Help with old large pepper sauce bottle?

[shinhanga]

hi! I bought this bottle over 20 years ago at a flea market and was told it was a pepper sauce bottle. The shape is molded and slightly oval, and it has a blown lip and a rough pontil mark on the bottom. It’s 12” tall and about 4” wide at the base. Any ideas on the manufacturer, use (pepper sauce?), age, and/or possible value? I like the shape and I haven’t seen one exactly like it before, but maybe someone else out there has… Thanks for your help!

 

[Harry Pristis]

Yes, this bottle is known, though it is not common, apparently. I have one on my shelf, and I found a broken example in the Suwannee River (North Florida). Origin is uncertain. I did a search here for "beehive pepper sauce" to find a thread discussing this bottle. Here's the link:

What did this bottle have inside? Honey? Oil?

Hi Everyone, I picked this bottle up in an antique store for $5, 11 years ago in Lake Geneva, WI. Any idea what it contained? There's an open pontil and crude lip, and the bottle company's initials, but not sure how old it is. Any info or ideas would be great! Thanks! Paul

www.antique-bottles.net

 

[Harry Pristis]

The more I think about it, the more I think these beehive bottles may be made by the Brits, or with a strong British influence. "D & G" is the embossment on the open pontil scarred bottle. These days "D & G" is a brand of Jamaican non-alcoholic drinks.
I can't tie our beehive bottles to Jamaica precisely; but, consider that the "sand" pontil scar on my example is a British technique, not French (they produced a "disk" pontil scar), and not American. And, Jamaica was a British colony from 1655 to 1962.
What the Brits might have been exporting from Jamaica in the mid-to-late 1800s is just guesswork. But, that's my new hypothesis