|
|
| About MBL |
|
This site is designed to be a co-operative effort between like minded miniature bottle collectors. It aims to, eventually, catalogue miniature drink bottles of all types and categories. Miniature Bottle Collector Magazine and most miniature bottle books are now out of print, although, even collectively, they were never a comprehensive reference. There are many good sites on the web and this site is not designed to replace any of them. Most sites are run by single collectors and show only their collection. Approximately 40% of Miniature Bottle sites have gone in the last 5 years and many others have not been updated. This site is an attempt to stem at least some of that loss and provide a platform for the ongoing listing of bottles both old and new. The site aims to become the definitive pictorial reference site for miniature bottles. Initially we aimed to list all figural miniature bottles, otherwise known as miniature decanters, ever produced. We realise that we will never list them all and that this will be a never ending task! Many older figural mini bottles were only produced in very small quantities and so some will undoubtedly have already been lost to us. The site, as was always intended, has now extended to all miniature bottles. We started including 'straights' several years after starting the site, so please be patient as it will be many years before MBL is anywhere near to comprehensive in this area. We have now passed the 100,000 images (Processed bottles) mark, with the cooperation of other collectors, YOU, we hope to grow the site to over 200,000 processed images, then 300,000 etc. Special Note with Regards to Unprocessed Images. This is a temporary area for new photos we are holding to add to countries already processed or all the photos we hold for counties not yet processed. These are raw photos with nothing done to them, other than orientation in some cases. The quality varies from superb to barely useable but any photo is better than none. There are many duplicates, both with other Unprocessed photos and between these and the images that have already been processed and are in various directories in the Straights database. Some of these duplicates will be of significantly better quality than the image already in the Straights database and will, in time, be swapped. The processing of these photos is a matter of time, the more help we get the quicker these will be incorporated into the Straights database. Listings in the Alphabetical Database have country or territory of origin flags. If you do not know which country the flag represents click the flag and you will also find out further information about the country or territory. We would like to add the year or decade of manufacture, contents, capacity etc. against individual photographs but we need volunteers to do so. We are also searching for label variations. This is a huge task and will be on-going for years. Known bottles that we do not have a photograph of are listed with a 'wanted' photo. Some bottles have been issued by more than one producer so in some cases you will find what appears to be the same bottle listed twice or more. As much as possible we have provided a cross-index. These will take you to the producer, which will not necesarily be the most prominent name on the bottle, but you should find what you are looking for if you scroll down the page. HOW YOU CAN HELP If you have photos of any miniature bottles that are not listed here, or better photos of any that are listed, please email them to us together with a few notes such as who made them, contents, capacity etc. The more collectors help, the better this site will get. If you wish to help with coding, with listing bottles or if you want to help by translating this site into another language, we would very much welcome you contacting us. If you spot any errors (unfortunately there will inevitably be some as we are only human), PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE let us know. Email: Collectors who have contributed to the site so far are listed HERE. There are also links to their web sites if they have one. OTHER SITES The picture size we have chosen (maximum 360x600 pixels for figurals and ????x600 pixels for straights) is a good compromise between size and speed of download and provides a good enough resolution to clearly identify the bottle. There are some smaller photos which we will replace as larger size photos become available. Miniature Bottle Library is designed to be the definitive listing and quick reference site for mini bottles/decanters but it does not purport to be the definitive site for any particular type or make. There are lots of very good miniature bottle and decanter sites now on the web. Some of these have much higher resolution photos, histories of the company and/or bottles and other much more detailed information. At the bottom of some pages you will find relevant links that will be well worth following if you are interested in a more in-depth study. These links go to not only mini bottle sites but also to the manufacturer's site if they still exist. This area will be considerably expanded in the future but, again, we need your help to do so. New Zealand Miniature Bottle Club has a comprehensive list of all known miniature bottle sites and links to them on their web site CLICK HERE Please let them know of any site not listed. SEARCHING There are four ways of searching for the miniature bottles you are interested in. The "Alphabetrical Index" lists every ceramics & fancy glass bottle manufacturer we have so far identified. Clicking on that name will then take you to a page of photographs and names. We have cross-indexed this where appropriate and clicking on the reference index will take you to the relevant page. Where more appropriate, some bottles are listed under the company they were made for (eg. bottles made for a particular airline) rather than the manufacturer. These should all be cross referenced. The "Country Index" will allow you to search by country and then by the ceramics and/or Fancy Glass manufacturer. The "Straights Index" lists every straight/plain glass bottle manufacturer we have so far identified. Many people refer to these as Airline Bottles. Clicking on that name will then take you to a page of photographs and names. We have cross-indexed this where appropriate and clicking on the reference index will take you to the relevant page. Where more appropriate, some bottles are listed under the company they were made for (eg. bottles made for an airline) rather than the manufacturer. These should all be cross referenced. The "Theme Index" allows you to search by categories eg. Birds, Lions, Jugs, Vases etc. As of 2019 this also includes Straights, although it is probably not comprehensive for these. Finally, we have the "Search MBL" facility which searches all the text within MBL, including the file names. Freefind updates this index weekly. Chinese bottles are a problem for us. In many cases you can find the name of the wine/spirit in them but not the manufactuer. For this reason many of them them are listed under what they contain as though that name represented the manufacturer. This is intended to be a short term solution until someone who reads Chinese can help with the company names. We have a similar problem with some Japanese, Korean and other non-Latin script language bottles. Temporarily these are under 'Unknown - Japan,' 'Unknown - Korea' etc. UNKNOWN BOTTLES There are a few hundred bottles listed under unknown and unknown-company. Where possible these are listed under 'Unknown' and the country name. Please have a look through these. If you can positively identify any of them please let us know. Email:
Copyright 2008-2024 Miniature Bottle Library |