Locals benefit from Festival’s Bottle Day

Two historic bottles from Drysdale fetched record prices at an online auction in July.

The Les Bray St. Arnaud

The bottles were ‘discovered’ at an Historic Bottle Appraisal Day - part of the 2016 Festival of Glass in Drysdale, Victoria.

One of the bottles was a Les Bray St. Arnaud ginger beer bottle, made between 1900 and 1918. Its estimated price was between $200 and $250, but it sold for a record $650!

The other bottle was a hand blown wine bottle from Oxford University’s Magdalene College. It has a glass seal dated 1740 and its owner paid $50 for it years ago at a London market. The bottle’s estimated price was between $400 and $500 but it sold for $980 - a record for a bottle of this type.

The handblown wine bottle

ABCR Auctions ran the online auction, which attracted bidders from around the world.