daltonbottles
Posts: 54
Joined: 5/11/2010
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Good points Chris. Sometimes our "speculation" and assumptions can get the best of us, and we start to eventually believe what we WANT to be true as opposed to sticking with hard evidence. Dating bottles is one of those areas where we sometimes want something to be older than it really is, and it's easy to overlook the facts in favor of writing the fairy tale. Attribution as to place of origin is the same way it seems. Sometimes we "want" a bottle to be American, so we try to convince outselves that it is in fact American. Still, without the hard evidence, it all boils back down to speculation and conjecture.
Mike, you said "....early freeblown wares and black glass require interpretation and many assumptions based upon the feel of the glass, techniques, and frankly, a "gut feeling". In other words, the collector needs to read the glass rather than the embossing." You are exactly right. In the case of early black glass, it's a combination of all of the manufacturing characteristics, including the components of the glass production itself. It would be interesting to come up with some kind of spectro-****ysis of different glass examples around the world to see if there is anything specific that can be attributed to specific locations and differences in glass component materials. But like you say, sometimes that "gut feeling" based on alot of glass handling can be more accurate than even the best intentioned S.W.A.G. theories (scientific wild-assed guessing).
As far as wholesale attribution of certain styles of glass being placed with a certain country, alot of that comes moreso from the study of the presence (or lack thereof) of glass blowing operations during the time period in which specific styles were being produced. With the onion bottles for example, it is unlikely that there were many, if any, major glass operations in the new world during the period that most of these were being made. There was some speculation at one time of many of the onion bottles being blown in South American port settlements, such as those around the Essequibo reigon of Guyana, but again, that has been written off as speculation until there is some solid evidence discovered indicating that such operations were even in existance in that area at the time. But with the quantities of onion bottles being recovered from the area, the obvious question comes to mind........ where did it all come from ? There was of course alot of trade activity in the area of Fort Island which may help attribute the number of such bottles found there, and much of what has been recovered there tends to weigh on the side of the Dutch-Belgian styles, while a smaller percentage of "English" glass seems to be involved. But how many of these Dutch-Belgian bottles coming on the market today are indeed Essequibo recoveries, and how many are simply lumped into the group while originating elsewhere ? Again, these are questions, speculations that can probably never be answered with any degree of certainty.
With sealed bottles, of course we are talking an entirely different ballgame. These seals are akin to having "Made in China" plainly stamped on the bottom of the wholesale junk sold at the local Wal Mart establishment as far as identification and locale attribution are concerned. Our problem with much of the mid-18th century and later unmarked glass is that we have a jumble of made in China, made in Japan, made in Tiawan, and made in Singapore all mixed together with no identifying markings other than that very basic group of production and material characteristics. The best we can do, and as some have very simply done, is to use the sealed bottles as a basis of judging the others with no identifying marks. You take the "knowns" and apply their characteristics to the "unknowns", and at least there is a basis for opinions offered from the point of educated guessing. And in many cases, that is the best we can ever hope for until something much more scientific is put into play, such as the possibility of some type of spectro-****ysis that can confidently tell us what is what.
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RE: English Black Glass or Dutch ? - 
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