Bottle porn

[Harry Pristis]

Hi Privy the Glass works burnt down in 1846 the first year in business. They rebuilt the very next year. . . .

Harry I don't have any demi johns, and the bases I have found there all seem to have a sand pontil base.
. . . QUOTE]

That's interesting, coldwater diver! I wonder if gaffers didn't have their individual preferences for empontilling bottles or whether the methods were imposed by the factory. Skilled glass-blowers were in high demand, and I suspect they were in a position to use whatever methods they preferred. The Granite Glassworks had an eight-pot furnace, so there could have been eight or more gaffers operating on any given day.

Then there were the other glassworks at Stoddard, the New Granite Glass Works, and the South Stoddard Glass Works, which produced the same wares as the Granite Glass Works with an unknown number of gaffers.

The metal each glassworks produced was loaded with micro air bubbles, according to McKearin & Wilson. Do your finds have the characteristic micro-bubbles?

Here's another demijohn which I think may have been produced in Stoddard at one of the glassworks. In these images, the myriad micro-bubbles in the glass only show up as tiny white flecks best seen in the image of the base:

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[coldwater diver]

Hi Harry, That base in your last post looks like the majority of the bases I have found at the site. The tops all seem to have the same look to me. I have found some mammoth tops at the site, much bigger than the one you have in the middle photo.

 

[coldwater diver]

You make me want to start taking diving lessons coldwater! I live extremely close to the Susquehanna, which was litterd with indian tribes all the way up to the early 1800's. Curiosity has had the best of me for years of what might be under that water!!

Anj2006 the water is warm what have you got to lose, you just might find something.

 

[cannibalfromhannibal]

In response to Lordbud, here are a few of my western finds I have kept through the years as each has a special place in my collection and stories. They each came from different digs. First pics of a couple whiskey 5ths and a medicine I have come to understand is from Sacramento. The med is embossed "Moore's/ Revealed/ Remedy" with a fancy monogram inside a shield. I dug two from the same hole and never thought too much of it until I noticed somewhere they were considered hard to find? The clear whiskey is a "Henry Campe & Co./ Wholesale/ Liquor Dealers/ San Francisco, Cal." Next is a "P. Claudius & Co./ San Francisco, Cal." that I found in Crescent City in 1968 while visiting a high school buddy who dug with me before moving to Crescent City. We got permission to hunt underneath a house that had a gigantic wood box loaded with jars & bottles and this was one of them. I don't recall what my friend ended up with except a super green Mason jar. Other pics are of 2 flasks, one is of the only undamaged embossed pumpkinseeds I have ever dug. I remember showing the property owner how to dig the dumpsite when I scraped up the flask and very cooly telling him, as I turned it over, "These things are never embossed it seems," when suddenly the embossing showed itself! My coolness quickly evaporated as excitement took over. Embossed Crystal Palace/ I. Deutch/ 5 Kearny St./ S.F. Cal." The other flask I dug in a creek side dumpsite in Santa Cruz. I was unimpressed at first since it has threads but still tooled. Later I discovered from a flask collector in Monterey that he had never seen this one before and was unlisted at that time (2004) He also found a listing in the city directory for the two operating the bar in 1909 (if my memory is still functioning) but by 1911 they were listed in the next directory as being no longer in the bar business. Curious if anyone has seen or heard of another from the firm, embossed in a slug plate, "Guldi & Geppert/ The Angelus/ Bar/ 215-217 Kearny St./ S.F." I know they aren't historical flasks or such, but for western finds, they were some of my better ones. Jack

 

[Harry Pristis]

Hi Harry, That base in your last post looks like the majority of the bases I have found at the site. The tops all seem to have the same look to me. I have found some mammoth tops at the site, much bigger than the one you have in the middle photo.

Demijohns and carboys certainly come with larger lips. Unhappily, the larger the bottle, the smaller its likelihood of survival.

But, back to my question: Do your finds -- the dome ink and the little whimsy -- display the micro-bubbles that are reported to be characteristic of Stoddard glass?

 

[andy volkerts]

That Crystal Palace punkinseed is a nice one an I believe kinda rare also!! The Moores revealed remedy is not as prized as it once was, a lot more of them have turned up over the years, still a valuable med bottle......Andy

 

[coldwater diver]

But, back to my question: Do your finds -- the dome ink and the little whimsy -- display the micro-bubbles that are reported to be characteristic of Stoddard glass?

To answer your question yes, no, and somewhat.
My business is located in an old mill that has many other businesses. One of these was a glass company that blew everything from fancy goblets, chrismas balls, rondells, etc.. I would take breaks just to watch them produce. Very little has changed in the process from the days of Granite Glass, w the exception of natural gas instead of wood. That being said the batch of glass if to hot would have more bubbles than batches that were perfect. The guys I would watch blow glass down the hall from me would gather a small bit of glass and drop it on the thick iron table to see if it was ready to blow, It is really cool to have found these same gathers at the Granite Glass site most have very few bubbles but I imagine as the level got down it got hotter and more bubbles as a result.
This is from years ago but you can see the round gather and a rare find of a whole bottle that was tossed due to the fact it cant stand properly on its own.

 

[deenodean]

Bottle pic turned

Sunday morning bottle porn lol

Bottle pic reversed.

 

[Harry Pristis]

To answer your question yes, no, and somewhat.
My business is located in an old mill that has many other businesses. One of these was a glass company that blew everything from fancy goblets, chrismas balls, rondells, etc.. I would take breaks just to watch them produce. Very little has changed in the process from the days of Granite Glass, w the exception of natural gas instead of wood. . . .

Hold on! That's too little information and too much, at the same time. Are the dome ink and the whimsical little bottle products of the Granite Glass Works of the 1850s, or are they modern products of your neighbor glass-blowers?

 

[coldwater diver]

Sorry for the confusion Harry. All from Granite Glass site, just explaining the methods haven't changed then to now. The pictures show a round gather in 1st, an assortment of finds including the gather, half pint eagle, and broke pieces in 2nd photo. The glass tends to be clear of bubbles in some more in others.