Have you ever come across that lone bottle residing on your kitchen shelf or living room counter begging to tell a story? Today, it is often forgotten how glass bottles were once a primary method of storing and transporting substances of all kinds.

Join Alex and Viktor Prizgintas at the Town of Newburgh’s Demond Campus for Community Enrichment, 6 Albany Post Road, Newburgh NY on Thursday, July 25 at 2 p.m. as they discuss the fundamentals behind dating and identifying antique bottles. Residents of the Town of Newburgh pay $15 to enter; non-residents pay $20.

Alex has been collecting bottles from the Hudson Valley for over ten years, served as president of the Hudson Valley Bottle Club from 2018 to 2020, and currently leads the Woodbury Historical Society in Highland Mills. His research on local bottles and bottle history has been published in the Antique Bottle & Glass Collector magazine, Marist College’s Hudson River Valley Review, and the New York Archives Magazine.

“Alex and Viktor Prizgintas truly know how to tease the story out of a bottle,” says Diane Lapis of the Beacon Historical Society. “The Art of Bottle Detecting helps the viewer to understand markings on bottles and put them into historical context. You will never look at a bottle in the same way again: marks, dips, seams, and colors come alive after this succinct and interesting discussion.”