daltonbottles
Posts: 54
Joined: 5/11/2010
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First off, Mike, you hit on some very good points when taking into consideration the fact that German immigrant glassblowers carried their trade with them when coming to this country in the early days of American glass manufacture. Obviously, if Bob is playing spades in Germany one month and is still playing spades in America 12 months hence, chances are you wouldn't know one game from the other. In other words, early glassblowers brought their skills along with them, and it is usually impossible to tell which side of the pond many early bottles originated from. Especially so into the evolutionary stages of the cylinder shapes, there were no doubt American glassblowers duplicating very closely the wares coming over from England. Also, since there were usually no identifying markings such as the embossing that took hold on toward the first half of the 19th century on much of the "commercialized advertising" glass when dealing with the earlier black glass types, it is virtually impossible to say that one particular bottle was blown in Germany, Holland, England, or the Americas. I think it's generally safe to say that there were no large, major commercial glassblowing operations in this country until probably the third or fourth quarters of the 18th century, although there were surely attempts at such start-up concerns in earlier years. You mention Germantown and Wistarburgh as two of the early operations involving German immigrant glassblowers who simply moved their operations (and talents) to this country and continued much of what they had been doing back in the homeland.
One of the few and relatively accepted instances of a certain production of black glass bottles that have been identified as originating from here in America were some of the so-called "Baltimore Squats", identified primarily by finish characteristics and tell-tale vertical markings down near the shoulder of the base, apparently left by the dip molds these were blown in. These are later cylinder types in the black glass chronology and date sometime between around 1780 and 1820, which was also the general time period of the eastern glass houses production of American Chestnut flasks, which also are usually referenced as one of the earlier "mass produced" glass bottles in this country. Through the years, I have seen many different types of obviously early bottles, flasks, urns, pitchers, etc. which appeared to be made with the same general colors and texture types as used in production of the Chestnuts. The piece in your pictures, from what I can tell in the photos on my computer, closely resembles this same type of glass, and the finish tooling on your piece, along with the pontil, rolled under lip, pushed-up base and overall general work first strikes me as possibly something from this same period, 1780-1820. I would guess there are probably a number of noticeable potstones within the glass also, correct ? Hard to say without a hands on look, but that was my first impression. In any event, it's a very nice looking piece.
As far as really nailing down specific origins within glass types that have no other identifying characteristics than the glass and workmanship itself, this is unfortunately another one of those "rule of thumb" situations where you can only make generalizations based on what history of the different material IS actually known. A good ****ogy might be trying to tell the difference between a modern glass coke bottle made in Los Angeles from one made in New York using identical dies or molds as well as apparently identical glass. There is a point where we hit the wall of the unknown, and just have to do the best we can as we continue to dig up new information. And dig up is virtually what it takes to make such discoveries as the characteristic vertical shoulder marks on those Baltimore bottles. Most of that information was derived from archaeological digs at locations of known glass houses and the quantity of the "same characteristic" shards and whole vessels pretty much nailed down the probability (thought not the certainty) that those very same bottles were actually in production at that particular site.
If you would go to the bottleden.com website, there is a pair of articles that covers much of the known information on those Baltimore bottles written by Wil Martindale. Those two articles, or parts one and two of the primary subject matter, will give you a good feel for the processes used to come to the conclusions on the origin of those particular bottles. It's some interesting reading.
Also, while I'm thinking of it, Willie Van Den Bossche published what I like to refer to as "The Black Glass Bible" back in 2001 which is still widely available (but pricey) today, entitled "Antique Glass Bottles - Their History and Evolution 1500-1850" which basically covers the entire history of Black Glass bottle production except for the last two or three decades. These are generally selling for $250 or so on Amazon, but I recently found a like new used copy to replace my old worn out one for under $50 on eBay. Even at the higher price tag, it is still probably the best reference work ever done on Black Glass.
Anyway, I hope this was of some help.
DB
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English Black Glass or Dutch ? - 
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