Understanding/identifying what a pontil scar is.

[UncleBruce]

Feeling a bit ornery and slightly sarcastic I think we can just blame the UK for the misunderstandings for TERMINOLOGY. Come on they call a car trunk a boot, an elevator is a lift, potato fries are called chips, a flashlight is a torch, and a dumpster is called a tip!!! So Bob's your uncle... I mean brilliant... dang it, ... BBC has got to me.

 

[hemihampton]

I think they call that a Hijack. some might call a Train Wreck?

 

[East_Tn_Bottle_Guy]

Interesting posts. One question though. Do all blown in mold bottles have pontil, and I think I understood all pontil are blown in mold. Thanks.

 

[CanadianBottles]

Interesting posts. One question though. Do all blown in mold bottles have pontil, and I think I understood all pontil are blown in mold. Thanks.

I'm afraid it's no on both counts. Bottles made between the 1870s and 1910s or so are typically blown in mold but without a pontil. Pontils were phased out long before the invention of the automatic bottle machine. And all pontil bottles are mouth-blown, but not necessarily in molds. Free-blown bottles typically have pontils too, although you're unlikely to frequently come across free-blown bottles in day-to-day collecting in East Tennessee because they were phased out in the earlier part of the 19th century.

 

[UncleBruce]

Interesting posts. One question though. Do all blown in mold bottles have pontil, and I think I understood all pontil are blown in mold. Thanks.

Molds are actually still in use today. With the advance of technology bottles are mass produced by machines using molds but no pontil is created in the machine process. Free blown is making the bottle without using a mold and a pontil is created on the base from a punty rod, which is used to handle the hot glass after it is blown. It is still an around as an art form, but these items are decorative in lieu of utilitarian.

 

[slugplate]

The early automated bottle making machines would put a kind of a circular mark on the base of bottles. See the photo below. This circular mark happens on many machine made bottles and is cause by vacuum that the machines would use to control the handling of the bottle. These marks are often confused with pontil scars, but are not the same. Milk, soda and food products are some of the bottle types that will have these marks. I'm sure there are more. The photo below is from the base of an embossed milk.
View attachment 220679

Is that also referred to as a valve mark?

 

[ROBBYBOBBY64]

There seems to be a lot of new collectors who are confused what a pontil scar looks like or is. They seem to know its on the base of the bottle but after that they get a bit confused sometimes.
Lets start with the open pontil which is probably the most common of pontil marks. The still in making bottle is put on the pontil rod with a blob of glass to hold it while the top is being made/tooled by the glassmaker, when done this rod is broken away leaving a sharp edged scar that would likely cut you if you ran your finger across it. Most dates point to 1845-1860 and some earlier for the use of this type, it is even still used today on blown art glass but some polishing often takes place on these newer vessels.
The iron or graphite pontil is the easiest to distinguish because it looks like an imprint of a black or rusty doughnut, these were in use 1850's-1860's.
There are other pontil marks but these are the ones most will see.
Machine made bottles-those with the mold lines all the way to the top made after 1905 do not use or have pontil marks. You may see scars of excess glass on the bases of machine made bottles but it isn't a pontil mark and neither is a kick up base you see on wine bottles.
Well that's a start but I'm sure others could add to this topic to help out a new collector's understanding of the pontil mark.

A donut of glass on the end of a blow pipe. That's why it looks like a hollow glass tube was broken off the bottom.
ROBBYBOBBY64

 

[UncleBruce]

Is that also referred to as a valve mark?

That is made by certain types of machines when these handle the bottle. Look a lot like an embossed circle. I see these on a lot of earlier milk bottles.

 

[East_Tn_Bottle_Guy]

I'm afraid it's no on both counts. Bottles made between the 1870s and 1910s or so are typically blown in mold but without a pontil. Pontils were phased out long before the invention of the automatic bottle machine. And all pontil bottles are mouth-blown, but not necessarily in molds. Free-blown bottles typically have pontils too, although you're unlikely to frequently come across free-blown bottles in day-to-day collecting in East Tennessee because they were phased out in the earlier part of the 19th century.

Molds are actually still in use today. With the advance of technology bottles are mass produced by machines using molds but no pontil is created in the machine process. Free blown is making the bottle without using a mold and a pontil is created on the base from a punty rod, which is used to handle the hot glass after it is blown. It is still an around as an art form, but these items are decorative in lieu of utilitarian.

Thanks CanadianBottles and UncleBruce.