Any tips for removing corks from bottles.

[ROBBYBOBBY64]

Kept what full,I just cleaned it and took the the cork out

It looked full. I guess it was ground water. Nice find.
ROBBYBOBBY64.

 

[Mailman1960]

It looked full. I guess it was ground water. Nice find.
ROBBYBOBBY64.

I cleaned it out and put some dyed water in for looks

 

[Toma777]

Anybody ever try and get a glass cork out?

There's no reason really for me to remove it, other than to straighten it out.

I just looked up what some people are selling this for, and was a little shocked!

1905 Larkin Soap Company of Buffalo, NY Bottle on Mercari

This is a fantastic early bottle produced by the Larkin Soap Company of Buffalo, NY. The bottle is 2 colors . The top is aquamarine blue. The base is a green blue or teal color. The base bottle and the top fit perfectly and is obviously the stopper for this bottle. It is very attractively...

www.mercari.com

I can't remember where I found this one, but I seem to remember it being inside a ghost town building.

 

[UncleBruce]

That list you reference has been out there for over 5 months. In my opinion these are very common and there is low demand for them. I advise for those who want one to wait and get a complete example (bottle +stopper) as there are lots of them around.
As for removing the stopper it will require heating the neck only to try and expand the neck a bit. The stopper still may never come out. Very tricky.

 

[willong]

Anybody ever try and get a glass cork out?

There's no reason really for me to remove it, other than to straighten it out.

View attachment 225689

I just looked up what some people are selling this for, and was a little shocked!

1905 Larkin Soap Company of Buffalo, NY Bottle on Mercari

This is a fantastic early bottle produced by the Larkin Soap Company of Buffalo, NY. The bottle is 2 colors . The top is aquamarine blue. The base is a green blue or teal color. The base bottle and the top fit perfectly and is obviously the stopper for this bottle. It is very attractively...

www.mercari.com

I can't remember where I found this one, but I seem to remember it being inside a ghost town building.

Ground glass closures are incredibly tight to begin with. It is why they are often used for chemical reagent bottles and even laboratory glassware. Add the adhesion produced by decades of contents drying as a result of what little evaporation can escape the tight interface and I'm thinking the stopper might just as well be epoxied in place. Of course, even an epoxy bond can be defeated. The question is, will the bottle survive required procedures intact?

Soaking in various solvents such as lacquer thinner, acetone, or commercial products intended to wick into tight interfaces through capillary action might break down adhesive bonds caused by dried contents. Something like WD40, if it succeeded in the first instance, could add lubricity that would make stopper removal more probable. I think that a jewelry cleaning solution in an ultrasonic cleaner might well loosen the bond; but what if the frequency is a harmonic of the glass material's natural resonance--might the bottle then burst like the wine goblets shattered by opera singers? I would also be concerned about possible catastrophic failure if tempted to use differential heating to expand the container in relation to the stopper.

I have some antique microscopy products contained in bottles in the same condition. I won't risk the condition of the bottles or the labels to experiment with means of freeing the stoppers. The value to me is in the bottles as display items. (Posting this reminds me that I have misstated something in earlier postings, wherein I said that I never purchase bottles. The four mentioned are the only exception that I can recall. They were purchased as display items to enhance an antique microscope collection and I forgot about them when discussing bottles previously.)

The amber bottles are all BIM, tooled lip. Right and Left end examples appear to have been blown in 3-piece mold and turned. Both have ground glass stoppers. Middle amber bottle has shell cork stopper on glass stem, and its contents are totally evaporated. The clear glass bottle is machine made and a tad over 2" tall.

 

[willong]

The Larkin bottle reminded me of a shard that I've been hanging onto for half a century. Rich green colors have always been among my favorites. I was intrigued by both the color and details of the little bottle--the outside neck diameter is appoximately that of a US quarter. I have a vague recollection of thinking the broken bottle might have once contained smelling salts; but I can no longer remember why I thought that.

Like the Larkin bottle, the shard was blown in a mold that mated diagonally across the square profile of the bottle's main body. Also like the Larkin, the neck interior was ground to accept a matching ground glass stopper. Unlike the Larkin, the mystery bottle also incorporated external, male screw threads molded into the lower portion of the neck. Evidently, they were intended to mate with an additional closure that would have fit over the ground glass stopper and perhaps might have served as a dosing cup, though I doubt that given the tiny capacity of the bottle itself. Might it have been that the contents were pills or pellets intend to be dissolved in a specified volume of fluid?

I'll certainly be pleased and thankful if someone can identify the original bottle, especially if a photo of intact example is available.

 

[Toma777]

The green glass was quite a find for me as a kid back in the 1960s. I just wish I had documented each find, and where it came from. I'm guessing it came from the May Lundy mining camp in the Eastern Sierras, or possibly somewhere around the Big Bear Lake area, because my family had a cabin up there.

We also used to do rock hunting, looking for agates, geodes, fossils, etc., so we were all over the place up and down the West Coast, and my father did lapidary.

I'm not going to risk breaking it by trying to get the glass cork out. Thanks for the advice though. I appreciate it.