You may want to contact Edison National Historical Site, in West Orange
NJ. The curatorial staff there has to deal with chemicals in botles left
in Thomas Edison's Lab.

-Doug Bohnenblust
Drexel University

On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, George Bailey wrote:

> Philippa Tinsley <[log in to unmask] wrote:
> >......."Wolverhampton being a brewing town, our glass collection includes
> >a lot of beer bottles.  Going through these in detail, I discovered that
> three
> >are still full of beer.
>
> >Should I empty them, or keep them full?  All three have regular metal caps
> >(not screw caps) which appear to be securely in place.  All are around
> >250ml (is that 9 fl oz?)
> >All are currently in a non-environmentally controlled room at the historic
> >house.  Their journey to the stores will be around a mile, where they
> could
> >be stored in either a controlled or non-controlled (but stable) storeroom.
> >There are no plans to exhibit them in the near future.
> >So, what should I do?  If I should empty them, is there a secret way or do
> >I just flip off the cap in the usual way (bending it in the process of
> >course).  If I don't empty them should I wrap them in any special way?
> And
> >of course, the question all the wrapping team have been asking - can we
> >drink it? (does this count as deaccessioning?).........."
> The first thing you need to decide is what reason do you have for removing
> the
> contents? If the contents aren't doing any harm to the botles then there is
> really
> no reason to empty them. I'd store them in a cool dark place. If you decide
> that
> you do need to empty them, then I'd use a normal bottle opener, and
> carefully
> prize all around the lid, so that the top doesn't get bent & therefore
> there will be
> less evidence of tampering.
>
> As regards to you drinking the contents, well I doubt it will taste very
> good after so
> long, but you never really know until you try. I wouldn't regard this as
> deaccessioning,
> but as basic analysis using traditional testing techniques used by the
> brewing industry.
> Ideally, you'd need some fresh samples to compare with, and perhaps some
> cheese
> and biscuits to complete the scenario. I've found that such testing is most
> effective on
> Friday afternoons.
>
> Cheers (no pun intended)
>
> George Bailey
> Objects Conservator
> Australian War Memorial
> Treloar Centre for Conservation
> 4 Callan St, Mitchell, A.C.T. 2911
> Australia
> Phone: +61 6 241 6122
> fax:   +61 6 241 7998
> email: [log in to unmask]
>