Help with unknown Log Cabin bottle, variant?

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BrotherBo

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The indentation isn't thin; it's pretty much the same thickness as the rest of it.
I took this bottle to a seasoned bottle collector on Monday so he could have a look at it and give me his opinion on it. He was actually pretty fascinated with it and says that he's never seen another example like it in his 30+ years of bottle collecting and that includes never remembering seeing another one like it at any of the shows that he's attended. It was his opinion that this bottle dates to somewhere in the latter half of the 19th century(1880's-90's) and most likely held bitters or possibly whiskey. He thinks it may very well be an attempt at an experimental re-do of a tired design that was starting to wane in popularity(log cabin figural) but was abandoned and never put into production. We sat it along side several of his log cabin bitters bottles and it looked right at home and the size was very comparable. He cautioned that we may never know the actual maker or true origin of the bottle without another example turning up in the form of one with the label still on it or possibly seeing it in an old advertisement(which in itself was a true long shot that would probably never happen). He said the value of the bottle really could only be determined by what someone is willing to pay for it. He said that even though it could be "one of a kind", since it's clear and a later 1800's bottle with no way to pin down the maker then it all depends on what someone is willing to pay for the bragging rights of having a mystery log cabin figural bottle that nobody else has sitting in their collection.

Regardless of who made this bottle or what it originally held, for me this find has really sparked my interest in bottle collecting. I've had a few decent old bottles in the past but I never really knew a lot about them or had the time to devote to collecting them(actually I'm wishing now that I hadn't sold some of the one's I used to have). I really look forward to finding and collecting some great old bottles in the future and hopefully building a decent personal collection for myself.
 

saratogadriver

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Something screams "new" to me but that's just first impression.


It feels very Pier One to me, but I can't find anything exactly like it, and it does appear to be an applied lip, not ABM. The fancy round window and somewhat gothic door motif on what's supposed to be a log cabin bottle just don't feel right to me... a little TOO precious. Can you tell what size it is? I.E. does it hold a straight on fifth or is it a metric container? If it really holds just a fifth that would seem to me to make it more credible as old. if it's metric I lean more towards Pier One.

Jim G
 

Harry Pristis

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It feels very Pier One to me, but I can't find anything exactly like it, and it does appear to be an applied lip, not ABM. The fancy round window and somewhat gothic door motif on what's supposed to be a log cabin bottle just don't feel right to me... a little TOO precious. Can you tell what size it is? I.E. does it hold a straight on fifth or is it a metric container? If it really holds just a fifth that would seem to me to make it more credible as old. if it's metric I lean more towards Pier One.

Jim G


I am with the skeptics on this one. "Too precious" is a good observation. I would point out that the bottle appears to have a tooled lip, not an applied lip. A relatively early fantasy bottle, perhaps.
 

BrotherBo

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Lots of differing opinions here:

Looks 1890ish to me. Never seen one like it in my 45 years of collecting..

With that said, one thing that would suppress the value of your bottle, even if it's the only example known, is the lack of embossing. The other is its age which appears to be late 1800s.

Something screams "new" to me but that's just first impression.

It feels very Pier One to me, but I can't find anything exactly like it, and it does appear to be an applied lip, not ABM.


I am with the skeptics on this one. "Too precious" is a good observation. ... I would point out that the bottle appears to have a tooled lip, not an applied lip.

Well I guess I'm more confused now than ever. I now have two veteran bottle collectors(one after actually seeing it in person) telling me they've never seen one in the entire decades they've collected and that it appears to be late 1800's to them, and then I have others saying they think it might be brand new from somewhere like Pier One. I have some saying it has an applied lip and then others saying it's a tooled lip. That's a big disparity between opinions.

My opinion(for what it's worth) from being around and collecting antique decanters for years is that it's flint glass. There are inclusions(one black one can be seen in the pics, near the lip in the top) and it just has that heavy old feel and color of flint glass. I've personally handled a lot of early decanters and from handling this bottle I would strongly disagree that it's anywhere near modern.

I really appreciate all of the help and opinions(please, keep them coming!) but in the end, how does one go about finding out how old their bottle actually is?

Not sure what else to do here but post a few more close up pics.
 

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Harry Pristis

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Well, brother, what CAN we agree on? I think we can agree that the bottle mold was cut by a skilled craftsman. No one has argued that the bottle was blown in China or India for the dollar-store trade.

You can put your fingertip inside the lip to find a seam between the separate glass surfaces if it is an applied lip; there will be no seam with a tooled lip.

Clarity, inclusions, and your own limited experience [...
this find has really sparked my interest in bottle collecting. I've had a few decent old bottles in the past but I never really knew a lot about them or had the time to devote to collecting them] are secondary considerations.

It seems to me that the strongest evidence is the accumulated knowledge of collectors, both memory and printed. Antique bottles have been seriously collected and studied for fifty years MOL. If it were my bottle, I would be searching the literature and I would be showing the bottle at bottle shows. Somewhere you'll find some reliable information.
 

CanadianBottles

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I'm guessing that this one is modern as well, and that the indentation on the back is indeed meant to be drilled for a lamp cord. I couldn't find another example of something like this online but the manufacture techniques look somewhat similar to the Old Home Bitters bottles which were manufactured in the 70s purely to be used as lamps https://www.icollector.com/item.aspx?i=9774233 The tooling looks very similar to 1890s bottles but a few details, especially the base, don't look quite right for American glass of that era. Regardless of what it is it's certainly a very unusual piece.
 

BrotherBo

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You can put your fingertip inside the lip to find a seam between the separate glass surfaces if it is an applied lip; there will be no seam with a tooled lip.

Harry, thank you for your help on this. I can feel no seam so apparently it is a tooled lip.
 

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saratogadriver

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One thing we can agree on is that you've stumped us all in that none of us can ever remember seeing one before. The indentation looking like a place in the mold for a lamp cord is a sage observation, but a search of log cabin bottle lamp sure doesn't turn one up on the interweb. The close up of the lip clearly shows that it is blown in a mold and either tooled or applied lip, so it's certainly not machine made. Of course, that doesn't mean it's old in and of itself. There were some great (from a bottle collector perspective bad) reproductions of civil war era bottles recently made and sold by a company who is now gone out of business. The USA bottles were the subject of much discussion on here as they were very close reproductions, yet made by some company in China. They were being sold to Civil War reenactors but made there way onto the collectable market.

Very interesting bottle you've brought to the table.

Jim G
 

BrotherBo

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I'm guessing that this one is modern as well, and that the indentation on the back is indeed meant to be drilled for a lamp cord. I couldn't find another example of something like this online but the manufacture techniques look somewhat similar to the Old Home Bitters bottles which were manufactured in the 70s purely to be used as lamps https://www.icollector.com/item.aspx?i=9774233 The tooling looks very similar to 1890s bottles but a few details, especially the base, don't look quite right for American glass of that era. Regardless of what it is it's certainly a very unusual piece.

Thanks for the link! I checked out the Old Home Bitters bottles and you're right, there are some similarities. Someone put a lot of effort into producing a convincingly old-looking bottle for the sole purpose of serving as a lamp base. The indentation in my bottle could actually be there for the purpose of drilling for a cord, but there's still some things that just don't add up. One would think that if this bottle was actually modern and produced in a certain quantity then there'd be other examples at least somewhere, such as we see with the Old Home Bitters bottles. One thing that stands out to me is that this is actually glass with lead content; it does have a greyish appearance in certain lighting and it also has that slight rainbow effect when it's in the sunlight. Surely someone who wanted to produce an old-looking bottle for the sole purpose of marketing it as a lamp base wouldn't go that route. There's also some sickness in the bottom along with a very old dried substance(which could be residue from whatever liquid was originally contained in the bottle). Upon close inspection, there is quite a bit of shelf wear to the bottom as well which could indicate some age.

I'm definitely open to the possibility that this is actually a modern fantasy bottle produced for the sole purpose of a novelty lamp base. I just want to make sure that's actually what it is before we definitively shelve it over in that category.
 

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BrotherBo

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One thing we can agree on is that you've stumped us all in that none of us can ever remember seeing one before. The indentation looking like a place in the mold for a lamp cord is a sage observation, but a search of log cabin bottle lamp sure doesn't turn one up on the interweb. The close up of the lip clearly shows that it is blown in a mold and either tooled or applied lip, so it's certainly not machine made. Of course, that doesn't mean it's old in and of itself. There were some great (from a bottle collector perspective bad) reproductions of civil war era bottles recently made and sold by a company who is now gone out of business. The USA bottles were the subject of much discussion on here as they were very close reproductions, yet made by some company in China. They were being sold to Civil War reenactors but made there way onto the collectable market.

Very interesting bottle you've brought to the table.

Jim G

Thanks Jim. I'll have to go check out that discussion on those USA bottles. In the age we live in now, reproductions are getting so good that we have to be skeptical on just about anything popping up that appears to be very rare or one of a kind. I'm just not experienced enough in the antique bottle arena to personally say for sure what I have or don't have. I appreciate all the help that's been offered here in the effort to get to the bottom of this one. I think we definitely have a mystery on our hands!
 

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