Looks European. The only wine bottles in aqua/colorless glass that I can think of is for tokaj wine from the tokaji region of Hungary/Slovakia. The tokaj bottles that are unambiguously identifiable have a glass shoulder seal marked with that name. This appears to be a half-bottle. Anyway, if...
I can see that the lip is applied. That suggests a date prior to about 1880, but not by much. These flat lips are commonly tooled from the glass of the neck, a later innovation. The flat lip without overhang to anchor a wire bail suggests to me that this demijohn was not intended to contain...
The white paint really brings out the embossing. I'm sure that project took time and patience.
I have struggled to get decent images of similar bottles by adjusting the lighting with limited success.
The cylinder looks to me to be 1840-60, probably American. The other needs better images at perpendicular angles and with better back-lighting. Like this:
Not a ginger beer if it is not marked as such. These UK-produced stoneware bottles were imported in prodigious numbers. The contained ALE, and without other marking are best described as stoneware ALE bottles.
Well, Jerry, I can't disagree with what you present. I've always understood that Stoddard glass tended to be peppered with micro- to seed bubbles. I don't have a porter that I can claim as Stoddard glass. I do have a couple of demijohns that I've decided are from Stoddard, even though they...
Interesting talk from experienced collectors. I reviewed Mckearin's BOTTLES, FLASKS, and DR. DYOTT, but didn't find much to illuminate the thread. What WOULD illuminate the thread are IMAGES of the bottles you are describing. How about it?
Please tell us where you have read about the coal smoke . . . Cite one or more publications. Thank you.
Coal smoke has nothing to do with blackness (opacity) of the glass. Ashes referenced are from Beech trees. Coal clinkers are not coal smoke, nor are they even coal -- clinkers are the...
I thought I had heard all the collector myths about bottle-making, but this coal idea is a new one. Coal is black, the bottle is "black" glass . . . ipso facto! o_O What is the melting temperature for coal, I wonder.
Of course, this is a silly idea - so obviously wrong, I wonder how it...