Identification Needed Please

[Semar]

I've been told this is an Opium bottle, 2 1/2"; but from what I've read Opium was a gooey substance that probably wouldn't need a bottle unless it was a liquid decoction.
Is anyone familiar with this bottle; it has a sheared lip.
Semar

 

[Hezezilla]

I've been told this is an Opium bottle, 2 1/2"; but from what I've read Opium was a gooey substance that probably wouldn't need a bottle unless it was a liquid decoction.
Is anyone familiar with this bottle; it has a sheared lip.
Semar

Here in Hawaii, we sometimes find ornate opium or pill bottles. It may have also been a snuff bottle or something else. It's a mystery for sure. Considering it's size and appearance, I can't imagine it being anything else.

 

[CanadianBottles]

Every small East Asian bottle gets referred to as an "opium bottle" sometimes, but it's just one of those persistent myths that as far as I know has no truth behind it (except maybe in the sense that a lot of western patent meds could be considered "opium bottles"). Like you say, opium is a thick tarry substance and this sort of bottle is about the worst imaginable container for it. Every credible historic source I've seen says that opium came in cans.

As far as I know most of the small Chinese bottles are meds, this design I'm not familiar with though. I'm actually not even sure it's an Asian bottle. I usually associate those burst lip bottles with the UK, whereas the Chinese and Japanese bottles I'm familiar with were tooled, applied, or had a type of sheared top which left the lip totally flat that I've never seen on western bottles. I wonder if this could be some sort of cheap British perfume bottle with an orientalist motif? Not sure if they used burst tops on even the cheapest perfume bottles though.

 

[Semar]

Hi CanadianBottles.
It was the orientalist motif that made me think it might be from Asia. Thanks for your input on the subject.
The mystery continues.

 

[timeandabottle]

You can do a google search for drawing a Chinese character using your mouse and if you do a good enough job, it does a translate to English for you. This one looks simple enough so I bet it would work for you.

Handwritten Chinese input

Handwritten Chinese input

www.qhanzi.com