During the years I’ve been going to auctions, I have picked up a group of small glass items for their aesthetic rather than useful value. They are bottle stoppers.

I have three beautiful cobalt-blue stoppers with gold leaf and one the color of amber. I have no idea what bottles they once sat atop (or if they ever did), but they are lovely. I have stoppers for perfume bottles (check out this website with vintage Czech perfume bottles and stoppers), and apothecary, medicine and decanter jars. One is an American Eagle, another is penny-flat. They are faceted, triangular-shaped and bulbous. They are as small as 1” in diameter to nearly 4”.

I’ve come across milk bottles with the old porcelain stoppers at auctions. And by Googling, I’ve found some interesting others: beer stoppers (that are collectible), and newer stoppers fashioned from vintage doorknobs (glass and ceramic), golf balls, flatware and even a majorette trophy.

One of the most fascinating finds in my research were stoppers produced by an Italian company called Anri (which made all sorts of carvings). The company started in 1912, and is still in operation. One Anri collector wrote on her website that she has 500 stoppers and has written a book about Anri wood carvings.

Here’s another collector of Anri products - including stoppers, corkscrews and more – dating to the 1920s. There’s also a Yahoo group of Anri stopper collectors.

Related posts:

1. Vintage human hair pieces
2. Vintage hatpins
3. Vintage cars, tins and dinosaurs
4. Vintage hair dryers at auction
5. Missing: Vintage black baby greeting cards