The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1901-10-09
PROFIT IN OLD BOTTLES
SOLD AGAIN and AGAIN AND
FINALLY MELIED
And Started Over Again in Some Other
Form-Quesr New York Industry.

Forn-Quegr New York Industry.
A good bottle will live through four
or five filings, and the most import
ant men in the bottle business are those
who handle old bottles, collect them,
redistribute them, and then collect
them again. until the broken pieces are
finally piled in the ash heap. The col
lection of old bottles is carried on
by a regular hierarchy. First the
junkmen, who travel about the city
streets and buy all the bottles of GER
tain varieties which they can find.
These they sell to small dealers, who in
turn pass them on to the larger firms,
who ship them by carloads from here
to San Francisco and all points be-
tween These larger houses send out
buyers, who travel around the country.
buying large quantities of bottles, and
shipping them back to the main office,
as we'll as selling for their firm.
Said the head OF the largest firm of
middlemen in New York 1--WE pay one
of the big hotels here 5000 a week just
for the privilege of taking all their
empty bottles. Not only do we make
arrangements Of that kind with hotels
both in town and in the country, but
also with all the large private country
houses and town establishments, too.
for that matter.
THE American bottle-makers COM
monty produce few kinds of bottles,
and those are of rather poor
the flint-colored and lighter red
and green ones, AS soon as they try
to make darker bottles, their glass fails
to stand the strain, so that all the
better grades are imported. They are
not imported empty, though, and we
do not get them until they have been
used once. AS thousands of bottles
are coming into this country every
year, and bottle generally lasts three
or four years, it is easy to see how
the total number of bottles in use in
the United States increases enormous
~ from month to month"
Every variety of bottle goes through
this mans hands, except medicine bot
ties, and he has 50 different types on his
price list, including mixed" which Is
made up of those bottles made In very
limited quantities for some particular
pun OSt, dild nv VB eioi ~ tieteSiiiCei'
AS a general thing his firm does not
clean the bottles nor remove the la
bells. A skilled man will tell by the
ring Of two bottles struck together,
and a glance at the shape and color,
just what are its quality and kind. He
runs his finger around the rim of the
mouth to see If it is nicked, for a
nicked bottle cannot be recorked, as
the broken edge would cut the cork.
The bad or broken bottles, If they are
of American make, are thrown on a
heap of broken glass and sold to men
who make a regular business of col
Letting broken glass to sell it to the
manufacturers to be melted up again.
The fragments of the foreign bottles
are useless here and are simply thrown
away.
The building where this business is
carried on in West Tewtnty- fifth street
is piled high on every floor with bot
ties of all shapes and colors. Boxes of
bottles, barrels of bottles and bins of
bottles, line the walls, and the floors
are strewn with shining fragments of
broken glass, white, red and green, Of
an infinite variety of shade and hue.
In corner on eaCn story Is great
pile of pieces of old bottles, glittering
against the dark background of the
wall. On the tracks near the building
are cars filled to the limit Of their
weight capacity with bottles ready to
travel to every part of the country
The method of packing the cars Is very
simple The packers begin at each end
of the car, laying the bottles In rows,
the lowest row with the necks pointing
in and the next row above with the
necks pointing out. When this wall of
bottles has been built up to within
about two feet of the top of the car and
solidly out to the edge of the door on
the side of the car, he door on one side
is boarded up and the bottles are laid
along in front of 1t sideways to those
previously put in A car will hold
about three or four hundred gross or
quart bottles, depending, of course, on
their weight These bottles will travel
for days, packed in this way, with