Back With Another Mystery - To Me Anyhow

[Owen]

This one has me stumped. (Not hard to do) It looks about the size of a small ink, and stands just 2 1/4 tall, but the odd opening shape has me scratching my head. It has a seam around the base, and two two coming up the sides clear to the top of the lip. No markings. The opening is smaller than I think I might expect. My best guess is an eye wash???? Your Thoughts...Who, what, where, when?? As always THANKS!!!

 

[Owen]

Another view...

 

[saratogadriver]

The flared out lip like that looks like a "bell top" design that they used for mucilage (glue) in the late 1800s. Except that, in every bell top ink I've seen, the neck is never that small. So, I'm not sure.

Jim G

 

[MichaelFla]

Possibly a blotter sand jar? They put sand on the ink to blot it, then poured the sand back into a jar with a flared, funnel-like top.

 

[MichaelFla]

Joe Nickell, in his book "Pen, Ink, and Evidence", has a section on blotters and sanders and describes their use. According to his research, blotting paper came first, in the 1400's, followed by sanders in the 1500's, then by the 'rediscovery' of blotting paper. Writing sand had to be very fine grained and tended to have round particles, with the best initially coming from Calais. Various American suppliers sold it in the 1800's. It worked by wicking ink upward off the paper into the layer of sand, with the sand then shaken off carrying the excess ink with it, usually back into the sand container for reuse. The neatest fact I picked up here is that this is the reason most genuine antique sand containers have concave tops, to receive sand sliding off a bent piece of paper, like a funnel.

From

 

[RED Matthews]

Well Owen, I think I remember that a bottle like that was in a Water Color Panting – Brushes and Paints set that I had as a kid. The set came from an Aunt, that had used it, when she was a girl. So that puts it back before 1900. Unfortunately; I don’t know what ever happened to that set. But the jar contained water for cleaning your brush while working on a project. RED Matthews

 

[surfaceone]

Hey Owen,

I've not seen it's like before. How'd you come by it? Thanks for showing us.

I think Michael may be on to something, though I've never seen a glass one like this. I've seen 2 wooden ones in my travels. Very similar to this:

From.

Tin Pounce:

From. Here's anotherTin one with concave base,that may have been corked closed.

From.

"202 A 19th Century Regency rectangular silver and cut glass standish, having a silver trinket box to the centre with hinged lid, fitted with cut glass pounce pot and 1 other jar, raised on bun feet, London 1908 by John Emes, 8 ozs £120-150" From.

 

[RED Matthews]

Back again, I got to thinking about sand blotting and remembered that I have two Sand Shaker Bottles that have metal caps and holes a little larger than used on salt or pepper because they were used for shaking sand on a blot and sat on the users desk. Man what you can remember on different subjects - sorta set aside. I also have four or five glass pens for writing - very neat and two have spiraled different color glass on the handles of them. I am sure these are in NY and we should be there in a couple weeks. RED Matthews

 

[MichaelFla]

Hey surface, nice tiger. Great shot of a pounce []. After looking at the other pounce pics, and thinking about them having to shake the sand out through a shaker top, I am thinking RED might be on to something with the paint brush cleaning pot. That seems to make more sense.

 

[Owen]

Surfaceone... It came to me with about 10 ink bottles from a collection I inherited.

I guess the paintbrush cleaning idea makes sense. When I was a kid though we just used a plain old small drinking glass, or jelly/juice glass for dipping/cleaning brushes.