Unusual Apothecary Jar Help!!

EJINPA

I'm not a bottle guy but stumbled across this unusual piece recently. It is a drug store jar that held Banjo strings! Anyone ever see one? It dates to the TOC or earlier. Any information would be great. Who would have had it... value ....etc. Thanks!

historic

What exactly does the middle line say?
Does the base have a polished round area?

EJINPA

It says "B or First String"
Yes, the base has a polished round area. I would imagine there would be a jar for each type of string. I appreciate your input!

EJINPA

No help? No ideas on this jar? Never seen one?

historic

Good God, I have no idea. I am thinking it is late 19th century, despite the polished pontil mark on base. Makes me think of Bohemian glass which was made in Europe but for a US market.

Exactly WHY someone would go to all the trouble to make such a fancy container for a commodity item like this is beyond me.

EJINPA

I actually got another from the same estate that is for guitar strings! These are 1800's pieces for sure and very well made / cut. I imagine they could have been used in a music store. I could not find another example of these anywhere. Going to be tough to put a value on these gems! What does the polished pontil denote in relation to dating these types of jars?

BobB

I see what 'Historic' is referring to -- Bohemian, maybe made for the American market -- the engraved script appears Germanic, while I cannot imagine Banjos being prevalent other than in the U.S. A pontil scar suggests the bottle was hand-blown or otherwise worked by hand by secondary reheating on the end of an iron pontil rod in front of the furnace opening referred to as the 'glory hole'. After the pontil rod is cracked off, better glassware has the pontil scar ground & polished. Wherever fine glass is made, the pontil mark is ground and polished, even to this day (despite our just having had the great Steuben glassworks bank its fire for the last time THIS WEEK). A couple other observations: except for the banjo connection, it looks like druggists ware -- high purity, hand made glass for the chemist/druggist (because you do not want to keep chemicals in bottles made of "common" glass because of impurities in it). Chemical wares were often made in smaller shops employing specialized glassmen, some of whom were undoubtedly German immigrants (Adolph Heisey, and Dorflinger are just 2 famous German glassmen working in the U.S. that come to mind) -- so having German script on American-made apothocary jars is not much of a stretch. Another thought: Banjo & guitar strings before a certain era (1930's?) would have been made of "gut", which is susceptible to humidity, temperature fluctuation, fly infestation and mice(!), -- so keeping gut strings for fine instruments in air-tight apothocary jars isn't much of a stretch either. As an aside, I am active in a local New England history museum where one continuing exhibit is of a country store ca.1900 (where we have to fight off mice getting into soap, penny candy, etc.). Your banjo string jar would be a welcome treasure in such a historical collection & display. There must be collectors of musical instrument history that would be very interested in seeing your gems. Good stuff !!GlassBobB

historic

My only other comment would be that I think this might sell best in an auction of musical instruments rather than bottles. While these are interesting and highly unusual, I just do not think bottle collectors would pay a lot for them.

BobB

Agreed -- bottle collectors will hardly recognize these as bottles, so marketing them to bottle collectors is not wise. But, though they have this obvious connection to antique musical instruments, they are handmade by (probably) a very specialized glassworks making "scientific" glass apparatus. These large jars were a side line principally made for druggists (the English still call them 'chemists' I believe) AND for scientific laboratories. There is some respectable market for antique scientific glass, so not only might this group of collectors be interested in acquiring them but they also acquire scientific glass company catalogues, from which you might be lucky enough to determine what company made them.
If we were talking about objects for which you could absolutely expect to clear $100+, I think searching for an appropriate brick&morter auction would be the way to go (though both musical instruments and scientific equipment would draw very limited clientel). But the era of Google has drastically altered the antiques-and-collectibles playing field. I think that if you include all the effective keywords that describe your articles (we have mentioned many right here) in an eBay auction and give it a month or more to run, collectors of all flavors will find you and run the price up accordingly.