This blue glass chemist bottle from Teed & Co, New Plymouth is among the rarest bottles in the Brian Bridgeman Bottle collection. Blue glass, which was coloured using cobalt oxide, was far more expensive to produce than other colours. Chemists usually used blue bottles to store various kinds of poison. Although the bottle is chipped under the lip and the glass is ‘sick’ (suffering from a pearly coloured deterioration), it is still a real trophy piece of the collection which was amassed by Brian Bridgeman, a Taranaki butcher and metal worker. Over a thirty-year collecting career Bridgeman became something of a legend for his comprehensive collection of New Plymouth-related bottles, many of which he dug up himself. Collectors around the country would come calling for advice, to trade or to glimpse parts of his collection. Bridgeman died in 1991 much of his treasured New Plymouth collection was placed on loan at Taranaki Museum. His family was keen to keep the 228 bottles, many of which were rare and irreplaceable, together and in May 2011 Puke Ariki purchased the collection. For more information see Bottled History: The Brian Bridgeman Bottle Collection in Moffat, A. Flashback: Tales and Treasures of Taranaki. Wellington, Huia, 2012, pp.169-174. http://www.huia.co.nz/shop&item_id=3428