Any info about a ship's decanter

Iguanaman

I recently purchased a glass ship's decanter from eBay. The decanter looked very similar to one I saw on a ship called the "Star of India" where the cabin was maintained to appear like it did many years ago. This decanter is very smooth, no cuts or anything fancy. It has no markings at all. There is no seam that I can find and if I look down the mouth of the bottle the neck is not perfectly round. The glass seems to have tiny "stones" or "rocks" embedded in the glass. The bottle has a glass stopper which fits "so-so" in the bottle. Is there any way to determine the approximate age of this bottle?

historic

The level of finish for this bottle appears not particularly precise although it is somewhat difficult to tell from this one photo. I would expect to see a better fit for the stopper in a finely crafted decanter. I would also expect to see a precisely round (and perhaps cut) mouth. In short a piece like this of the 19th century would be uniform and not irregular or crudely blown.

This is one of those objects which really should be examined in person by an expert so he/she can pick up on the nuances of the making to draw conclusions.

Hope this is somewhat helpful

BobB

Supposition: in the late 18th and first half of the 19th centuries,when "ship's decanters" were created and in use, they would be found only in the captain's cabin, as the captain would be the only person on board wealthy and important enough (and alcohol for the crew was tightly controlled). The captain is most likely going to own a much finer decanter than this? [English glassmakers from earlier than 1750 were "mass producing" hand blown pieces nicer than this one; hmmm, maybe the ship was from a poorer glass-producing country, or at least the captain not too affluent?] Also, decanters of this era are usually notable for having one or more glass rings applied around the neck, so as to make the pourer's grip more sure (though a case could be made that the bulge was blown into this one to serve the same purpose). Most telling will be the bottom: does it have a pontil mark in the center of the base (if not it's a modern look-alike); look at the scratches on bottom -- a decanter that has slid around on the captain's table top through years at sea will have many fine scratches when viewed with a good magnifying glass. BobB