Any info about a clear blue Tondolin bottle?
Hello, I came across some old bottles at a garage sale up here in Western Canada, and I’m trying to find more info. The one I can’t find much about is a clear pale blue color, about 5.5 inches high and maybe 2.5 inches in diameter across the bottom. It’s faceted, with 12 sides. On one side is the word Tondolin. The bottom has 250 on it with a sort of ghost casting of the same numbers slightly askew below it. The second number isn’t as raised as the main one. There is a seam along each side that runs from the base to just below the bottom of the lip, where it tapers out.
When looking at the bottle upside down, you can see that one side is thicker than the other, and from the side, it looks like there’s extra glass mounded up on the thicker side. There are a bunch of bubbles in the glass, but all seem to be in the middle of the glass. The bottom of the bottle is slightly concave.
I found a listing on eBay that matched my bottle exactly. Since I don’t have a pic of my bottle, I included the one from eBay. That was the only reference I could find so far about the tondolin bottle and I really hope somebody can tell me a little more about it. I’d also like to know approximately what kind of value it might have. Thanks!
When looking at the bottle upside down, you can see that one side is thicker than the other, and from the side, it looks like there’s extra glass mounded up on the thicker side. There are a bunch of bubbles in the glass, but all seem to be in the middle of the glass. The bottom of the bottle is slightly concave.
I found a listing on eBay that matched my bottle exactly. Since I don’t have a pic of my bottle, I included the one from eBay. That was the only reference I could find so far about the tondolin bottle and I really hope somebody can tell me a little more about it. I’d also like to know approximately what kind of value it might have. Thanks!
Comments
There were a lot of patent medicines. A lot as in thousands.
Your bottle is late 19th century and contained on of those many patent medicines. It could have been made by a merchant in a small town who ordered a few cases of bottles, applied his own labels and ran his own marketing campaign.
If it were me, I would set up a saved search on ebay and hope a labeled example shows up, or perhaps some advertising.
Note that Tondolin was probably a small venture. Many newspapers have been scanned and can be searched by Google - my web search turned up nothing, so this business may not have ever advertised.
Chris
D.S.