Incorrect Perfume Labels Stuck on Bottles
< passionforperfume.com>
By Helen Farnsworth
A continuing problem today for commercial perfume bottle collectors is the application of labels to bottles fraudulently. A seller or dealer has a plain bottle and knows that a label will sell the bottle. He has a loose label and a pot of glue and now he has a marketable bottle.
Collectors need to be more aware of this problem. Today I have seen two examples of this practice on ebay and see collectors bidding on both examples. In the first case the bottle is a well known silhouette for Mury with an octagonal label spot. The dealer has found a nice Chamberry label that is round to fit in the spot (see listing of loose labels below). A smart collector will spot that the label was not meant to fit the octagonal space. The other example by this seller is for Lorenzy-Palanca (again see listing). He has a nice little winter green oil bottle with a gold foil label that laps around the sides and over the bottom of the bottle-Again this should tip off collectors. The cap is from another era and is likely for a current Avon cologne. It is bright gold plastic. This deco era bottle is matched with an art nouveau label and a current cap.
Now for a few tips on how not to buy a mismatched bottle and label. It helps to know your bottle silhouette and also to know that most 20th century perfume bottles do not have lapping labels. By this I mean that they don't go around the bottle edges. They did have lapping labels in the 19th century. Also the label should be proportional to the bottle. The label should match the style of the bottle as well. When I was in France in Grasse, I saw several shops with bureau drawers filled with loose labels and the lady in the shop wanted me to write an article about her shop and how she was going to market her perfumes. The trouble was that she was going to market her perfumes by pasting on some of her loose labels on the bottles. Another situation that should alert a perfume bottle collectors is a label on a brown glass bottle. This is more than likely an applied label on a medicine bottle. Of course if you can handle the bottle sometimes you can see rubber cement oozing around the label and that is a help. I bought a bottle like this to add to my collection of fakes on purpose.
Finally for me as a paper collector it is maddening to see a wonderful genuine label applied to the wrong bottle-this destroys both the bottle's history and the label's history. I collect perfume bottle labels as a way of documenting what labels are loose.
Summary
There are many perfumes that have mismatched labels on the bottle for sellers know that labels make customers and collectors purchase the bottle. So poeple should be more aware of them not to make wrong choice.
First, know your bottle shape and that most 20th century perfume bottles do not have lapping around bottle edges.
Second, the label should go with the style of the bottle well.
Third, alert a perfume bottle with a label on a brown glass because many medicne bottle used.
