Belgian shaft & globe

[slimdigger]

Here is one that I picked up recently from an auction. The bottle stands a little over 13 inches tall and has a nice sand pontil scar on base. This lip finish is similar to what I have seen on some of the belgian spa bottles but I have never seen one on this type of bottle. What would you call this one ? Is it a shaft and globe ? What would you estimate the age to be ? Approximate value ? Is it even Belgian ? Any help on this one would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance , slimdigger

 

[Miles]

These are called onion bottles. They're freeblown, which means none of the process was done by machine! Also, many of them come from old dutch sites. I believe they were imported around the world, many of the onion bottles contained olive oil. Yours has a really neat lip, and could be dated from 1770 to all the way to 1700!
Here's one like yours on ebay.

 

[slimdigger]

Thanks for the input Miles. I have had many onions before and I must say none of them resembled this bottle. The body of this bottle is more rounded unlike the flatter base of the onion bottles. All of the onions I have seen have a fire polished string lip . The lip on this bottle was sheared but never polished and the glob of glass around the lip looks to resemble a Belgian finish or as a few the locals have suggested maybe Persian. The bottle is defintely freeblown. Here is an additional picture of the lip finish. Bruce ( Slimdigger )

 

[blueglass1]

I believe this bottle is from Afghanistan 18th Century, If you refer to Steven Carboni's book..Glass From Islamic Lands ...you will see a similar bottle with the same snapped off lip and crimped rope lip. If you have trouble with this you can email me directly at electrocrypt @shaw.ca, The reason it is in such good condition is that it was recovered from a bone dry burial likely part of the cache of bottles found in the 1960's by 2 Iranian men...then sent to New york and sold by a New York antique dealer P.P Reale on Broadway. I also have some from the same source. You have a very rare bottle in my opinion.

ORIGINAL: slimdigger

Here is one that I picked up recently from an auction. The bottle stands a little over 13 inches tall and has a nice sand pontil scar on base. This lip finish is similar to what I have seen on some of the belgian spa bottles but I have never seen one on this type of bottle. What would you call this one ? Is it a shaft and globe ? What would you estimate the age to be ? Approximate value ? Is it even Belgian ? Any help on this one would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance , slimdigger

 

[deepbluedigger]

Really looks European (low countries: belgium / Holland) but there's nothing quite like it in any of the references I've got. Closest in shape and colour is in Van den Bossche, suggesting Belgian circa 1680 - 1710, but the spa water style finish and string rim are odd, although the spa water string rims I've seen are not usually quite as crude and chunky as that one.

Maybe an unusual late 17th / early 18th century spa water bottle? There are precedents for European natural mineral water bottles similar in shape (but later - closer to the true mallet bottle shape) but they usually have the more standard wine bottle style finish to the lip and string rim. They were mostly made for export to Britain, so they are sealed.

Of course I'm guessing, so I may be wrong.