Most Valuable Antique Bottles, Ranked

You can find old bottles just about anywhere. They are sold in flea markets, found in old barns and sometimes even dug up from backyards intact. 

While most are just pretty and decorative, some do have real value. From little-known brands that no longer exist to the biggest soda maker in the world, these are the most valuable antique bottles sold in recent years. 

Value: $700

Bottom line: U.S. Army Hospital Department bottles have been popular with collectors for decades, as they were made only during the Civil War (1862-1865).

Hospital Department bottles were manufactured in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Baltimore, Maryland; and possibly St. Louis, Missouri. They remained in use until the 1870s. 

Value: $710

Bottom line: We don’t know much about the Luna Bottling Company, outside of being located in Hartford, Connecticut, around the turn of the last century. 

A “hutch bottle” is a Hutchinson soda bottle with a wire stopper inside the neck and blob of the bottle.

Value: $710

Bottom line: This unusual purple bottle was made by the John F. Callahan & Co., located in Boston, Massachusetts, in the late 1800s. John Callahan also made Callahan’s Famous Home, Old Kentucky Club House Whiskey, Walnut Rye and Walkhill Rye.

Callahan made his brand by blending whiskeys delivered to him by rail, following in the tradition of authentic Irish whiskey. 

Value: $833

Bottom line: The Dodge Brothers story is lost to history, but we know this bottle dates back to about the 1860s.

It appears to have carried something to “Melanine Hair Tonic,” which may be what we now know as melanin, which makes our hair the color that it is. When melanin production slows, our hair turns gray.