JOETHECROW
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Colored Pontiled Utility W/Label
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deepbluedigger
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Wow. This thread has grown somewhat since I last looked at it. Lots of food for thought.
I should say again: there's plenty of evidence that American glasshouses were manufacturing embossed flint glass bottles, including medicine bottles, very early (probably pre-revolution), and probably in some cases in significant amounts. Some of the earliest evidence for that is related to pre-revolution disputes, legal cases, etc, about evasion of duties and so on, I believe that even Robert Turlington himself complained about copies of his bottles being made in the US for sale to druggists, etc (need to track that reference down again to be sure).
But the US bottle glass industry was limited in capacity well into the early 19th century (as the famous Dr Dyott himself discovered, and so had to set up his own glassworks as a result).
By the way, that great little Honble Lady Hill bottle is probably an American made example, copying the British ones which are flint glass, solid pontil, etc, etc. There's a long list of medicines and other products that started out as 100% British, and which were exported to the US in British made bottles, but which were quickly copied in the US, and sold in copied bottles. These include, amongst others:
- Turlingtons Balsam
- Balsam of Honey
- Dalby's Carminative
- Essence of Peppermint
- Mounsey's Salts
- Buchans Hungarian Balsam (probably - I haven't yet seen one that I'm really confident is British, although I've got a flint glass example)
- Rowlands Macassar Oil
and so on.
Copied bottles for use in the US were sometimes ordered from British glasshouses by the American retailers and exported empty from the UK, and sometimes were manufactured by US glasshouses. So for all of these, there are British bottles and US bottles to be found. The US bottles as a rule copied at least the aproximate shape and size of the British originals.
Turlingtons is an example of a medicine where both almost certainly happened from as early as the 18th century. There was probably a trend for the majority of these bottles to be imported from Britain early on, but for the home-grown copies to become more dominant as time went on and the glass industry in the US became better established. Certainly by the mid 19th century Dalby's, Turlingtons, and so on made in the US in a characteristically US style are far more common than British made ones, or ones that copied the British style.
But to add to the confusion quite a few British medicines and other products continued to be imported to the US throughout the 19th century, in British bottles, and don't seem to have been copied in the US or sold in American made bottles. Why? I've got no idea. Daffy's Elixir is an example (It would be a real surprise to ever see a definitively American Daffy's bottle, but I live in hope).
If anyone isn't confused yet, there are other types of situations which seem to have gone on as well. Church's Cough Drops, for example, is a nightmare.
Dr Church started selling his medicines in London but emigrated to Philadelphia before 1800. He left the British rights to his medicine to a company in London (Shaw & Co, later Shaw & Edwards, and then finally Edwards alone) but manufactured and sold his cough drops himself in the US, both in Philadelphia and within a few years in New York. The company seems to have continued to use British made bottles in the US for many years - several decades in fact - and may even have used both British made and US made (aqua, small OP) bottles alongside each other.
But British Church's Drops bottles from Shaw & Co, and from Shaw & Edwards, and E.Edwards, turn up quite regularly in the eastern US so they were obviously being imported even while Dr Church himself was marketing his own stuff in the US. There are also British style generic Church's Drops bottles (no company name, only "Church's // Patent // Cough Drops // London") that turn up, identical, on both sides of the Atlantic. They are almost certainly British made, but it's impossible to know if those found in America were sent there full or empty. There's only one flint glass Church's bottle that I know of only from the US: "Church's // Improved // Cough Drops // London". I've never yet seen a Church's bottle embossed with either the New York of Philadelphia addresses: seems that even the US operation retained the 'London' embossing (check out the labelled example in the photo. It's got the 'Improved' version of the embossing which so far I only know of from the US).
On the subject of transatlantic trade: Swaim's Panacea was advertised in London as early as the 1820s, but I've never heard of an early Swaim's bottle being found here. Wouldn't a British made 1820s Swaims bottle be something?
I should say again: there's plenty of evidence that American glasshouses were manufacturing embossed flint glass bottles, including medicine bottles, very early (probably pre-revolution), and probably in some cases in significant amounts. Some of the earliest evidence for that is related to pre-revolution disputes, legal cases, etc, about evasion of duties and so on, I believe that even Robert Turlington himself complained about copies of his bottles being made in the US for sale to druggists, etc (need to track that reference down again to be sure).
But the US bottle glass industry was limited in capacity well into the early 19th century (as the famous Dr Dyott himself discovered, and so had to set up his own glassworks as a result).
By the way, that great little Honble Lady Hill bottle is probably an American made example, copying the British ones which are flint glass, solid pontil, etc, etc. There's a long list of medicines and other products that started out as 100% British, and which were exported to the US in British made bottles, but which were quickly copied in the US, and sold in copied bottles. These include, amongst others:
- Turlingtons Balsam
- Balsam of Honey
- Dalby's Carminative
- Essence of Peppermint
- Mounsey's Salts
- Buchans Hungarian Balsam (probably - I haven't yet seen one that I'm really confident is British, although I've got a flint glass example)
- Rowlands Macassar Oil
and so on.
Copied bottles for use in the US were sometimes ordered from British glasshouses by the American retailers and exported empty from the UK, and sometimes were manufactured by US glasshouses. So for all of these, there are British bottles and US bottles to be found. The US bottles as a rule copied at least the aproximate shape and size of the British originals.
Turlingtons is an example of a medicine where both almost certainly happened from as early as the 18th century. There was probably a trend for the majority of these bottles to be imported from Britain early on, but for the home-grown copies to become more dominant as time went on and the glass industry in the US became better established. Certainly by the mid 19th century Dalby's, Turlingtons, and so on made in the US in a characteristically US style are far more common than British made ones, or ones that copied the British style.
But to add to the confusion quite a few British medicines and other products continued to be imported to the US throughout the 19th century, in British bottles, and don't seem to have been copied in the US or sold in American made bottles. Why? I've got no idea. Daffy's Elixir is an example (It would be a real surprise to ever see a definitively American Daffy's bottle, but I live in hope).
If anyone isn't confused yet, there are other types of situations which seem to have gone on as well. Church's Cough Drops, for example, is a nightmare.
Dr Church started selling his medicines in London but emigrated to Philadelphia before 1800. He left the British rights to his medicine to a company in London (Shaw & Co, later Shaw & Edwards, and then finally Edwards alone) but manufactured and sold his cough drops himself in the US, both in Philadelphia and within a few years in New York. The company seems to have continued to use British made bottles in the US for many years - several decades in fact - and may even have used both British made and US made (aqua, small OP) bottles alongside each other.
But British Church's Drops bottles from Shaw & Co, and from Shaw & Edwards, and E.Edwards, turn up quite regularly in the eastern US so they were obviously being imported even while Dr Church himself was marketing his own stuff in the US. There are also British style generic Church's Drops bottles (no company name, only "Church's // Patent // Cough Drops // London") that turn up, identical, on both sides of the Atlantic. They are almost certainly British made, but it's impossible to know if those found in America were sent there full or empty. There's only one flint glass Church's bottle that I know of only from the US: "Church's // Improved // Cough Drops // London". I've never yet seen a Church's bottle embossed with either the New York of Philadelphia addresses: seems that even the US operation retained the 'London' embossing (check out the labelled example in the photo. It's got the 'Improved' version of the embossing which so far I only know of from the US).
On the subject of transatlantic trade: Swaim's Panacea was advertised in London as early as the 1820s, but I've never heard of an early Swaim's bottle being found here. Wouldn't a British made 1820s Swaims bottle be something?
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deepbluedigger
Well-Known Member
deepbluedigger
Well-Known Member
Yeah, I'm pretty permanently confused about which bottles are British and which are American, but it gets worse. You know those 6-sided colognes from J.M.Farina/Cologne?
Here's a page from an 1849 catalogue for a glass bottle works in my home town of York in northern England. Copying of bottles from one country in the glasshouses of another was a pretty widespread practice, it seems.
Here's a page from an 1849 catalogue for a glass bottle works in my home town of York in northern England. Copying of bottles from one country in the glasshouses of another was a pretty widespread practice, it seems.
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kungfufighter
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Nice bottle Joe! Yours is almost certainly an American made example IMHO.
tigue710
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That's a brain teaser for sure, I've dug those perfumes in thin window glass, (aqua) and heavy and thin clear glass with tubular pontils and sheared or inward rolled lips while also finding them with solid bar and fluted or sheared lips in heavy and thin clear glass! I believed they were made here, across the pond and in other eouropean countries... Who knows!
That a sweet little bottle joe, I would guess English until I saw the tubular pontil... I guess there isn't a rule, maybe just a loose guide line to probability, while still some glass you can just tell anyway... Now I'm questioning my own judgement!
That a sweet little bottle joe, I would guess English until I saw the tubular pontil... I guess there isn't a rule, maybe just a loose guide line to probability, while still some glass you can just tell anyway... Now I'm questioning my own judgement!
JOETHECROW
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Thanks Jeff,...and everyone else, for the input, (I hold all of your opinions in high esteem)... and this great thread...I've got this little devil right in front of me, and am amazed everytime I look at it that I was lucky enough to dig it...even though it's been 30 years ago...I need to put it back in the showcase...love all the crude english/american examples showing up on here....Please keep them coming.
earlyglasscollector
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...going back to this bottle that started this super thread, my very first thought was that it was unusual in two respects. Unusual for English that is. First it's length, unusual to see on equite so long and narrow. We usually only see that form and proportion in early 19thC clear glass lead phials. Second is the colour, not in itself of course but that it is th later long bodied form in a dark aqua that we are far more used to seeing in 18thC.
SO.....I'm going to suggest, and this is going to throw you again, there IS a possibility it could be American?......what do you think Jerry?
This is an excellent thread as several have said. It's been really refreshing to have loads og guys chatting about good early stuff, throwing ideas and suggestions and examples of different aspects back and forth for discussion....and do you know the best bit? NOT ONCE has anyone here asked what the value of anything is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We wouldn't find that in aUK forum![X(]
egc
blade
Well-Known Member
Do any of you guys or gals know who ended up with the Braddee bottle ?
CazDigger
Well-Known Member
I believe it went to Jim Chebalo from PA. aka Medflask on ebay
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