British embossed pontils WANTED

[deepbluedigger]

Top $$$ available for interesting or unusual examples! Sherds and damaged / broken bottles also always wanted for research.

Thanks.

Jerry

 

[baltbottles]

That's an awesome picture Jerry. Great bottles

Chris

 

[GuntherHess]

I would recommend posting a list. Many British meds are not obvious from the embossing. People often dont even know they have dug a British medicine. People doing google searches about thier bottles have a better chance to see your post if you list bottles. Just a thought..

 

[deepbluedigger]

Thanks Chris. The large green one came home to England after 150 years of underground exile in the US! One of the little flint ones, too.

 

[deepbluedigger]

ORIGINAL: GuntherHess

I would recommend posting a list. Many British meds are not obvious from the embossing. People often dont even know they have dug a British medicine. People doing google searches about thier bottles have a better chance to see your post if you list bottles. Just a thought..

Thanks, that's a good point. I'll post a list here in the next day or two.

 

[deepbluedigger]

Don't know where to start. I've got a list of over a hundred different British pontilled meds that have turned up in the US at some time or other in the past 30 years.

Here's a partial list. As a general rule small bottles tend to be colorless, larger ones even for the same medicine aqua or colored. I've left some of the most well known off this list, such as Turlingtons, and Daffy's. A lot of the names use 'Dr', which I've left out of the list.

British made pontils are usually quite different from US made bottles, although there can be confusion for early flint glass bottles blown in New England, for example, which can be very similar to British made bottles. If in any doubt please email me.

Here you go. Enjoy:

• Abbé Blondell's Specific. Small, flint glass.
• Arnold's Balsam (and Drops). Small flint glass, or larger aqua / pale teal.
• Atkinson's Infant's Preservative. Several different sizes and colors.
• Bacon's Antiscorbutic Drops.
• Barclay's Spirits (and Drops).
• Beaume de Vie by the King’s Patent. Usually aqua, sometimes clear flint. Squat globular bottle.
• Boerhaave's Antiscorbutic.
• Bostock's Cordial.
• Bourne's Æthereal Essence.
• Brodum's Vegetable Syrup (or Botanical Syrup)
• Brodum’s Nervous Cordial. Brodum's bottles are absolutely at the TOP of my 'wants' list!
• Butler's Bitter Tincture (and Tincture of Pomegranate, and Pectoral Elixir).
• Church's Essence (and Elixir, and Cough Drops, and Tincture, all usually colorless flint. The Cough Drops turn up with at least half a dozen embossing variants).
• Culpepper's Cordial.
• Cundell's Balsam of Honey (bottle just embossed “Cundell / 47 Minoriesâ€).
• The Elixir of Longevity, or Swedish Preservative.
• Flint's Friendly Oils (this is a saltglaze stoneware bottle).
• Fogoni's Tincture.
• Freake's Tincture (bottle just embossed “Freake / Londonâ€).
• Freeman's Spirits (and Drops).
• Gilbert's Drops (and Carminative, and Tincture, and Cordial, and Lotion).
• Glass's Magnesia.
• Godbold's Vegetable Balsam.
• Graham's Tincture (and Alkaline Solution).
• Greenough's Tincture.
• Grubb's Fryar's Drops. At least two sizes, both colorless flint.
• Harmstrong's Bitters. Largest is quart size, black glass. A special bottle!
• Hayward's Samaritan Water (and Tincture). (bottles just embossed “Hayward / Londonâ€)
• Henry's Aromatic Spirits of Vinegar. (Found in colorless, olive green, and cobalt. All very small bottles)
• Hill's Balsam of Honey (bottles mostly just embossed “Balsam of honeyâ€, clear flint glass) (Also Hill’s Mixture, and Balsam, and Tincture and various others).
• Honble Lady Hill (clear flint glass, not aqua)
• Hornbrook's Pectoral Drops. (Usually very faintly embossed, especially the smaller sizes).
• Hudson's Tincture. Aqua bottles.
• Jackson's Tincture. (long necked flint glass bottles like early English perfume bottles)
• Leake's Drops.
• Lockyer's Essence.
• Maredant's Drops (various proprietors, all colorless flint glass. Most common is Norton’s).
• Moxon's Aperient. Aqua, green, and colorless flint, in two sizes.
• Newbery's Opodeldoc.
• Noakes's Opodeldoc.
• Norris's Drops for Fevers (and Tonic). At least three sizes, all colorless flint.
• Oliver's Remedy for Consumption.
• Orange's Cough Drops.
• Oxley's Essence of Ginger (bottle just embossed (Oxley // London).
• Prince's Aromatic Camphor (and Cherry Lotion, and Syrup, and Russia Oil).
• Radcliffe's Purging Elixir (and Tincture).
• Ramsay's Bituminous Fluid (and Infants Restorative, and Balsam). Usually aqua or dark aqua.
• Reynolds's Gout Specific (quite a common bottle with hinge mold, rare with pontil).
• Ruspini's Elixir (and Tincture). Colorless flint
• Salmon's Guttæ Vitæ. Flint
• Shaw's Tincture. Flint. Sometimes with an address in St Paul's (London).
• Shee's Lotion (and drops)
• Short's Croton Oil.
• Sibley's Tincture. At least four different sizes, mostly rectangular but rare cylinders. Flint, aqua, and green.
• Sigmond's Lotion. Black, green and colorless glass. Classic bottle.
• Smyth's Drops. Flint glass.
• Solander' Sanative Tea. Nice looking aqua or flint glass bottle.
• Spilsbury's Antiscorbutic Drops (and Compound Essence). Colourless flint glass, three different sizes.
• Squire's Elixir. Tall slim dark aqua / teal bottle, tapered like a Godfrey's Cordial. Embossing usually small and sometimes very faint.
• Steer's Opodeldoc (and Drops, and Eye-Water, and Elixir)
• Sterne's Balsamic Æther (and Tincture).
• Stoughton's Bitters (and Elixir). Dumpy globular bottles, sometimes with very faint (pretty much illegible) embossing.
• Tower's Tincture (and extract, and Solution, and Essence).
• Tyce's Antiscorbutic Drops.
• Velno's Syrup.
• Walker's Jesuit's Drops (and Remedy, and Stomachic Wine). Flint glass, several sizes.
• Ward's Essence (and Drops)
• Webster's Anglicana Duplex (and Tincture). At least four sizes, aqua, green and black glass.
• Wessel's Jesuit's Drops. FLint glass.
• Winch's Cough Drops.
• Winter's British Balsam.

 

[GuntherHess]

wow , lots of meds I have not heard of there.

 

[bostaurus]

I like the name: Infant Preservative!

 

[JOETHECROW]

ORIGINAL: deepbluedigger

Top $$$ available for interesting or unusual examples! Sherds and damaged / broken bottles also always wanted for research.

Thanks.

Jerry

Jerry,....totally impresed with those bottles,...what a great pic. If you were show just that picture to a non bottle person, they would then "get" what we do.

 

[deepbluedigger]

ORIGINAL: GuntherHess

wow , lots of meds I have not heard of there.

... and that is probably less than a quarter of the total known. Thinking of how many pontilled meds there are from the USA, and then compare population sizes with the UK at a similar time, say 1830 or 1850, and it might not be surprising. And keep in mind that Britain had huge export markets during that period, and that some of the patent medicine owners made good use of those markets (which is why British meds turn up in the US, Caribbean, Australia, Canada, Indian Ocean, etc, etc).

Quite a few of the bottles only turn up with the name of the bottler and of the town, and without any medicine name. Atkinsons is a good example: Many different types, almost all just 'Atkinson / London', but sometimes also with an address. There were several Atkinson companies in London including a very successful perfumer, so for those bottles without an address it's guesswork which contained medicine and which contained cosmetic / hair / perfume products. I have two, both of which are more likely to have been perfumers bottles than medicines. But I can't be sure.

A few are only known to me from broken examples. The large size Arnold's Balsam of Coltsfoot, for example. That's one reason I'm interested in sherds. They're great for filling gaps in the record.

Thanks for the comments about the photo. The lighting worked well in that one. But you know, as a pontilled med collector I'm slightly envious of the huge variety you have over there in the US. Probably more than we have here in the UK in terms of shapes, sizes and colors.

Some of the more common ones deliberately left off that list include Dalby's Carminative (on top of generic bottles there are several proprietor named types including Gell, James Dalby, and Eve), Turlingtons Balsam, Daffy's Elixir, Buchans Balsam, Cephalick Snuff, Dredge's Cure-All, Powell's Balsam. And so on and so on and so on. Some, such as Dalby's and Turlingtons, also commonly turn up as American-made examples.

Best way to decide if something's probably British is probably more from the style of the bottle, at least initially.