bottle stoppers?

[mal]

Hi
I keep digging up these little glass things in my garden, -they appear to be plugs or bottle stoppers--some colourless, some aqua. A disk about 1" in diameter with a 3/4 inch protruding stopper part. What are they? Sorry, no pix at present. Also, what exactly is a pontil?---thanks--mal

 

[woody]

That's what they are. Stoppers, although they were meant to go into a cork ring that was in the mouth of the bottle.
I find them on Worcestershire sauce bottles all the time.
I used to wonder the same thing until I dug a bottle with the stopper still in it.

 

[Harry Pristis]

Hello, Mal . . .

A "pontil" is the iron rod upon which a bottle was empontilled while the lip was finished.

The rough mark on the bottom of the bottle where it was attached to the pontil rod is a "pontil scar."

Depending on how the bottle was empontilled, such a mark may be an "iron pontil scar" or "open pontil scar" or simply "pontil scar."

Whenever you see or hear reference to a "pontil" on a bottle, keep in mind that this is an ellipsis for "pontil scar."

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

 

[mal]

Thanks to all. My son found a G W Merchant bottle bricked in to a chimney of an early log house we are dismantling. The house is said to be of 1828 date, although the chimneys may have been built later, as they were for iron stoves. The bottle is very clean, aqua in colour and perhaps pontil scarred--there is a diagonal raised line across the bottom with a light circular shape in the centre. The bottle sides have curious 'tear drop' shaped indentations on them--is this part of their particular manufacture method? thanks again--mal

 

[woody]

The pontil sometimes appears to be a circular piece of glass that has been broken off at the base.
I don't think the aqua Merchant's bottles were pontiled, but I may be mistaken.
Usually they come in Lockport green.
Still a good find, though.
It sounds like yours is just blown in a mold.

 

[tazmainiendigger]

Hi Mal, just getting ready to list on eBay and just happen to have a photo of the stopper you wrote about...