"Zapped" bottles

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Tandy

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[:)]

Greetings from South Australia.

A frequently occurring scam practiced here is the "zapped" bottle. When exposed to sunlight, many bottles made 1895-1915 will turn violet, but the violet is never extremely dark: bottles zapped with UV radiation tend to be a really intense black-violet. They are not the product of long years in the sun.

Tandy, South Australia
 

IRISH

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Sometimes amethyst glass get's very dark from the sun it depends on how much Manganese Oxide is in it, I have a few dark amethyst bottles that are sun coloured. I agree that it should always be clear to the buyer if they are getting a "zapped" bottle, it's mostly a trap for the less experienced collectors as it's normaly not hard to tell natural coloured glass from zapped just by the colour and tones.
 

Tandy

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[sm=rolleyes.gif] Thanks Irish.

Talking about bottles coloured by the sun, some years ago I found a "black" bottle, base upwards in the mud of a small lake, with a distinct cobalt blue patch on the exposed base. Any thoughts as to why this occurred?

Tandy, Adelaide.
 

Gunsmoke47

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Hey guys and gals,
I have a question . This bottle is the real deal. (Not Zapped) I know because I dug it myself in a virgin pit circa 1880's. It looks to me to be about the same color as one that would have been blasted heavily with UV. Is this color of glass somewhat a rarity for glass made pre 1900? I have seen numerous SCA. bottles, but I can't recall seeing any this deep of a shade of purple except for one other USA Hosp. bottle that my buddie has. I was just curious if purple was common. Thanks, Kelley

Pm34873.jpg
 

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woody

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It's amethyst glass and it is not very common.
Some people call it black glass as you have to hold it to a strong light to see the deep purple color.
Nice bottle, Kelley
 

Harry Pristis

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It is a nice bottle, Kelley. Amethyst-color utility bottles are not common.

Main Entry: manganese dioxide
Function: noun
Date: 1882
: a dark insoluble compound MnO2 used especially as an oxidizing agent, as a depolarizer of dry cells, and in making glass and ceramics

As I understand it, MnO2 became the widely-used decolorizer in about 1880. It remained popular until WW1 blocked imports. When MnO2 became available again, it had been supplanted by other decolorizers, notably selenium.

"Black amethyst" is a useful term. Here is a pic of a black amethyst demijohn from my web-site. The bottle glass permits little light to pass through. This image was made with a 500w photography lamp.

---------------Harry Pristis

Db85956.jpg
 

Gunsmoke47

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Thank you Woody and Harry. When I first dug this, it was so sick, I thought it was just an unembossed, amber medicine so I put it in my closet of "non particular interesting bottles." I happened to catch the light just right one evening and could see some of the true color so I tumbled it.... Black Amethyst, it surely is a pretty color. [:)] Happy Diggin, Kelley
 

Carmo

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Hi All
Went to a show recently where a collector was displaying a blue/milky glass codd. The bottle was dug in a tip that had been very hot, it originally appeared brown and then he had it polished and it turned out this blue/milky glass colour. The collector beleives that it is geniune as it has been done by natural causes- fire! I wonder if he beleives the same about cracked or broken bottles caused by the natural phenomenon - gravity!
Carmo
 

David E

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I am not so sure that UV is the proper term for a form of zapping. The sun obmits Ultra Violet Rays, which are what turns the old bottles. I have heard Xray and even radiation, I guess by putting it under one of the machines that hospitals use to treat cancer. But last I heard nobody knew how they were doing it, some thought under the xray dentists use. You can sun color a piece of the old glass with the use of a 25Watt GE
Germicital light. And it can be controled to keep it lighter or darker depending on amount of maganse or lenght of time under a light. There is no difference between the sunglass, from the real sun or the germicital lamp. Doctors use this light to sterilize their instruments.
Dave
 

Carmo

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I new a bloke in Sydney who got bottles zapped, it was done at a food processing plant.
The only problem was that some bottles came out purple and some a brown. I also know another bloke who ruined (in my opinion) good bottles by giving them to this bloke to be zapped. We do not see much of it these days in oz, as the bloke who done it is out of the scene.
carmo
 

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