Money Maverick: Vintage wine labels

Kent livestock farmer and antiques consultant William Buck, 75, has been amassing silver wine labels – known as “bottle tickets” in the 1730s – for more than 30 years.

When he was in his mid-50s, he reduced his collection from 500 labels to about 100 to concentrate on the rarer ones and build up more capital for his old age.

Today his collection is worth a six-figure sum, which Buck regards as a fallback should he ever need residential care.

“Bearing in mind that I have two sons who help me in my antique furniture business, I hope that I will be collecting wine labels until my dying days,” he says.

“Obviously being 75, if I were suddenly taken into a care home and I had to raise the finance for that, sadly the wine labels would have to go.

“I would only dispose of my collection for medical reasons. I could either put it into an auction house like Bonham’s, or sell it through my professional channels.”

Buck used to run the family farm full time, but for more than a decade he has relied on his antiques shop in Folkestone for most of his income.

“Funnily enough I am teetotal,” he says. “My hobby was an interest inherited from my mother, who loved silver collectables. I went along with it from a very early age, as I grew up in a large country house where there was plenty of room to display antiques.”

An early testament to the use of wine labels in 1754 is the William Hogarth painting called The Election Entertainment, which features a drunken party; parchment wine labels are actually hanging on the bottles.

One of Buck’s most exciting acquisitions dates from just 30 years later – a label made in 1784 by Benjamin Tait of Dublin. It depicts a claret label in a pierced oval, the shape of a hot air balloon, to commemorate the first ascent of a hot air balloon in Ireland. The collector says: “I bought this one for £3,500 a few years ago. Now I reckon it is worth at least £5,000.

“I think you could say people have been collecting wine labels for 100 years. I have got records back to the 1950s when the Wine Label Circle was formed.”

The Wakelin Ledgers at London’s Victoria & Albert museum record the first sales of wine labels in this country. They are account books begun in 1722 by George Wickes, and the ledgers were divided into two. The Gentleman’s Ledger records sales of wine labels to the public. The second, the Workman’s Ledger, noted sales to other silversmiths who were working in London.

The earliest known designs are escutcheon wine labels, shaped like a shield. One of the first makers of these was Sandilands Drinkwater. Buck is particularly interested in these early designs and the names of the wines depicted on them because they are a part of our social history.

From 1735 to 1745 the most popular names on labels were Madeira, Burgundy and Champagne.

When Buck started buying escutcheon labels in the 1970s they were about £8. Today they are worth up to £400 each. He has bought most of them privately from other collectors, both for his personal collection, and the odd few he has sold in his shop.

Some of the most attractive designs are in vine leaf form, from 1820, which carry on into the Victorian era. They were very high fashion in the 19th century.

Buck says: “The vine leaves come on the market very regularly. Many of them are under £100, though you might think they would be worth more. Over the last 10 years some have actually decreased in value.

“However, some of the neo-classical engraved labels, from the last 25 years of the 18th century have seen a significant increase. This was the era of a major London manufacturer, the silversmith Hester Bateman. The reason she became so popular was because she had American blood in her veins, which attracted the American market.”

Buck’s ongoing quest for wine labels stems from the thrill of the chase and finding something unusual. “It is amazing when something exceptional comes to light that we have not seen before or there are no records of,” he says. “I am also interested in the social history side of it and the history of wine.”

Wine labels in the first part of the 19th century, the Regency period, were specially made in sets for the Royal households, commissioned by the Prince Regent, later George IV. These were produced in the workshop of Rundell, Bridge & Rundell, who enlisted the service of Paul Storr, a Quaker, and one of London’s leading manufacturing silversmiths. The company produced heavy cast labels with coats of arms, which command very high prices today – as much as £5,000.

Ten years ago the collector paid more than £1,000 for a champagne label with a narrow rectangular base and a design of a lion wearing a crown on top. Today this type of label would fetch over £5,000.

There are many labels produced in other materials, such as mother-of-pearl, ivory, and enamel. Some of the earliest wine labels were enamel on a copper base, made from 1760 to 1770 in London by Ravenet, a Hugenot who worked at Battersea. They are highly sought-after and Buck has one in his collection, which cost £2,500 several years ago. Today it might make £4,500.

Buck adds that most wine label enthusiasts like himself also collect sauce labels. These used to hang on the cruet frames in the mid- to late 18th century, naming condiments such as soy, anchovy, pepper and vinegar.