The following is from the #7 January 1973 Snuff Bottle Collector pamphlet.
The Circuitous Cook Book On How To Slice Your Snuff Bottle Pie And Get Four Quarters Instead of Five
This is the recipe, which if followed correctly, and adhered to in every detail through the long painful progress of its growth, will not only allow your efforts to burst forth eventually into full flowered print, but, rarer than this, the fruits of your work might actually make sense, and contribute to our doubtless fascinating and time absorbing hobby.
The Recipe....IngredientsCourage: A considerable amount is better, but if the reader is unfortunate enough to live in a prt of the world or under curcumstances where this comodity is in short supply, just a pinch will do.
Enthusiasm: A good deal is required for the best results, but is is wise not to be over generous with this as, in the unwary, it can lead to a lamentable excess of wrong assumptions, which will eventually overpower other neccessary ingredients.
Photographic Memory: This is perhaps one of the two most important ingredients. It takes but a small test upon the parto of the would be researcher to convince himself that photographs are an essential part of this recipe. Look at an inside painted snuff bottle for two or three minutes, nothing strenuous, just an idle glance or two over a well chosen iced drink. Then having put it away for a day, try to recall to your no doubt confident mind exactly its shape, subject (in minute detail), inscriptions (character by character), date, signature, seal etc. If you can even get close, try it after a week, then see how well you fare. Then consider that accurate research might well be based on the actual style of calligraphy of a dozen different bottles or maybe a hundred, and see how obviously inadequate your memory is.
MethodTake your courage and enthusiasm in both hands. Fit your subject to your courage and enthusiasm. For the sake of this ill tuned waste of paper, let us assume that wehave very little couratge and only enough enthusiasm to take on a relatively small are of the field. Perhaps snuff bottles made by that artist of considerable quality but regrettably sleepy nature who applied his pen to the interior of his bottls only on odd occassions when lucky omens, inner good will, shunshine and a pressing need of a piece of silver or two with which to partake of a reasonable meal at a nearby inn. All combined to move his artistic integrity to paint.
What is undoubtedly needed a this stage is not only as many photographs of bottles as possible, but a copy of everything ever written about him.
System: An ingredient which tends to change depending upon circumstances. I am sure it will not escape those who still cling to the thread of this narrative in the increasingly vain hope that their effort will be rewarded in some small fasion, that a pile of unruly photographs and pampllets would be harder to work with than those neatly filed with suitable annotations as to their ownership, size, provenance and so on.
Logic: Ahhh, Logic ! That most mysterious and elusive ingredient.
Take your system of photographs and affiliated accoutrements, and analyze them logically. Briefly, as an example, you must first look to see how many dates there are on the bottles. In this way you will discover his approximate working period. This is of course assuming that you have first satisfied yourself that all those you have photographed are his genuine works. For instance, if ninety are of similar style and quality, and one is completely different, poorer, and not as pleasing, then obviously you must suspect the ninety to be copies.
Occasional bottles will also tell you where he worked, and perhaps his age at a particular date, and so forth. In no time at all you build up a picture of the artist which if published would bring international acclaim, and the rattling of well filled sleeves.
The first such pitfall is that of taking the fruit which hangs near to the road, without first examining those beyond ones immediate reach. A judicious example of this would be the researcher who upon finding a brilliant apple green colored stone bottle turns to his books and finds that jade can be apple green, and so things "Viola" it must be jade.
He will then pursue this line of thought, and perhaps learn that this shade of jade was only found in the early 19th century ans was quickly used up. Obviously therefore, one must explore all the possibilites before making a decision.
Lastly, as Confucius himself said, "never be afraid of a loose end". In any research there will always be the things you can prove are one thing and the things you can prove are quite another, and then several groups between about which you are not yet sure, and as long as you don't feel that you have to make yup your ind despite a lack of evidence with which to do so, you will be safe. Research in practically every field since time immemorial has suffered from those sexperts who feel they have to state everything as fact ans are afraid to write that they are not sure about something.
Thanks Hugh ! 
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