A friend gave me this George Schaumloeffell bottle dug in Trenton, NJ last year. George was a German immigrant who migrated in 1882. He became one of the more successful later German brewers and bottlers in Trenton, NJ, his business lasting up to prohibition.
What's more interesting about this bottle from about 1890 is the "squat" style, usually more associated with the 1850s and 60s. Though the style was still popular up through the mid 1870s the style was rarely used after 1880. It brings up the issue of accurately dating bottles. I spend some time the last two years doing some research into how to accurately date Victorian era bottles. Shape I found isn't an accurate dating method. The 1850s was the hey day of blue sodas. Green was very popular during the 1840s, 50s, 60s but generally disappeared by the 1880s. Some areas of the country like the south east carried older styles up through the 1880s.
Applied lips appear on bottles up through the mid 1890s. Applied tooled lips are common as early as the 1860s. But completely tooled lips don't appear until the about the mid 1880s.
The jury isn't out on pontiling. Glass houses were very secretive about their methods. There is very little reliable documentation on glass making techniques for common bottles of the mid Victorian era. Definitely glass houses were producing pontil and not pontiled versions of the same bottles during the same time period. I have an example or two blown in the same mold.
What's more interesting about this bottle from about 1890 is the "squat" style, usually more associated with the 1850s and 60s. Though the style was still popular up through the mid 1870s the style was rarely used after 1880. It brings up the issue of accurately dating bottles. I spend some time the last two years doing some research into how to accurately date Victorian era bottles. Shape I found isn't an accurate dating method. The 1850s was the hey day of blue sodas. Green was very popular during the 1840s, 50s, 60s but generally disappeared by the 1880s. Some areas of the country like the south east carried older styles up through the 1880s.
Applied lips appear on bottles up through the mid 1890s. Applied tooled lips are common as early as the 1860s. But completely tooled lips don't appear until the about the mid 1880s.
The jury isn't out on pontiling. Glass houses were very secretive about their methods. There is very little reliable documentation on glass making techniques for common bottles of the mid Victorian era. Definitely glass houses were producing pontil and not pontiled versions of the same bottles during the same time period. I have an example or two blown in the same mold.
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