Club meetings started up again after the summer break. Mick announced that our forthcoming Bottle Show on Nov 20th is virtually fully booked. All looking forward to another great show.

The finds table was overflowing with goodies and most of them are shown here.

Micky had a lot of luck dealing with a digger driver. A lot of good quality gear including a green dumpy Aldridge of Southampton codd. Most of the stuff has now been sold on to eager collectors, but he brought along a few of the bits that are left. A green 6oz MORRELLS of OXFORD codd and an amber DULLEYS of WELLINGBORO codd, a BLANCHFLOWER YARMOUTH BLOATER PASTE lid, a blue marble WILFRED ANDREWS, WINCHESTER AND ANDOVER codd plus an amber marble ALDRIDGE, SOUTHAMPTON codd.

Finally Steves finds. He brought along these original prints for C & E MORTON Ltd products. A really colourful collection. They were all mounted and would look great framed up. But it is also a great reminder of how products were packaged.

Gordon had a sparkling early hamilton, embossed HAMILTON PATENT, AERATED WATERS, SOLD BY R JOHNSON, 15 GREEK ST LONDON. Bought from someone who included the stand with it.

Hodgy brought along his miniature GOSNELLS lid, which he won in an auction for £31.

Chris dug the small W G NIXEY, 12 SOHO SQUARE, LONDON pot. Probably contained some sort of blacking. Also found a local quart milk bottle MANOR FARM DAIRIES LTD, PETERSFIELD, PHONE 311. His Ebay purchase was the A BREWIS & SON LD, PRIZE DAIRY ENGLISH STILTON, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE pot. In the space of a couple of weeks he found a couple of penny lick glasses, one from a digger driver and one from a car boot. These glasses were used to sell a penny worth of ice cream in. His last find was the small beehive top J MILLS & SONS, OSSORY ROAD, OLD KENT ROAD dumpy seltzer bottle. Embossed around bottle is PLEASE KEEP THE BOTTLE ON ITS SIDE, presumably to keep the cork from drying out, as in a hamilton bottle.

Mick bought a job lot of bottles which included the previously unseen local beer bottle JUNIOR A & N STORES ALDERSHOT. Included in this lot was the small size crown cap STAR MINERAL WATER, CAMBERLEY, nothing very special but Camberley bottles are quite hard to come by.

Daves contribution were the two early Alton flagons. The left one is CROWLEY, ALTON, 1849. This of course is the same company that produced the crow pictorial ginger beer. The other flagon is from W A ROGERS, WINE MERCHANT, ALTON.

Steve had a few lucky buys at his local salerooms. The early flagon impressed CHALLEN & MAY MARLBRO. On researching name it would appear that the flagon dates around 1822 to 1830. His second lot was another flagon G W PIPER, THE WINCHESTER STEAM MINERAL WORKS. The last lot was the WHITBREADS matchstriker match holder ashtray.

The last find from John was this rather tatty stoneware bottle with almost illegible writing. We can read DISINFECTANT and 25 FLEET ST LONDON & ALTON HANTS. The first and third words are a mystery. Without a name it makes it difficult to research. If anyone out there has seen another one I would love to know what it says.

The competition this evening was for 2 front transferred flagons

1st Richard with GEORGE MELLS, LISS and A COMPTON, PETERSFIELD

2nd Pat with her 2 miniature ones, JAMES STIFF, LAMBETH and A G SHARP, SOUTHAMPTON

3rd Gordon with UNDERWOOD, WINCHESTER and LONG & CO, SOUTHSEA