GRAVITATING STOPPER FROM THE 1860s. POSSIBLE FIND OF A LIFETIME?

[.Jamieson.]

I found this bottle a couple days ago on the surfaceof an old railroad dump . This is both the oldest and rarest bottle i've ever found! This is an old John Mathews Gravitating stopper from 1864. On the bottom of said bottle, it shows the pattent date "OCT 11 1864 NEW YORK" which is the oldest of the many pattent dates. (for this bottle design)

After a bunch of research, I was only able to find 2 other bottles exactly like this one. I am guessing that there's very few known to exist! I was hoping if anyone would be willing to help me confirm that this is indeed a very rare bottle!

.Jamieson.

 

[hemihampton]

Most people will want a name on bottle & town it's from. No name or town greatly reduces price or desirability. Leon.

 

[CanadianBottles]

As far as I know, most (if not all) of the gravitating stopper bottles have the 1864 date on the base, so that doesn't mean that yours is unusually early. It's still likely a pretty rare one, but I wouldn't say find of a lifetime - that Keegan Hutch you posted earlier is probably a better find because it's got the full embossing and it's from a pretty small town. These initialed bottles are better finds when you can connect them with a specific bottler, but it looks like yours doesn't have an attribution yet. I don't know if you found it in Winsted, I don't see any Winsted bottlers with M names listed on sodasandbeers.com but there are a couple in Torrington, so maybe Meissner or Minetto?

 

[hemihampton]

I also think the Keegan Hutch a better find. The Hutchs came out just after the Gravitating stopper bottle & I would say replaced them. Leon.

 

[.Jamieson.]

Most people will want a name on bottle & town it's from. No name or town greatly reduces price or desirability. Leon.

View attachment 254088

Well that's a bummer! After some intense research though, I found out that the M stands for Martisco NY.

 

[UncleBruce]

This is a MATTHEWS bottle that is local to me. It also has the same embossing on the base as I believe all do.

I found this bottle a couple days ago on the surface of an old railroad dump. This is both the oldest and rarest bottle I've ever found! This is an old John Mathews Gravitating stopper from 1864. On the bottom of said bottle, it shows the patent date "OCT 11 1864 NEW YORK" which is the oldest of the many patent dates. (for this bottle design)

 

[DeepSeaDan]

Congratulations on your find!

Here are two of my gravs, fresh out of the tumbler. The grav-style of stopper was quite popular up here in Ontario, but almost non-existent in the rest of Canada. The one on the right is quite rare, with only one other example known. I suspect these were made some time in the 1870's. I'm with UncleBruce in believing that all manufactured "Gravitator" type bottles have the Matthews patent stamp on the base.

 

[Old sodas]

insanely cool bottle, where did you find it?

 

[CanadianBottles]

I was looking through the list of bottlers who used gravitating stoppers and had names starting with M earlier to see if I could find any likely matches, didn't find any obvious ones but I did find confirmation that there are some gravitating stopper bottles out there without the standard Matthews base embossing. Here's one where the bottler's name is embossed on the base instead, with the sides blank (which is pretty weird for a US soda bottle in general) http://www.sodasandbeers.com/SABShowBottle.aspx?Bottle=64469AA&Firm_Number=64469 Quite a few others on sodasandbeers which are described as having blank bases as well.

 

[hemihampton]

Yeah, I have to disagree with the All Mathews Gravitating Stopper Bottles have The Mathews info embossed on bottom, I have some that due & some that don't & have dug some in privies with out it on bottom but still having a Hutchinson Stopper intact, which I assume was converted afterwards. Pic of my P. Wolf from Detroit Gravitating Stopper Bottle. Dug in a trash pit containing about 20 1870's laid on ring lips Flask. This still had the original Gravitating glass stopper with rubber seal intact when dug as seen in pics. But no Mathews embossing on the bottom. Leon.