Collecting Antique Milk Bottles Milk hasn’t always come in cardboard cartons. Until sometime around the 1970s, many local dairies delivered milk directly to people’s homes in milk bottles. Most of these were made of glass. The name of the dairy was painted on the bottle, so that the bottle could be returned to the correct place after it was used. Nowadays in the United States, there are thousands of people who collect antique milk bottles. They meet at auctions, antique shows and online to show their collections and look for new bottles to buy, sell or trade. There is even a national organization for people who collect milk bottles, which meets once a year in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Some of these people’s collections contain milk bottles that date back to the late 1800s and early 1900s. Now they’re worth a lot of money. Bottles generally go for anywhere from $3.00 to $100.00. The bottles’ age, color, condition, and the dairy they come from decide their value in the collectors’ market.