CALIFORNIA PERFUME COMPANY
AVON PRODUCTS, INC.
AVON‘s beginnings date back to 1886 when David H. McConnell, a book salesman, began giving away small vials of perfume to customers in an attempt to increase interest and sales of his books. Soon, however, interest in the perfumes outpaced that of his books, and eventually McConnell began to manufacture perfumes and sell them under the firm name California Perfume Company (1892). His business was originally based in New York City.
McConnell hired women (including many who were housewives) to sell his perfumes door to door. Sales rapidly increased, and a new plant was eventually built in Suffern, New York circa 1894.
In 1930 the company was renamed Allied Products. One of his most popular fragrances was named “Avon” introduced circa 1929, and, perhaps in part because of the strong popularity of that perfume, customers began asking for his line of products under the name “Avon”. In about 1938 he changed the company name again to Avon Products, Inc.
In 1965 Avon began promoting the sale of figural bottles (i.e. bottles made after the form of some type of object), these being produced in a very wide variety of shapes. One of the first types was made in the shape of a boot.
Most of the figurals can be generally grouped as having been made to contain either women’s perfume, or men’s cologne or aftershave. These bottles are often termed, and were sold by Avon as “decanters”. Some of the bottles held other cosmetic products including bath oils, lotions, etc. Some of the more popular shapes include figures of people, many types of animals including ducks, eagles, a buffalo, moose, hippo, etc; cars, books, clocks, shoes, guns, cannons, horns, telephones, a hammer, bells, a steamboat, keys, steins, pipes, a tennis racket, an Indian chief, and many other designs.
ADVERTIsem*nT
In many cases, the lid is an integral part of the design/shape of a bottle, often made of plastic, with the color of the plastic being a close approximation of the glass color of the bottle itself. Sometimes the plastic lid is in a contrasting, or complementary color.
It is likely that the most popular series within the sphere of Avon figural bottles would be their line of glass automobiles, including representations of early classic vehicles as well as various “race car” models. Most of the car bottles date from around 1968 and throughout the 1970s. Other bottles often collected along with the cars include boats, ships, train engines and other vehicles. The car bottles were made in a variety of attractive colors, including sapphire blue, rich emerald green, light golden amber (“topaz”), yellow, gray/smoke, etc.
Some of these kinds of Avon bottles are unmarked on the base, and originally bore a sticker attached to the bottom of the bottle, with info on the cologne brand name and company name. Some bottles are marked with the name AVON embossed on the base, with or without an accompanying mold number. In the case of some of the “car bottles” the name AVON appears on the front of the car, as part of the “grille” or where a license plate would be positioned.
The “heyday” of the vintage Avon figural bottles might be said to date during the 1965-1980 time frame, although other figurals have been produced since that time. A wide variety of cologne bottles and decanters of every description were made and were sold in large quantities. The oversupply of these bottles has resulted in a “flat” market for a good majority of them. They are seen in large numbers at many yard sales, flea markets and thrift stores.
Most larger antique malls will have a few booths that carry some Avon bottles. Many people purchased large quantities of these bottles in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and have now discovered that they have not held their value (or increased in value) as much as they had hoped. As a general rule, Avon figural bottles should not be purchased in an attempt at an investment. Buy them only as a collectible, and something you will personally enjoy!
The most important single thing to keep in mind when collecting Avon figural bottles, especially the cars, etc: Condition, condition, condition!! Unfortunately, many of the bottles now for sale bear wholly or partially worn labels on the bottom (or missing completely), have lids in poor condition (sometimes entirely absent), and paint or “flashing” peeling off (in the case of some of the bottles which were made with a flashed or painted glass).
Value is added if the original box is still available and intact. A bottle will have more value if the original content sticker is still on the base, in good legible condition. In general, fine condition bottles that are full, unopened and still in their ORIGINAL, CLOSE TO MINT CONDITION BOXES will have the most value to collectors. Boxes that are dirty, faded, crumpled or bent will have very little, if any, market value.
If interested in collecting Avon figural bottles, I’d advise studying lots of ebay auctions, looking to see which types actually sell, and what range of prices are realized. Any ebay seller, especially those not familiar or knowledgeable about Avon bottle values in the secondary marketplace, may (in pure innocence) wildly overestimate the demand or value of a particular piece, and start an auction at an unreasonably high minimum bid.
As with any collectible item, prospective buyers/collectors should start out very slow, and learn as much as they can about Avon bottles (or other collectibles) that they find of interest to them. Look at lots of individual auctions before deciding to put in a bid. Study the condition of any item very closely. Of course, this is general advice that can be applied to any kind of bottle, whether antique, vintage, or new!
Many of the more “serious” collectors of Avon products search for the earlier (and much, much scarcer) bottles and related items sold during the early days of the California Perfume Company. Many of the older bottles may be difficult to identify. Bud Hastin’s price guide (mentioned below) has much information on many of the earlier, and very difficult to find, pieces that were made during the early twentieth century.
CAPE COD PATTERN
Besides the figural bottles, one of the most popular gift lines sold by Avon was the dark ruby red“Cape Cod” pattern tableware set, with production lasting from 1975 to 1993. Many different items were issued in this line of glassware. Some of the less abundant pieces in this pattern may demand decent prices, but the most common pieces are still around in rather large quantities (such as the goblets, shown here) and can be seen frequently at antique malls, yard sales and flea markets. The goblets (small wine glasses) were made over a number of years, and the embossed base markings may differ slightly from piece to piece. For instance, in the accompanying photo, the goblet on the left is marked “1976 AVON PRESIDENTS CELEBRATION / [mold number] 10”, and the example on right is marked simply “AVON” along with a mold number.
ADVERTIsem*nT
A very good (brief) overview of the production of this particular line of glassware sold by Avon (written by Debbie & Randy Coe), can be found at this link: Avon’s Cape Cod Pattern.
Few, if any, Avon bottles are marked with a logo or other identification indicating exactly what glass company made them. However, many of the Avon bottles were made by Wheaton Glass Company of Millville, New Jersey. Wheaton Glass Company has since went through various restructurings and slight name changes over the years, and is now known as simply “Wheaton” , concentrating on scientific apparatus and laboratory glassware.
Other glass companies that produced Avon glassware include Owens-Illinois Glass Company, Anchor Hocking Glass Corporation (possibly some of the red glass items were made by that company), Fostoria Glass Company, and the Carr-Lowery Glass Company of Baltimore, Maryland.
Fostoria Glass Company (Fostoria, Ohio – 1887-1891; Moundsville, West Virginia – 1891-1986) produced glassware for Avon at times. Possibly the best-known set produced for Avon by Fostoria was a special edition consisting of two 2 cobalt blue goblets, a pitcher and a plate (oval platter) issued for the US bicentennial celebration on July 4, 1976. The goblet designs feature George Washington and Martha Washington, and the pitcher and the platter features renditions of Mount Vernon, the beautiful home of the president and his wife. These pieces were evidently manufactured in the 1975-1977 time period.
UPDATE: I received a reply about this so I wanted to include text here from a comment left by “Carlena” on May 25, 2014. (Thank you Carlena!) She wrote: “I can confirm to you that several AVON Decanters were manufactured by Owen-Illinois, especially at the Huntington, W Va. plant. My Mom-in-Law worked for the Huntington, W Va. plant for about 25 years up until they closed the plant (approx. 1993/1994). We have a pair of original AVON Dueling Pistol 1760 decanters ( glass only, not the added silver plastic decor or bottle caps). One has on the Butt of the pistol “AVON 5” and the other “AVON 10″. From what I’ve found in research these decanters were marketed by AVON, around 1973 with Deep Woods After Shave.”
(I have also received comments that indicate some Avon bottles were made at another Owens-Illinois Glass Company plant located at Fairmont, West Virginia, and also at the Carr-Lowrey Glass Company factory at Baltimore, Maryland. If anyone has additional info on these or other glass companies that made any Avon bottles during their history, please write and I can add that information to this article! Thank you! )
AVON BOTTLE BOOKS BY BUD HASTIN
For more information on Avon bottles and other collectibles and their suggested values, I would suggest the series of price guides by Bud Hastin which have been issued periodically since 1969. As far as I can tell, the very last edition was his “18th Edition” (“Bud Hastin’s Avon Collector’s Encyclopedia“), published in 2007. I believe this book was available as an ebook several years ago, although I’m not sure if it still available now.
NOTE: I might add that beginning with the 13th edition ( 1993), or perhaps before, Hastin deleted large sections of Avon bottles dating from the very late 1950s and newer, especially some of the Fragrance bottle lines and “Miscellaneous Avon bottles”. He removed them from the newer editions because he felt they were no longer collected, and had little or no value or collector interest.
Personally, I disagree with his decision to remove large numbers of bottles from his more recent editions, but, of course, that was entirely his prerogative. Some collectors are just as interested in learning the approximate age and other info concerning their bottles and not always merely about the monetary value. And just having the bottles shown in the books show they were indeed produced, and do exist, so this would still give some basic information for the diligent searcher.
If a present-day collector is trying to find out info on common Avon bottles made in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, they might find many bottles of that time period listed in an older edition of the price guide, but not in the newer editions. Luckily, many of those older editions are still available on the secondary market. A good site to look for older editions of Hastin’s Avon books is bookfinder.com.
Of course, the primary value of the older editions is the information concerning when a particular product and container was produced and sold, and not on values, as the values have changed over the years and are more than likely totally irrelevant to today’s market.
Please click here to go to my website Home / Welcome Page: Glass Bottle Marks Home Page.
Click here to go to the alphabetical lists of “Glass Bottle Marks” pages, covering marks and logos seen on bottles, fruit jars, electrical insulators and tableware.
ADVERTIsem*nT
