BBR Auctions

BBR Auctions was founded at the Elsecar Heritage Centre, South Yorkshire in 1991. It is a company which specialises in antique packaging, bottles, pot lids, inks, poisons, ginger beers, clay pipes and Doulton Lambeth.

BBR also conducts ‘on the road auctions’, which extend to the Midlands and South East of England.


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Mineral water bottle pops up to break record

15 July 2024

A new record for any English bottle was set at specialist saleroom BBR Auctions in Elsecar, South Yorkshire.

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Coffin shaped poison bottle to appear at auction

24 June 2024

Prior to the Poisons and Pharmacy Act of 1908, there was no legal requirement that a bottle containing poison should carry a warning.

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Anchovy paste posts a tasty £8000 result at auction

04 December 2023

Among the most desirable of all ‘Prattware’ transfer printed wares are the series of very rare and highly decorative exhibition-style advertising plaques produced for firms such as Crosse & Blackwell and Huntley & Palmers.

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What’s your poison? Auction lots show bottles evolved for safety reasons

28 August 2023

Bottles with fatal content had to be specially designed and coloured to avoid a nasty accident

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Desirable Doulton: inkwells and ashtray

28 August 2023

The most eagerly contested lot in a recent sale at Potteries Auctions (25% buyer’s premium) was a Doulton stoneware Isobath inkwell.

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Auctioneer Alan Blakeman: ‘Someone accused me of making these bottle find stories up…’

28 August 2023

By their nature, rare bottles can emerge for sale in some unlikely places

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Meat and greet: butcher’s slabs display collecting popularity

24 July 2023

Victorian and Edwardian pottery butcher’s slabs made to display lard, butter and margarine are relatively frequent visitors to UK salerooms.

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Biscuit tins provide far more than crumbs of comfort

26 June 2023

Novelty biscuit tin toys delivered a number of tasty sale successes for South Yorkshire auction house BBR (15% buyer’s premium).

Skull poison bottles

World-famous bottle and advertising fair returns to Elsecar

19 June 2023

International stallholders are among those all set for a renowned bottle and advertising fair and auction

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Pick of the week: Keen as mustard on a Lambeth rarity

15 May 2023

In January this year three photos of a salt glaze stoneware jar appeared on the Facebook feed of the Oxfordshire Antique Bottle Collecting Club.

Cadbury's sign

Pick of the week: Cadbury’s advertising signs takes a tasty five figures

05 December 2022

It was, said the catalogue, “a once in a lifetime opportunity to acquire a top end sign in such remarkable condition”.

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Rare 17th century miniature bottle emerges for sale at BBR Auctions

25 July 2022

Among the very rarest bottles to appear for sale in recent months was a miniature shaft and globe in dark aqua glass, c.1650, sold in South Yorkshire.

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Auctioneer Alan Blakeman to sell giant pot lid in downsizing of his collection

30 August 2021

Advertising and antique bottle supremo Alan Blakeman of BBR Auctions discovered this massive 18½in (45cm) diameter pot lid back in the early 1980s.

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Stunning hoard of sealed bottles dug up on a building site could fetch £20,000

27 January 2020

A spectacular cache of sealed 17th century bottles unearthed by workmen in Worcestershire will come to auction this year.

Bottle

Lot of bottle for Yorkshireman who plans to auction rare 17th century sealed glass find

14 June 2018

A Yorkshire dealer is selling a rare sealed bottle at auction in July near Barnsley after realising it was the real thing and not a reproduction.

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BBR on the rise aiming to climb to fresh heights

15 January 2018

Alan Blakeman, lifelong rock climber and founder of niche business BBR Auctions in Elsecar, near Barnsley, had a good 2017.

Dr Sibley’s Solar Tincture bottle

Bottled-up demand for medicine that ‘restores life’ – auction record set for rare Victorian flask

28 October 2016

A new record for an empty English medicine bottle was set by BBR Auctions in Elsecar, North Yorkshire when a Victorian flask of ‘Dr Sibley’s Solar Tincture’ took £8200.

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