Bottle show at Kansas State Fairgrounds in April

JUDD WEIL
Hutch Post

HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The 16th Annual Kansas Territory Bottle & Post Card Show & Sale will take place on April 2.  

It will be in the Pride of Kansas Building on the Kansas State Fairgrounds. 

"We didn't have a bottle show originally, we had a bottle club," Mike McJunkin, bottle club member and event organizer, said. "We started it in Hutchinson and they didn't have a show in this area. We had to go clear St. Louis or Colorado to get a good bottle show." 

Since starting the bottle show 16 years ago at the Kansas State Fairgrounds, it has grown quite a bit.  

"Now we attract people from all over from Ohio, Indiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, North Dakota and Nebraska." McJunkin said. "We got one from Wyoming." 

McJunkin, a previous president of the Hutchinson-based bottle club, is a seasoned veteran when it comes to collecting bottles. 

“For several years I was a chairman of the committee to get the bottle show going, and now I have a partner,” McJunkin said. “Mark Law is doing a lot of this and I'm still helping as I'm right here where the fairgrounds is.”  

Bottle collecting is very similar to collecting other things, such as comic books or sports memorabilia.  

“They come in and mostly they're collectors,” McJunkin said. “They sell a few bottles, but it's mostly they're trying to find something for their collection. Somebody will walk in with some bottles they found in a dump or it was on the shelf and grandpa's house.”  

Bottle-collecting is such an obscure hobby, but one with such knowledgeable value.  

“One of our goals is the education about bottles and what makes them great,” McJunkin said. “Like what you add to the glass mixture to make it one color or another.” 

For example, gold or copper are added to make red, while iron is used for an amber color. 

McJunkin said he thinks collectors are pretty much all alike.  

“We have a lot in common with one thing or another, but it's something you enjoy,” McJunkin said. “It's the chase most of the time, and then once you get it then that's the climax there.”

Education is key when collecting bottles. It is not a hobby one can just glance the surface of. Collectors should consider things like what type or kind the bottle is, where it is from, why it was made and what was it used for. 

 “Like in in the early days, demijohns were a larger bottle of different sizes, and a lot of times when they made those, you didn't go to the store and buy your product already bottled and ready for you to take off the shelf,” McJunkin explained. “You bought large quantities, buckets or barrels, of product like molasses or wine or syrup or whatever, and then you put it in a big bottle. Then a lot of times off the wagon trains, people would buy a demijohn and fill it full with those products.” 

McJunkin added, following the use of the bottle, the demijohn, it was common for it be sold. 

Local bottles from different places can be very valuable.  

“Some of the bottles can be really valuable and a lot of times they're local bottles,” McJunkin said. “People collect bottles from around, like here in Hutchinson we have drugstore bottles and some of the older bottles can get pretty valuable.  Around here, we don't have anything in the $100,000 range, but some of the bitters bottles from around the country in different colors and things can get up to several hundreds of thousands of dollars in their auctions they have online.” 

In addition to the many bottles that will be at the show, there will be many postcards as well.  

“We didn't include the word ‘postcards’ in some of our early bottle shows, but we had postcard collectors there and we were doing it,” McJunkin said. “So, we added the word to our show to attract more, and now we've added table top antiques.”  

At the bottle and postcard show, there will also be history and guide books on bottle collecting to help keep veterans sharp, and even help newcomers get started.  

The 16th Annual Kansas Territory Bottle & Post Card Show & Sale will run from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.   

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