Russel Wright was born in April 3, 1904 and briefly attended Princeton University and later Columbia University.  His career began as a stage designer and later in the 1930’s he started a business designing aluminum cocktail shakers and other accessories for the home that included flatware, mugs and lamps.  His designing career took off in the mid-30s and he started designing bleach blond furniture for Heywood-Wakefield and the Conant Ball Company in Massachusetts.  The late 30’s and early 40s saw the design of ceramic dinnerware made by Steubenville Pottery, the hard plastic Melmac dinnerware was not a hit until the mid-50’s and 60’s.

However Mr. Wright did not just design things and had them produced by the best manufacturers, much like Martha Stewart and others today, he had the presence of mind to market them and sell them through some of the better stores.  His Art Deco furniture designs, called Modern Living, produced by Heywood-Wakefield were sold by Macy’s.  His furniture designs, called American Modern, produced by Conant Ball were sold by Bloomingdales.  By the late 40’s he had sold more than 80 million pieces of his dinnerware and Russel Wright was a household name.  So as you can see, chances are that some of his designs made it into either you parents’ or grandparents’ home.

Glass ink bottles have been around since 1600’s and have come in many different shapes, sizes and colors; making vintage ink bottle collecting both interesting and fun.  Vintage ink bottle shapes include the teapot, pyramid, figural and turtle shapes, but the most common shape is the cone shape.  Clear glass and aqua colored ink bottles are the most common and easiest to find and subsequently worth the least amount of money.  Vintage ink bottles in yellow, purple or black glass are harder to find and therefore more valuable to the ink bottle collector.

Like most antiques and collectibles, the more original and clean the ink bottle is, the more valuable it becomes.  Unfortunately, glass bottles of any kind have a tendency to stain because of water or moisture and cleaning them is not an easy task.  Some people use a soft brush; others use Efferdent and some use harsher chemicals to clean the vintage bottles, but in most cases these measures are not enough.  Collectors sometimes take vintage and antique bottles to a professional for cleaning.  Professional cleaners use machines that tumble the bottles in a mixture of solvent and copper shot or pieces of copper wire.