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[Poeticallyinsane]

I have 13 bottles that dont have screw tops (is that the correct term for the threads at the top of the bottle?) Does that mean they are older then the bottles with screw tops? Does it depend on the seam and that alone? When did bottles stop using corks and stoppers (with the exception of some bottles now days)? Here is a pic to help, it it will help any.

 

[RedGinger]

None of those look like screw tops. You have some keepers there. What do the bottoms look like? I can't tell if any are embossed. I missed what you said. Screw tops are newer. Go back and dig more where you found those!

 

[cordilleran]

Krystal:

Generally, screw-top closures indicate an early Twentieth Century origin, with food bottles, ketchups, relishes, etc. serving as the earlier examples. Contemporary (then) with the automatic manufacture of utilitarian glassware, screwtops could be mass-produced at breakneck speed over earlier applied top technology. Although a seam needn't continue to the very apex of a screwtop bottle, they generally do.

With corkers, on the other hand, a bottle could be maufactured in a mold and the top (or lip) applied thereafter. Although I have seen countless corkers having been machine made, these are usually representative of late 19th, early-20th Century transitional glassmaking techniques.

As for the desirability of using corks (from the manufacturer's perspective) as a closure for most products, it becomes evident that it was cost-effective. Most products contained in corkers were for immediate, rather than long-term consumption and the chance of the cork enclosure drying out and losing its sealing ability was minimal. Most bottleheads will attest that they have found cork closure bottles after a century or more still having their original contents.

Dating bottles can be a little tricky for the novice, but there are some well-tested guidelines -- the seam (or lack thereof) being one of the most obvious.

No seams in a bottle can indicate that it was freeblown or alternatively, blown in a mold and finished by rapid turning while the glass was still in a molten state. This method of glassmaking has been around since Roman times and witnessed only marginal improvements over the next Millenia or so.
Seams that go only to the shoulder generally are the next oldest in this chronology and possess applied necks and lips. In sum, the higher the seam line toward the lip (or apex) of the bottle, the more recent lineage.

Dating bottles also requires looking at the base of the bottle; open-pontil, closed (or dimpled) pontil or graphite (or iron) pontil, each indicate a certain epoch of glassmaking technology.

Coloration is another valuable indicator although it in itself is not failsafe.

Black glass (various shades of dark brown or green) results as the natural fusion of glass and again, from an economic standpoint, the most desirable for glass manufacturers. To lend color to glass, elemental additives are needed and this costs additional money during manufacture. Although one can find black glass bottles crudely made from the early Twentieth Century, these are usually products of non-industrialized nations, Mexico and South America providing the most notable examples.

As a rule of thumb, black glass originating from so-called industialized nations (the United States, Great Britain) are representative of the 17th through early 19th Centuries.

By the 1840s, however, glassmaking in the United States was coming into its own attesting to the virtual explosion of consumer-related bottles containing a vast array of consumer goods. No longer was it necessary to recycle bottles because of their rarity and high cost. Bottles were now disposable and found their way to waste piles, outhouses or waterways.

Obviously, bottles from 1840 through 1860 command the most attention from collectors, particularly those with rare or intriguing embossing or unusual coloration. But do not be dismayed. For many niche collectors (those specializing in poisons, sodas and mineral waters, bitters, cure-alls) the period from 1860 through the mid-1880s, the so-called Golden Age of glass manufacture, turn up some real gems.

By the close of the Twentieth Century, many bottles became strictly utilitarian, sparing the cost of fanciful embossing for paper labels. With the advent of the crown closure in 1900 and coincidentally, the invention of the first practical automatic bottle machine, bottle manufacturers took advantage of technology to market their wares. Certainly corkers lingered into the Twentieth Century for over 20 years, eventually yielding to other closure methods such as screw tops.

Your bottles appear to represent first 15- to 20-years of the Twentieth Century. Although there is no hard rule here, should you place your bottles in direct sunlight I suspect some of them will turn amethystine (purple) over time. This is due to photochemical changes in the glass due to manganese content used as a glass "clearing agent" prior to 1917. With U.S. involvement in WWI, our manganese shipments were halted due to U-boat attacks. Purple glass (or shades therein) is a relatively good age indicator. Following 1917, or thereabouts (there may have been manganese stockpiles for some manufacturers) selenium was used as a clearing agent up until about 1930. Clear glass having selenium content will turn yellow (in varying shades) upon exposure to ultraviolet light. After 1930, clear glass remains clear no matter how long it lingers in direct sunlight.

That's my two-cents worth; hope it helps,

cordilleran

 

[jesster64]

Thank you cordilleran. That clears up a lot for me too. I've gone to other web sites and tried to understand bottle dating but I think you just explained it the easiest to understand yet. Pontils I understand, but I never got the seam part.

 

[tigue710]

o-boy... very well said and informative, but a lot of your information is wrong, and misleading...

most bottles blown from the period 1890 and onward were tooled finish bottles, and not applied lip bottles. Instead of adding extra glass the finisher simply tooled the glass left into the lip after separation from the blow pipe. Bottles were made in this fashion into the 20's when the last of the small glass houses were pushed out of business by the large corporate house which had adapted the automatic bottle machine.

The neck of the bottle rarely if not ever was applied to the bottle, just the lip, and as stated befor this process died out in the 1880's.

Many turn of the century screw top bottles were hand blown and then tooled, not machine made although the majority of screw tops were machine made. If the seam does not go all the way to the lip, it is a hand blown bottle.

The hieght of the seam on the bottle does not help in determining age, although a seam that goes all the way to the base of the lip indicates an applied lip, which would be older then a bottle with a seam that stops half way up the lip, indicating a tooled lip...

The crown top was invented 10 years before 1900, late 1880's or early 1890's, I cant rememberer the exact date...

a dimple in the base of a bottle is not a pontil, but resulted from a vent hole in the base of the bottle mold, there is no "closed pontil"...

I didnt read the rest....

 

[tigue710]

also your bottles would be slightly older then the majority of screw caps, although from a time when screw caps were becoming very popular. Most look to date from the 1905 - 1920 perod, a few look even later...

 

[GuntherHess]

It's amazing how many books had that seam "thermometer" diagram of bottle dating. Probably the biggest urban myth in bottle collecting.

Always keep in mind that dating techniques are general rules but there are many bottles that dont fit those rules (like pontilled Lubin bottles made in the 1890s or demijohns with applied lips made well after the turn of the century).
So research into the products is also important for dating.

 

[jamus]

Does anyone know what the corkers at the bottom contained?
Thanks

James

 

[tigue710]

shoe polish, glue, blacking, those types of products, but overwhelmingly shoe polish!

 

[JGUIS]

There ya go Krystal, now you're getting older stuff. Keep looking.[]