Perfume Bottles That Are Worth A Ton Of Money (And May Be In Your Closet)

Typically, when you think of collector's items, you might think about valuable coins you may have lying around or perhaps baseball cards from your childhood. However, something else to consider are fragrances. Indeed, scents may actually earn you dollars and, well, cents, if you happen to have the right perfume bottle sitting in your closet. Availability, the bottle's aesthetics, the condition of the bottle and the perfume, and the perfume's place of origin can all dictate the value of a collectible perfume bottle.

Use of perfume dates back to the ancient Egyptians. The Egypt Museum in Cairo, Egypt, displays ancient bottles made out of alabaster and adorned with materials like gold, glass, and obsidian. In the 19th and 20th centuries, craftsmanship became a hallmark of quality, with perfume bottles prized as much for their artful exteriors as the fragrance they held; these ornate bottles usually fall into art nouveau or art deco design. Also, look for signatures or stamps of authenticity and use sources like the Antique Trader Perfume Bottles Price Guid (published in 2009) to figure what your bottle may be worth.

Julien Viard was a French glass artisan who produced sought-after perfumes for numerous perfume houses in France during the early 1900s. While not a perfumer himself, the bottles Viard had a hand in creating are highly valued for their distinct craftsmanship designed in the art nouveau style. If you find an identifying stamp or signature marked with J. Viard or J. Villard, you may have a bottle worth a whole lot of money. (Check out the ultimate guide to investing in gold.)

In November 2023, the online auction marketplace Invaluable put a Julien Viard "Eva Lubin" perfume bottle, circa 1920, up for sale. The bottle's owner was its sole owner, and it was part of a lifetime collection donated to a church in Palm Coast, Florida. The estimate for the Viard bottle was between $1,500 and $2,000, and while it eventually sold for $400, it was still $400 its owner may not have realized they had in their home for decades. Another from the same collection, a blue and gold atomizer, was estimated at $100 to $1,000, and sold for $60. The bottle pictured above is circa 1910.

René Lalique was actually a French jeweler who earned a reputation for his work with popular Parisian luxury houses like Cartier. After setting up his first business in 1887, he began making jewelry with various gemstones, gold, pearl, and even ivory, placing a greater emphasis on creativity than opulence. He left his signature "RL" engraved into all his jewelry pieces.

By 1890, Lalique had turned to working with enamel and glass, with gold and other gemstones interlaced with his work. As a darling of the upper crust, Lalique's work was sought after by royalty and wealthy people around the world, so by 1900, he was granted the title of Officer of the French Legion d'Honneur. Five years later, his store display of jewelry and glass items caught the attention of perfumer François Coty, who asked Lalique to collaborate on perfume. The rest is history.

Today, Lalique still exists, with a museum in the French countryside (Musée Lalique in Wingen-sur-Moder) exhibiting more than 650 pieces created by René Lalique and artisans that followed in his footsteps. New Lalique perfume bottles, sold at the company's website, currently range in price from $495 to $695, while a visit to an online marketplace like 1stDibs will return many vintage Lalique perfume glasses; these bottles may be for less than $300 or have a price tag of $15,000.

These particular collectible perfume bottles aren't tied to any one name, but rather to a country: Czechoslovakia. The end of World War I led to new borders and new nations, Czechoslovakia being an example of one. The heavy influence of art deco from France in the 1910s made its way into glass blowing in Czechoslovakia, and by the time of the 1925 Paris International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, where highly skilled glass bottle designers (including the aforementioned Lalique) displayed their work to the public, Czechoslovakians were making crystal perfume bottles to rival those of the French masters.

By 1930, this artistic glassware was being exported around the world. However, World War II would lead to the end of the production of these beautiful bottles, with post-war glass being manufactured with less quality and craftsmanship. With their most popular and limited production period spanning 1928 to 1938, these high-quality perfume bottles today are rare and, therefore, worth a considerable amount, which you can see for yourself with a search at a site like 1stDibs or eBay.