All bottled up

Tucked within the first floor of 2508 Jefferson Highway, treasures of all kinds line the shelves of Colonial Candle Crafts and Antiques.

One room is filled with homemade scented candles, which shop proprietor Larry Perry calls "as good as you'll find in this part of the country," along with other crafts and whimsies. The combined bouquet the candles' 23 fragrance varieties fill the entire store with a pleasant, if complex, aroma. One wall of the room is devoted to traditional candles in glass jars; an adjacent wall features candles encased in teapots and other ceramic containers.

Perry and his family have been making the candles themselves for more than seven years, and after selling their creations at craft shows around the area, Perry decided to give the candles a home. Thus, Colonial Candle Crafts and Antiques was born.

"We wanted to give people a place to buy the candles," Perry says. "We've been selling them and been pretty successful at it, going to the craft shows. The reason for the store in the first place is the candles.

"But when I started thinking about opening the store," Perry continues, "I thought it might be time to clean out my detached garage."

That's where the "Antiques" part of the store comes in. His garage, Perry says, was filled with treasures, the result of years spent combing antique stores and other venues for collectable items.

At first, Perry was searching for Autumn Leaf patterned china ("I was probably the only man in the world looking for china," he says); upon completing his collection, he moved on to milk bottles, then soda bottles. Then came a find that sealed his next fixation: a White House vinegar jug. Perry picked up the glass bottle for a few dollars, then sold it shortly after - for several hundred dollars.

"I've paid $23 for one bottle, then sold it two days later for more than $500," Perry says. "People told me it was a once-in-a-lifetime find. Then, a couple weeks later, I paid $2.95 for a bottle with a label, then turned around and sold it for $950.

"I just thought it was intriguing. That's what got me into the White House bottles," Perry adds. "And it's just about driven me crazy."

White House vinegar bottles are highly sought-after items among many antiques aficionados, due to the extremely collectable nature of the containers. In the 1920s, the White House Company began producing unique vinegar jars to set the company's product apart from the competition.

The jars were produced in a wide array of limited-run designs, including bottles shaped like apples and lighthouses, colored glass decanters and jars with raised embossing. Most of the jars were not branded in any way aside from the label, Perry says, making White House containers easy to overlook for the uneducated antiquer.

After moving his cache of White House vinegar bottles from his garage to the gleaming glass shelves of the store, Perry says that Colonial Candle Crafts and Antiques has one of the largest selections of the bottles available. The store's assortment of White House vinegar containers spans more than 70 years of production and includes a wide array of pieces, many extremely rare. Perry picks up one bottle from a display case and holds it up.

"This is a bottle that was made specially for the 1939 World's Fair," Perry explains. "Since they made it for just that year, and it has a part of the label, it's worth a lot of money."

The value of a jar varies depending on age, design, the location it was manufactured at and, most importantly, whether or not the bottle has a label. Since most of the containers were washed and reused, Perry says that a jar with even a partial label is cause for celebration.

"Just having part of a label is very rare," Perry notes. "Just this part of the label on this [1939 World's Fair] bottle tells me where it was filled at - Washington D.C."

Since so many different White House vinegar bottle designs exist, notes Perry, it is practically impossible to have a complete collection of all of the company's bottles. This is particularly true because many products were only sold in certain regions and, of the company's many factories, only the Winchester location remains.

"You can have a bottle that is eight years old, and if it is rare enough, it might be worth more money than a bottle from the '50s," Perry explains. "It's all relative."

Perry has developed his collection the old-fashioned way - hard work. In addition to combing antique markets, Perry has dug through trash piles, cleaned out cellars and de-junked basements. It's worth it, though, he says - that's often where he finds his rarest pieces.

"I'm willing to do the work for you, if you're willing to let me do it," Perry said. "I'll even pay people for the bottles I find in what I'm cleaning out for them, under certain circumstances."

Aside from White House Vinegar bottles and the Perry family's handcrafted candles, Colonial Candle Crafts and Antiques also sells Autumn Leaf patterned china, Golden Wheat patterned china, antique crocks, vintage milk bottles, antique tools and grinders, vintage soda bottles and Guardian Service cook wear, among other things.

For more information about Colonial Candle Crafts and Antiques, call 949-4699.

Contact Sage Merritt at 932-3559.