Buying And Selling Mini Bottle Collections

This is a topic that has been discussed as long as people have been collecting mini bottles.  There are no perfect answers as to which is the best way to buy or sell a collection.  There is just a lot of history on how many collectors have done it over the years.

The first scenario is the one is which a family member who has collected some number of mini bottles has passed away and his family doesn't know what to do with his mini bottles since none of them are interested in them.  They have no idea if the bottles are worth anything and they do not know any other mini bottle collectors.  In this day and age, they usually turn to Google to see if they can find an answer.  Or they might put them up for sale on some web site like Craigslist or Ebay.  In some cases, some member of the family has a little familiarity with the bottles just from hearing Dad or Grandpa talking about them on many ocasions.  They might have a name of a fellow collector that they can turn to for some answers.

One of the problems in selling a collection is the fact that many of the people, who were not the collector, selling collections is that they tend to think the collection is worth more than it is.  Unless you have a spectacular collection, the collection as a whole, has less value than the sum of it's parts.  By this I mean, to a buyer, the collection may be worth 50 cents a bottle to buy the entire collection.  So, if you have 100 mini bottles, the collection may be worth $50 to the buyer.  On the other hand, the collection may have some old whiskies from the 1930's, as an example, that are worth $25 a piece.  The seller might be better off to sell the bottles individually than the collection as a whole.  Bottles like Johnnie Walker, Jim Beam, Smirnoff, Bacardi and the other popular brands, are not worth much more than 25 cents, if that.  The reason being that these mini bottles are sold everywhere in the world and have been for 60 years.  Every collector has them, even newbies because they can buy them at almost every liquor store and liquor outlet.  And, also bottles like liqueurs, cordials, aperitifs, digestives and wines have very little value unless you can find one of the few collectors who specialize in these types of spirits.  I say few, mostly European and South American collectors, because these are the most prolific types of spirits found around the world.  Every collector begins his or her collecting by collecting these bottles and then find themselves with so many of these types of bottles that they have no more room to display them.  Then, most collectors make the big decision about specializing in one type or one brand of spirits.  This not only gives them more room to display their collection but it also gives them a more reasonable chance to ever collect everything in that type or brand of spirit.  These collectors are called specialists.

When you are thinking about selling your collection if you are not the collector, you must understand that the biggest market out there is the specialist market.  If you have a bottle or bottles that a specialist needs, you will certainly maximize your return on the bottle.  However, specialists are not interested in buying the entire collection of 100 bottles if they only want 4 bottles.  I have bought collections like that many times in my life and now have over 1000 bottles I don;t want, just because I ended up with 50 or 60 or more bottles I did not want because I wanted 4 or 6 bottles from that collection.  I stopped buying collections 20 years ago.  Having said that, I should tell you that there is a market out there of new collectors who are still trying to collect everything and are looking for bargains.  For these collectors, it is best if you as the seller would put together a group of the not so popular types of spirits I mentioned above and put them on Ebay as a group of maybe 20 or 30 bottles and start the auction at a low price and see what happens.  If a newbie can get 20 or 30 mini bottles, regardless of their spirit make up, for $10 plus shipping, they think that is a real bargain and you can get at least a little pay back on the not so popular bottles.  The bottles to put on Ebay by themselves are whiskies, cognacs, vodkas, gins, rums, tequila's, beers and figural bottles.  However, avoid the common brand names.  Include those with the bottle groups.

I must also say that there are still buyers out there who are willing to buy entire collections if the price is right.  Remember that if you want to sell the entire collection at one time, the value of the collection is probably worth $1 or less per bottle, unless as I mentioned earlier, you have an a really great collection.  One place you can try to find a buyer for your collection is the Midwest Miniature Bottle Club.  Many of it's members are still interested in buying collections. You can contact them at: miniaturebottles.com or Google Midwest Miniature Bottle Collectors to get more information.

I hope I have given you enough information to get started in selling your unwanted mini bottles.  Contact me if you have any questions.

That's all for now.  See you next time.