Older brown bottle: interested in any history ideas
Hello, I found this bottle under a tree by accident. It looks like whiskey or maybe medicinal in nature. X mark on the base and nice features. Appreciate any advice. Gerry
Hello, I found this bottle under a tree by accident. It looks like whiskey or maybe medicinal in nature. X mark on the base and nice features. Appreciate any advice. Gerry
Comments
Collectors call this a "strap sided flask" - a bottle that almost certainly contained whiskey. 1870s-80s-ish Hard to tell from photos if it has a tooled lip or applied lip. The latter is an earlier technique. These can get rather pricey in unusual colors but yours is a common amber. Definite value but not a lot.
Nice find, I recall discovering a similar example some 40 years ago nearly locked into the roots of a tree. Took a long time to extract it
for illustration:
Thank you both, this is very helpful. You may be interested that I found this in the hills south of Morristown, NJ and close to where Washington's troops were based during the 1700's. Off the beaten track a bit but close to what is known as the Patriot's path. Its a very special place and was great to find this just by chance. Was going to offer if to the local museum or library after some research. Not sure how to tell the difference between the tooled or applied lip, if you have any pointers. Appreciate the help and your interest
A tooled lip is made by forming existing glass into the shape of the lip. By contrast, an applied lip, as the name suggests, begins by adding a band of glass to the neck of the bottle and then running a lip forming tool over that glass.
The result is that with a tooled lip, the bottom edge of the lip is precisely formed as if the lip were part of the mold. With an applied lip, there is typically (but not always) some bits of glass at the bottom edge and/or unevenness. Frequently, but not always, one can see some evidence ( a crevice or space) which suggests that the lip is a separate bit of glass.
Hope this is helpful.
Almost all bottles have lips that are tooled to some degree. A "tooled lip" might more accurately be called a "tooled only" lip. A tool is applied to the mouth of the nascent vessel where it has been sheared from the blow-pipe. Early screw-tops are an example where the raw lip is ground flat.
An applied lip implies that a separate blob of molten glass was applied to the sheared mouth of the vessel. This separate blob was welded to the vessel and shaped with the lipping tool. Often, excess glass from the blob appears a "drips" which may be adpressed to the neck of the bottle. Sometimes the weld between the two bits of glass is apparent as a light reflection.
I'm not sure about a rule for smaller utility bottles, but I understand that applied lip treatment (sometimes only a simple applied string) is the standard for demijohns prior to about 1880. Here's a tooled only lip on a demijohn: