Washington, D.C., Area Snuff Bottle Collectors

On November 17th, twenty of our members gathered at the home of Nancy and Joe McCarthy in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, for our Fall meeting. Nancy had a delicious lunch waiting for us when we arrived after our long ride. As always it was a pleasure to be together and it was made even more special by having Hugh Moss as our guest speaker.

Hugh spoke to us about the dynamics of collecting. The market for snuff bottles is changing. New collectors who are willing to pay higher prices for quality, rarity, and provenance are getting into the action. Established collectors while looking back to the good old days of lower prices can be happy to see how their collections have increased in value.

Snuff bottles have done consistently well over the years even when other collectibles have lost ground. Now it seems that the market has broadened and collectors of other types of Asian antiquities, such as Chinese porcelains and jades, are including snuff bottles in their sphere of interest, especially since Chinese art has become more difficult to find.

Mainland Chinese tend to be among the new collectors. They are interested in bringing Chinese art back to China and have enormous buying power to support their collecting. This presence has been noticeable at the recent auctions. While this makes the snuff bottle market interesting financially, Hugh advised, “Don’t collect for an investment . . . collect because you have a passion for snuff bottles.” Those of us who collect for enjoyment do best.

Hugh then turned to a range of bottles from Nancy and Joe’s collection for discussion, pointing out the signs of quality workmanship. Several members brought along bottles to ask his opinion and were pleased to hear their bottles praised.

Marion Bozzo