Buffalo Ammonia with sheared ring finish & pontil scar?!??!?

[randgrithr]

I started trying to figure out the date on this bottle and looking on Bill's site, found out that it seems to have a couple of rare qualities. This definitely looks like a sheared ring finish to me.

The bottle is very faintly embossed "Buffalo Ammonia" on both sides. Looks like a key mold with a pontil scar on the base. One of the seams has a flaw that does not go evenly up the side of the bottle, the other one is straight and they join up around the shoulder of the bottle. The other side's seam is straight.

According to what I've been able to find the bottle dates to somewhere between 1872-75. The site says that a pontil scar on a utility bottle after 1872 is rare, and that it's unlikely to find one after 1875.

In other, erm, fascinating news, apparently if I was a practitioner of Hoodoo I could use the contents to purify my bath water, house, or place of business. So I definitely have the lucky mojo juju goin' on from the glass spirits or something, LOL!

Seriously - is this thing rare/worth money? Or am I being silly to think that I have scored the "million dollar ammonia bottle"? []

 

[randgrithr]

Close up of the top.

 

[randgrithr]

Close up of the bottom.

 

[randgrithr]

Slightly better shot of the top.

 

[randgrithr]

Unlit-up version, trying to show the weird seam flaw.

 

[jfcutter]

Hi randgrithr.... Nice photos!

Unfortunately, what you are mistaking for a pontil scar is the suction scar made by an Owens Automatic Bottle Machine. I note on the Historic Bottle Website in a couple places that sometimes the suction scar is mistaken for a pontil scar; one has to look at the other bottle characteristics to make the complete call. See point #5 near the top of this page: http://www.sha.org/bottle/machinemadedating.htm

A close inspection of the lip (aka "finish") in your 4th posting photo shows the side mold seam going all the way to the top of the rim and what appears to be the horizontal ring mold seam just below base of the finish. Both sure signs of a machine-made bottle. Granted it is certainly an early Owens machine product - ca. 1908-1916 or so I would guess - but it is certainly a machine-made bottle.

The "weird seam flaw" is the wandering "ghost seam" induced by the parison mold - the first mold in the two mold series on the Owens Machine. See point #4 at this link (also near the top of the page): http://www.sha.org/bottle/machinemadedating.htm

I would call the finish an "oil finish" to my eye; here is the link to that section of the finish styles page that shows this finish (finish #11): http://www.sha.org/bottle/finishstyles.htm#Oil or Ring

Sorry for being the bearer of bad news...you won't be able to retire early.

 

[daltonbottles]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it appears the mold seam travels up the side and onto the finish or "lip" of the bottle. In that case, it is likely a later machine made bottle and what appears as a pontil is more likely a valve or suction mark on the base. That would place it somewhere after 1905 or so and could date to within the past couple of decades. Hope this helps.

 

[daltonbottles]

Oops, sorry Bill. Was writing as you were posting.

 

[jfcutter]

No problem! Glad to have some concurrence on what I think I'm seeing...Bill

 

[randgrithr]

Ah well, another learning experience. Thanks Bill. Given where I found the bottle, as it would have been on the very lowest edge of the date range for other things I've found there. (Although this is a dried up creek bed and other areas along it have yielded stuff going back to the 1840's). 1905-ish does make more sense in context. I didn't see the maker's mark for the Owens machine, hence my thought that it was a pontil, and I thought the finish was very weird for a utility bottle.

Well even if I didn't win the bottle lotto, at least I can, um, purify myself with Buffalo Ammonia lucky mojo! Heehee!

Thanks again!

-- Eileen