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A few neat bottles & glass items

jimther

Elite Member
Joined
Apr 9, 2015
Messages
2,583
Location
Eastern Massachusetts
These were given to me by a friend in my club who is cleaning out his basement to make room for his son's family to move in. He was into bottle digging before he discovered metal detecting.

A good variety here; Will add a few photos over the next few posts.

~ inks
~ Torpedo sodas
~ perfume
~ medicines
~ snuff
~ non-bottle glass
~ a couple of nice pot lids
~ small Mellins Baby Food "free sample" bottle
~ case gin
~ carved, stone elephant

Jim
 

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A few more

Continuing from original post

Jim
 

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Even more ...

continuing... 3rd set of photos.

Jim
 

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A few more...

continuing... 4th set of photos

Jim
 

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Last of the series

continuing ... 5th group of photos. An insulator and collection of bottle stoppers included in this batch.

Jim
 

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The pot lids are cool for sure. I've never dug one of those but would love to. I love finding all the little trinkets and objects that aren't bottles when I'm digging.

Lots of good stuff - the torpedo bottle, ink wells etc.

That little whiskey bottle that is somewhat barrel shaped - its like an old Nip style. The strap flasks are cool and the gin bottle. Are there any markings on the bottle to the left onf the gin bottle? Looks like it could have come out of the ocean.

Lots of cool little stoppers and snuff bottles.
 
Jim
You are right about the bottle found in the ocean. It actually has several barnacles attached on one side and the glass itself is abraded badly from a long time tumbling in the surf. I’ll check for any embossing and reply here.

Jim
 
Well, Jimther, that is a lot of glass to take in; some that I find cool/interesting are:
Pic 1- the blue swirl bottle (Old!)
2- circa 1940s car candy container (I have one just like it)
4- 2 circa 1890s potlids
7- Blue ink with sheared top (no it's not broken)
9- Stafford's master Ink
10- Double Soda Water (this is a TRUE Torpedo bottle)
12- Harper Whiskey (really nice!)
13- the three strapside flasks
14- green 1890s case gin (nice to see one NOT olive green!)
Last pic with all the glass stoppers

You did real well acquiring all this stuff. Keep it up and we'll have a competition between yourself and yacori! :lol:
 
Why do some of the bottles have to lay on their side, as they don't have a bottom?
 
Penny...
Only a few of these HAVE to lay on their side (the Torpedo sodas, and tiny multicolored snuff bottle, which all have round bottoms, versus flat bottoms).
Others that I've placed on their side were either because they were skinny bottles with very small bases that might easily tip over, or because they would photograph better, lying flat.

Thanks for looking and for your question.

Jim
 
The pot lids are cool for sure. I've never dug one of those but would love to. I love finding all the little trinkets and objects that aren't bottles when I'm digging.

Lots of good stuff - the torpedo bottle, ink wells etc.

That little whiskey bottle that is somewhat barrel shaped - its like an old Nip style. The strap flasks are cool and the gin bottle. Are there any markings on the bottle to the left onf the gin bottle? Looks like it could have come out of the ocean.

Lots of cool little stoppers and snuff bottles.

Hi again Jim...
On my initial reply to your "looks like it came out of the ocean" question, I was looking at the wrong bottle. The whitish clear one to the RIGHT of the case gin bottle definitely came out of the ocean, but you asked about the one to the LEFT of the gin. If you mean the dark bottle with the crude lip, then no, it does not have any markings on it. It is the only one in the group that has a rough, open pontil base and might be the oldest bottle among them all. I think all the white coating you see is from being buried so long and may be mineral reaction with the glass. It is an olive green color bottle.

Jim
 
Well, Jimther, that is a lot of glass to take in; some that I find cool/interesting are:
Pic 1- the blue swirl bottle (Old!)
2- circa 1940s car candy container (I have one just like it)
4- 2 circa 1890s potlids
7- Blue ink with sheared top (no it's not broken)
9- Stafford's master Ink
10- Double Soda Water (this is a TRUE Torpedo bottle)
12- Harper Whiskey (really nice!)
13- the three strapside flasks
14- green 1890s case gin (nice to see one NOT olive green!)
Last pic with all the glass stoppers

You did real well acquiring all this stuff. Keep it up and we'll have a competition between yourself and yacori! :lol:

Thanks for looking and for your comments, Glasshopper. One of the strap side flasks is a nice shade of blue that I haven't seen before.

The glass car candy container you mentioned has me curious. It is hollow inside, but that cavity is open along the full length at the bottom of the car. It has no "mouth" on it as a normal bottle or container would, to pour out its contents. Not sure how candy would have actually been "contained".

One other intriguing bottle is the cobalt, multi-sided one. It has a divider inside, making it a two-ended container with caps at both ends. At one end, the metal cap is off and you can see a glass stopper in the broken mouth of this end (if you zoom in on the photo). I still have the metal cap. I haven't tried to remove the metal cap from the intact end. A perfume bottle, perhaps ?

Jim
 
Yeah thats the one I was talking about - the one to the left of the Gin. Any chance you could show us a picture of the bottom?

i have a bunch of bottles with that mineral looking deposit too and I've tried to clean them off with little luck. I'm hoping its just a deposit/scale and not damage to the glass itself.

I know Glasshopper has ways to clean the bottles out and I've also read to use cut copper wire on the inside with some Lime Away. I may give some additional methods a try.

Have you tried cleaning any of them?
 
Jim

In the past, I’ve cleaned many bottles and insulators, but only a few things from this recent batch. The term “Sick Glass” describes the condition when glass becomes chemically etched by ground water and minerals in contact with it over time and can be iridescent and attractive. It is not reversible, but some other kinds of staining can be removed on the interior and exterior. With some, i’ve actually had luck with an SOS pad on the outside. For inside, some stains and deposits are removable by a variety of methods, which I won’t go into here. Some books and articles on bottle collecting have covered that topic.

I will take closeups of the open pontil bottom and crude lip of the bottle you mentioned and post as a reply here.
 
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Penny asked why a few of the bottles had round bottoms. The reason was the user had to keep them on their sides is so the cork would stay wet and not shrink, assuring the carbonated contents to keep.

The candy container (shaped like a car) was filled with small candies and was sealed on the bottom with a thin piece of cardboard/paper that you would open by pulling off to get the goodies out. Many different "figural" candy containers were made.

To add about "sick" glass, it can be fixed, but only by tumbling in a tumbler using certain chemicals and copper shot, usually over a period of a few days to a week, depending on how bad the "sickness" is. NO amount of scrubbing will fix it, but I have heard some have cleaned up very mild sickness by sanding, but I've not tried it.

Here are two candy containers I have:
 

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Wow, some cool bottles! Those pot lids are killer, and probably pretty valuable. Ditto with the Teal Green "Double Soda Water" and that freeblown green Ale bottle with the crude drippy top is probably the oldest bottle of them all. Nice purchase!
 
Wow, some cool bottles! Those pot lids are killer, and probably pretty valuable. Ditto with the Teal Green "Double Soda Water" and that freeblown green Ale bottle with the crude drippy top is probably the oldest bottle of them all. Nice purchase!

Thanks LtS. Even better, these were not a purchase, but a freebie from a friend. Didn’t know the crude bottle was an ale. I knew it was the oldest, by the open pontil and crude lip.

Jim
 
The more I look at the pictures, I like the colored SS flasks. I’d try cleaning them up a bit
 
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