Do you know ?

[Flaschenfinder]

Hi to all,

below you can see the bottom of an old bottle I found in Kildare, Ireland. Does anyone have a clue what the emblem means and from where it might come from ? I have found a similar emblem in the Internet where it says that this is the coat of arms ( do I use the right expression ?[8|] ) of the Gookin Family.

Thank you very much for your reply
Der Flaschenfinder aus Lüneburg

 

[Flaschenfinder]

Sorry, I forgot to upload

 

[Flaschenfinder]

....here the emblem of the Gookin Family

 

[Flaschenfinder]

Thanks for the Link, Diggerjeff ! The bottle is probably somehow related to Daniel Gookin who was living in Cork for a while between 1582 and 1632, but I could not found any hint to a distillery or something like that. Do I have by any means a chance to classify this piece by age or brand ? In case the photo is too bad: It´s dark green glass with airbulbs in it, I´ll try to take a better photo later on.

Greetings

Der Flaschenfinder aus Lüneburg - Germany -[]

 

[Harry Pristis]

You probably don't have a seal from 1632 or earlier. Roger Dumbrell in his UNDERSTANDING ANTIQUE WINE BOTTLES (1983) says:

The [British] 1636 Act forbidding the sale of wine by the bottle was an attempt to regulate the measure of wine received by the customer. After all no two bottles could be blown exactly alike and considerable discrepancies occurred. The Act meant that the vintner could now keep his wine in the cask and private individuals could have their bottles filled with the contents of an entire butt. The Act had more profound effects, however; it led to an immediate increase in the private use of the wine bottle and, what is even more important, it was fundamental in introducing the practice of 'sealing' one's bottles for, with so many bottles arriving at the vintner's for filling it was an obvious precaution to have them marked.

The earliest surviving seal bottle dates to 1637, and there are only several bottles though to be pre-1650.

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