Perfume bottles are highly collectible, not just because of their uniqueness and beauty, but also because they’re so easy to display. They are much smaller than most collectible items, so even those with limited space can enjoy collecting at least a few of their favorites. They can also be quite valuable ranging from a few dollars to a few thousand dollars. Collecting them is such a popular hobby there are even organizations and quite a few good  magazines dedicated to collectable Perfume Bottles...as well as a great number of books written about every aspect of collecting different types of bottles.

Most people collect perfume bottles, not necessarily because of the value but because they find them beautiful....and they are very beautiful indeed. As long as there have been perfumed oils and fragrances for the body, there have had to be containers to hold them. While an ancient perfume container is truly a very rare find, vintage perfume bottles produced over the last hundred years or so are still fairly easy to find today. You can usually find a few very special ones waiting to be discovered here on eBay.

Perfume bottles from the 16th and 17th century will probably be Venetian and Murano glass, and can be valuable because they’re handmade, and one-of-a-kind. Nineteenth-century bottles might  porcelain treasures. Bottles made in the 20th century both benefited and suffered from mass-production. The bottles  the became uniform and exactly alike, allowing a perfumery to duplicate a bottle over and over again. Unfortunately, that came the decline of an abundance of hand-made, unique bottles.

One of the most famous perfume bottles created during the mid-20th century is the Lalique L’air du Temps, one any collector shouldn’t be without unless you choose to specialize in a certain type of bottle. This bottle features one or more frosted doves on top of the bottle. Empty bottles from the 1940s can go for anywhere from $250 and up at auction. This is the bottle that is pictured above...It comes in many sizes...and is one of my very favorites.

Other perfume bottles from these early years of mass production can be worth as much, or more. If you’re interested in the bottles solely for their investment value, it would pay to read some books about collecting them and how to judge the price of the items. Lalique is always a wonderful place to start, as it never looses it's value.

If you want to collect Perfume Bottles mostly for the aesthetics, then it’s just a matter of deciding what you like. There are so many different types so it’s necessary to decide a direction for your collection... or perhaps you may want to collect a representative of a few...or many different styles.

You might choose to collect perfume bottles that held a certain perfume by a specific company. Lalique is a great example of a company that put out many beautiful bottles in different designs for its different scents. (I always seem to go back to Lalique) You might choose bottles that feature some specific theme, like flowers or birds. Or you might choose bottles from specific countries, or those produced during certain years. Your choices are endless!