Yellow Green Ink Bottle Crude Makers Mark

drummachine

Hello Chris,

I hope all is well. I found this yellow green ink bottle with some nice imperfections including large air pockets and globs around the seams. What caught my attention was the very crude letter "D" that was hand embossed on the bottom. I was curious about the makers mark, around what year this bottle was made and what it could be worth.

Thanks,
Ryan

Chris

Ryan, At one time I had a fairly decent run of cone ink colors and I can tell you that subtle differences in color mean a heck of a lot to value. I am not seeing the green in these pictures - this one looks like a honey amber to my eye which is good. Value increases quite a bit more if you have a very pale amber.

Mold marks were proprietary, possibly just indicating a mold number but perhaps something else. If you examine large #s of common bottles, you will see lots of variations on base embossing, esp. in a later 19th century bottle such as this.

Chris

drummachine

Thanks for the color identification of honey amber! That's awesome news! Originally, a friend help me price it in the range of 15-30 dollars. With the honey amber color identification, do you think it is far out of that range or just in the high end of that range.

Ryan

Chris

Most likely in the 20-30 range but if really, really pale then as much as 10 times that amount.

And, like I said, if the color is just a bit different from the usual (ie. add some green in with amber or some color swirls in the glass) then that can amount to a big value bonus.