Extereme Bottle Noob!! Help!

[imukdiver]

You can try cleaning with some aquarium gravel. Use the ROUNDED OFF stuff, so as not to add scratches. I usually fill the bottle 1/4 full with a mixture of gravel, some limeaway, and a lil water. Cap off with finger or whatever and shake for about 5 minutes. It gets most of the cloudiness out, but not all. Also I wouldn't recommend this for thin sided bottles, just the thick heavy walled sodas and beers.

 

[Btl_Dvr]

Hey SkinsFan36,
Where are you located? I'm in Wilmington.
Jay

 

[RED Matthews]

BTW, this site is really cool. Been browsing and reading on things like people's digs and discoveries. I feel myself catching a bottle fever lol.

Hello Steve and welcome to our unique group of people that like items made out of glass. I have worked in the glass world 76 of my 83 years, The history of this effort is outlined some in my homepage. I have a little write-up of some of the early things you will need to review before you discard the wrong old bottles. It is what I call a newbie review.

This is a collection of material information for newbee's in the hobby of Historic Bottle Collecting. There are several approaches to bottle collecting, and every one has a different interest, that keeps them going after bottles that represent their interest. My interest in putting this together; is to look at the development of bottle making and the methods that were used when the bottles were Hand-Made and Mouth-Blown. This is intended to mainly cover the bottles that were made in the development of the American Glass Making Industry, the first industry in our country.. New diggers and collectors, need to realize how to identify bottles that were made by Hand and Mouth-Blown vs the bottles that were made on an AUTOMATIC BOTTLE MACHINE (ABM). These glass items can be left for future collecting objectives; or recycled into the batch additive to today's glass production. If there are two vertical seams on the finish of the bottle, leave it or recycle it. The logic is the value isn't going to be worth taking it home; unless it is an unusual figural or fancy bottle. There are a lot of interesting bottles made later, but ones interest has to become more specialized. For example I have a bitg collection of large advertising bottles – that were never even filled. Whiskeys, beers, perfume, Coca Cola and many products. Multiple finish Wolfe bottles, and bottles that were made with special mold designs. So you can’t leave justification for saving others also.
The number one thing to learn is how to identify and know Mouth Blown Bottles. One of the best things to learn is how to identify the pontil marks.
#1 When a bottle has a round ring of glass on the bottom, it is telling us that the ring was made by having an empontiling done with the previous blow pipe with neck glass left on the end of that blow pipe. The diameters (inside and outside) will be about the same as the neck of the bottle under the finish. So this is a Blow pipe or Open Tube Pontil, on the bottom of your bottle. That previous blowpipe was laid on a rack by the glory hole to keep that glass tube end hot enough to stick to the next bottle. These are often referred to as: an open pontil but that is up to the collectors’ use of words.
#2 When the bottle has a contact mark on the bottom that illustrates that what was used to empontil it, that mark will be a round form with different textures in the mark. The mark is made by an iron punty rod and the diameter and style is different for: small to huge heavy glass bottles. These heated punty rods were often soft coated with a sticking agent like: graphite, red lead or white lead . The coated punty is then placed in; an open boxes with: powdered iron, glass chips, glass dust, sand, to mention the main ones. It is then stuck on the bottom of the new bottle to become a handle for the bottle-maker to apply glass to the neck of the empontilled bottle.
Some punties are even just coated with some hot glass from the melting crucible. Identifying the exact method of empontiling is not as important as just realizing it has been on a punty rod.
#3 Now the last thing to look at is the finish on top of the bottle you are thinking of keeping. If the finish was applied hot glass it will be just a ring of glass or it might have lines going around it and down on the neck of the bottle indicating that a pinch action tool had been inserted in the neck and the hot glass rotated to shape the hot glass, that was put on the neck. In this looking at your bottle or jar – if you see two vertical mold lines on that finish – then it was made on an ABM (Automatic Bottle Machine) and left for a future collector. The only exception is if the bottle is a unique figural or has some other indications of being a collectors item. This will come after you have more experience. This is no doubt enough to get you on a good road. RED Matthews <bottlemysteries@yahoo.com>


So feel free to email me if you have questions. Your bottle pictures look good the glass looks a little sick but well worth cleaning and maybe even a tumbling servicing. Welcome to this FORUM. RED M.

 

[SkinsFan36]

ORIGINAL: Btl_Dvr

Hey SkinsFan36,
Where are you located? I'm in Wilmington.
Jay

I'm in Ocean Isle Beach just south of you. Are you the WB diver that found the Robert Portner Bottle like the one in my first pic?

And much thanks to you RED for the info and help!

 

[SkinsFan36]

ORIGINAL: imukdiver

You can try cleaning with some aquarium gravel. Use the ROUNDED OFF stuff, so as not to add scratches. I usually fill the bottle 1/4 full with a mixture of gravel, some limeaway, and a lil water. Cap off with finger or whatever and shake for about 5 minutes. It gets most of the cloudiness out, but not all. Also I wouldn't recommend this for thin sided bottles, just the thick heavy walled sodas and beers.

Thanks. How about that barkeepers friend stuff? Would that scrub off the deposits inside as well if I added it to the gravel mix?

 

[carobran]

Not sure if it would do any good or not,sure couldn't hurt though.Just DO NOT mix the Bar Keepers Friend with the Lime Away.

 

[Btl_Dvr]

Hey SkinsFan,
I might be, I've found about 6-8 different variations of the portner bottles. I know one was found near Wrightsville Beach where the old trolly used to run.
Jay

 

[SkinsFan36]

ORIGINAL: Btl_Dvr

Hey SkinsFan,
I might be, I've found about 6-8 different variations of the portner bottles. I know one was found near Wrightsville Beach where the old trolly used to run.
Jay

I was asking because on my original search for info on the bottle I ran across this

http://www.ncdivers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=5049

Thought it may have been you after you replied

 

[SkinsFan36]

ORIGINAL: carobran

Not sure if it would do any good or not,sure couldn't hurt though.Just DO NOT mix the Bar Keepers Friend with the Lime Away.

I'll keep that in mind, thanks.

 

[DugZ]

THANK YOU Red Matthews! And to all bottle vets out there on this site! Just some more kudos from another nubie. Thank you for helping and making us feel welcome. (well, aside from the "coating" incedent) All is Good!!! Thanks again.