Great Western Glass Works research

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westKYdigger

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Great Western Glass Works flaskOne of my favorite aspects of collecting old glass is doing the research on a piece to find its history. Occasionally I will come across an item that, at first appearance, seems to be nothing special, but when I start looking for its origins, I’m led to all sorts of fascinating side stories. I almost didn’t come home with this flask, because when I first picked it up, it looked too new & felt too heavy to be TOC. It felt more like a leaded glass decanter. I had only picked it up to get to some tooled tops I had spotted behind it. As I was putting it back on the shelf, out of habit I took a closer look at the color, top, seams and base. The color is clear (again, I thought leaded glass). The seams stopped at the shoulder. The base is embossed ‘G/Patent date Jan 16, 1883/W’. Given that date, I assumed the top would be tooled or applied. It seemed to be tooled, but there is what looks like a seam or crease around the top of the collar. This was new to me, so I brought it home, along with a variety of others. I love old junk shops. The first thing I did was find the patent. Patent applied for Nov 17, 1882 & approved Jan 16, 1883. The interesting part is the assignment to Great Western Glass Works of St. Louis, hence the GW on the base. Now that I know the maker, my next stop was glassbottlemarks.com. Thanks to David Whitten & his excellent documentation at http://www.glassbottlemarks.com/great-western-glass-company-st-louis-missouri/ for the info here.[ul][*] Established 1874. Make druggist’s flint prescription bottles & flasks. Capacity 300 boxes/day. (1882-1883 Year Book of the Commercial, Banking, and Manufacturing Interests, Vol. 1, St Louis)[*] Building in St Louis torn down by Busch to build more modern plant. Location listed as Third & Barton. (Iron & Machinery World, 12/27/1890)[/ul] This gave me a way to narrow down the dates of a search. I like to use the Library of Congress website ‘Chronicling of America’ http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ and search the digitized newspapers. Here is a time line of the company, based on newspaper articles:[ul][*]Fire reported. Location listed as the corner of Jackson & Barton. (The County Paper, Oregon, Missouri, 2/24/1881).[*]45 boys struck for higher wages on 4/26/1886. Closed shop. (Dailey Telegraph, Monroe, La 4/27/1886)[*]In full operation again. 75 boys employed. (Daily Globe, St. Paul , Minn., 4/28/1886) Just one day later.[*]Closed, all hands discharged as of 11/27/1886. (Dodge City Times, Dodge City, Iowa, 12/2/1886)[*]First glass produced by Paola Glass Company of Paola, Kansas, 10/13/1887. Great Western Glass Company of St Louis moved works to Paola several months earlier, built buildings, moved workers into town. The move was made to take advantage of the gas wells recently dug in the town. (Barton County Democrat, Great Bend, Kansas, 10/20/1887)[*]Paola Glass sued Paola Gas Company. Gas Company did not supply agreed upon amount of gas to fire plant. Paola Glass only open for about 10 months. President Leach & Secretary de Cordova are the same for Great Western Glass & Paola Glass. Paola Glass won the case in District court, but the verdict was overturned by the Kansas Supreme Court on 4/11/1896. (American & English Corporate Cases, New Series, Volume 4, 1896) I found this by searching Google Books. That was the last reference I could find that involved Great Western Glass Works or Paola Glass Company.[*]The Great Western Glass Company of Ottawa incorporated in Springfield, Illinois (The Commoner, Lincoln, Neb, 1/24/1902). This company has different executives than the ’Works’, so I am assuming there is no connection. Great Western Glass Company opened a plant in Bartlesville, Oklahoma Indian Territory, in 1904.[/ul] So, back to this flask, I have narrowed the manufacture date to between 1883 & 1886 in St Louis. But this still does not answer the original question of the lip. For a quick refresher course in finishes, I went to http://www.sha.org/bottle/finishes.htm, probably the best resource on the web for detailed info on bottles from 1800’s to now. A closer examination of the neck shows the marks consistent with a standard tooled top. The seams stop before the beginning of collar & there are horizontal striations around the neck. There are no seams in the inside of the top and there is no excess glass along the bottom edge of the collar. However, the top of the collar appears to have a seam between the neck and the collar. Is it possible that the neck of the flask extended to the top of the applied lip and the seam around the top surface shows the thickness of the neck? And the tool used to finish the application just happened to extend past the collar onto the neck? Or is the seam actually just a crease or fold in the glass? Has anyone seen anything like this? Also, can anyone suggest other sources for historical data research?
 

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sandchip

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The general shape reminds me of the only known example of the seated Liberty flask in the Toledo Museum of Art.
 

westKYdigger

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sandchip said:
The general shape reminds me of the only known example of the seated Liberty flask in the Toledo Museum of Art.
I agree, but the glass is much thicker than any other flask I have handled. Tim
 

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