Hi. I was wondering if anyone could tell me about how old this bottle is and if it has an open pontil on the bottom? Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!
Sorry about the photo..I'll take another one..I keep having to resize them. The bottle says "F. Brown's Ess of Jamaica Ginger Philada. How do you tell if a bottle is open pontiled? Thanks!
Here is an open pontiled specimen... An open pontil refers to the jagged scar left behind from the bottle making process... a pontil rod is dipped in glass and attached to the base of a blown bottle, at which point the bottle is severed from the blow pipe... Then the glassblower finishes the lip of the bottle, then breaks free the pontil rod leaving either a ring scar (blowpipe pontil rod) or a flatish scar (solid pontil rod)...See the second photo...
By the way, there was an interesting article in the Winter issue of Bottles and Extras, the mag put out by FOBHC... All about "Jake" and the bottles that it came in...
Thank you for the info...I have another bottle I need help with. I can barely make it out but I think it says 1841 on the bottom. If anyone can tell me anything about it, I'd appreciate it. Like what kind of bottle it is, etc. There is a circle on the front of it I think this was where a label once was? Not sure.
Your ginger is one of the more common brands. It looks like it was made around the middle of the span that they were produced, maybe about 1870s to 1880s. It looks like a tooled lip so I would lean to the later date.
Not a high value bottle but still a nice early one.
In contrast, the pontil marked one is probably made around the 1850s-1860s period and worth about 8x as much.
The number on the whiskey is probably a mold number , not a date.