stinky, and wet proposition. It can sit for a few more months, after all, it's sat for 130 yrs as it is.
ReplyDeleteTomorrow, we are digging a couple of pits that were probed in another, much drier, location up the valley. Maybe there's a bitters in one of 'em.
Anonymous
ReplyDeleteThere are three different molds of toolies ,two of which are also found with applied tops .The toolie in the auction is the rare one and I'll stick with that until I see these other 30 toolies
No matter how hard my shovel trys a good strong colored IXL has always eluded it but there's been a number of nice broken ones. One of the strangest colors I've ever seen was a very dark blueish green we dug busted several years ago, you could barely see through it. The quart New Almaden Vichy Water bottles parallel these non circle IXLs in that they are of the same time frame, come in some of the same colors and were both likely blown by the same San Francisco glass house. In fact I believe the bottle displayed in this post was dug with one. The one pictured her is nothing short of spectacular in color, thanks for sharing.
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