Beautiful to look at and informative to read
Willy's book is a major contribution to European bottle collecting and study. In terms of the bottles it shows (including 71 British sealed bottles), the information it contains, and the quality of the publication, it far surpasses any other book in the field. The most outstanding feature of the book is its many coloured photos - 368 in all - which are simply stunning. The text that goes with the illustrations is always easy to read and to the point. The book contains much that is new to many collectors. It will serve as the key reference book for black-glass collectors and historians for many years to come. No serious collector should be without it.

Book review on "Antique Glass Bottles"
The book is systematically built to illustrate the evolution and history of bottles in separate chapters: Great Britain; Holland and Belgium; Belgium (supplement); Germany, Alpine Countries and Scandinavia; France, Italy and Spain; Miscellaneous: Europe and America. This system of organisation serves to facilitate comparison of and learning about differences between various European and American bottles and flasks. Mr. Van den Bossche's work was developed with a specific concept in mind - a book that is user friendly. It begins with a general chapter on the history and evolution of bottles with 48 Figures and condensed descriptions so that the reader does not become tired or bored with long textual treatments. Each of the histories is written as a compilation of dates and facts instead of tediously long pages of text. Plates 1-28 in the chapter on Great Britain display a full evolution of the English "wine" bottles with an exceptional range of sealed and date-sealed examples for each decade from the 1660s to the 1880s. These bottles are the heart of the story of the development of the modern bottle. This chapter alone solves many mysteries American collectors have puzzled over the years. This treatment goes far beyond what we Americans generally call "black glass" and "wine" bottles. "Antique Glass Bottles" comes with a separate 16-page price guide booklet to make the book independent of fluctuating prices