Barbed-Wire and Antique Bottles

Tony Marostica is sharing a small part of his collection of barbed-wire and antique bottles at the Susan Kalman Peaks to Prairie Community Center. He will be giving a presentation on Monday evening, October 9, 2023 at 6:30pm at the Community Center about his collections and all Valley residents are invited to attend.

Tony has over 300 varieties of patented barbed-wire. Four of his 16 boards of labeled barbedwire are currently displayed. The labels show the patent number, the year of the patent and the style of the barbed-wire.

Barbed-wire styles differ by small details such as the number of strands of wire, the length, distance and number of barbs, as well as their overall configuration. The CF&I manufactured many types of barbed-wire, many of which can be seen still in use on fences in Southern Colorado today.

Proprietary barbed-wire was sometimes developed for unique customers. When the railroads fenced in their right-of-ways they needed literally miles of wire fencing. They ordered easily identified proprietary barbedwire in case a farmer tried to use the railroad wire for his own needs.

Barbed-wire collectors are rare. Tony began his collection to honor his Uncle Harry. Harry was the only child of seven sisters and three brothers to remain on Tony’s grandfather’s farm near Sterling, Colorado. Harry developed an interest in barbed-wire and built a collection in the 1960’s. When he passed three years ago, his son sold his collection. Tony then began purchasing 18” sections of barbed-wire from on-line sites. The Greenhorn Valley has some interesting examples of barbed-wire fencing, but “one can’t go out and cut a section from someone’s fence!”

Tony, however, is primarily a bottle collector and belongs to the ‘Antique Bottle Collectors of Colorado’. His display includes many old bottles including embossed bottles from Old Colorado City, west of Colorado Springs dating from 1880 until about 1910; an early Coca-Cola bottle embossed with “Pueblo, Colorado” and a fruit jar with a zinc lid, lined with a glass dish. Several old bottles in his display were found in the Greenhorn Valley.

Tony started collecting bottles as a six-year-old boy when visiting his maternal grandparents in Wyoming. Tony watched with interest as a digging project developed across the street. In one equipment shovel an antique olive oil bottle rolled out. Tony asked if he could have it and displayed it in a window of his childhood home.

When he was ten-years-old, he moved with his family to Connecticut. With his brothers he began to seek out old dumping sites along old stone walls in their heavily wooded neighborhood. He saved many of the bottles they found.

At 13-years-old, Tony was invited to a friend’s historic New England house to spend the night. While playing, Tony hid in a closet and noticed a hole in the back wall. He stuck his hand in the hole and pulled out a bottle—a special bottle, a Collinsville, Connecticut Hutchinson bottle. The heavy glass bottle held early soda or ‘pop’.

A patent was awarded to William Hutchinson in Chicago for the Hutchinson seal, which with a rubber gasket ‘sealed’ the carbonated beverage with a stopper and metal clip from the inside. In order to open the beverage you pushed down on the clip and the stopper ‘popped’—giving the beverage a nickname that has lasted until today. Bottles using the Hutchinson seal were manufactured in each of the 50 states. Tony has accumulated a collection of Hutchinson bottles from each of the states. He recently connected with Zang Wood, a prominent Hutchinson bottle collector from New Mexico, who turns out to be related to his wife.

Tony explained the different colors of glass. The natural shade of glass is aqua. Minerals and/or chemicals are added to make the glass clear or colored. Before World War I Manganese dioxide from Germany was added to American-made glass to make it clear. When exposed to sunlight it turns the glass purple. Manganese dioxide could not be obtained from Europe after 1914, so old purple bottles in this country likely date to before then.

Part of Tony’s display is a lightening rod with an attractive glass ball. Lightening rods were essential to protect barns and farmhouses from being struck and catching fire. Salesmen sold these rods with decorative weathervanes and glass decoration pieces for customization. The lightening rods were wired through glass insulators across the top of the roof and down an outside wall to the ground.

Tony’s mother, Joye Marostica of Colorado City, and Marilyn Hunter formerly of Rye, were sisters. Tony often came to Rye as a young man to visit and worked at the Hunter Fish Hatchery. He met and married Jill Ealey. They raised their six children in the Greenhorn Valley. Tony wrote sports articles for the Greenhorn Valley News for many years.

To see more interesting antique bottles, a Bottle Show and sale, sponsored by the Antique Bottle Collectors of Colorado, will be held at the fairgrounds in Castle Rock on September 9th.

If you have items you would like to display at the Susan Kalman Peaks to Prairie Community Center, please contact Phyllis Hochstetler at hphochstetler@yahoo.com