Q: I picked up this unusual item at a local estate sale. It's made of heavy satin glass and is in the shape of a bird's head. It has a screw-off cap on one end. The person I bought it from thought it might be a perfume bottle, but someone else told me he thought it was a Prohibition-era woman's hip flask. It is about 8 1/2 inches long. Any idea exactly what it is and what it might be worth?
A: You made a lucky find! This is a swan's-head laydown perfume bottle made by Webb c.1884. Thomas Webb was a glassmaker who began working in 1829 and founded his own glassworks in Amblecote, England, in 1840. Production ended by 1991 and the factory was demolished in 1995. Your perfume bottle is probably worth $6,000-$10,000.
