Mistake Bottles

[chosi]

I'm thinking about writing an article for my local bottle club newsletter (Potomac Pontil) about mistake bottles.
I have about a half-dozen local bottles that have mistakes in the embossing. Below is an example of one. It's a Crowley & Coleman squat blob top from Washington DC. The "H" in the word "WASHINGTON" is not crossed, so it just looks like "II".

I can't find any general information about mistake bottles like this one. Here are some questions I have:

1. Did a glass company show a bottler the finished mold (or slug plate) before cranking out a bunch of bottles? Or did a bottler see the finished product for the first time when his supply of completed bottles showed up?

2. About how many bottles did a typical beer/soda bottler order from a glass house at a time? Was it in the hundreds? So if there was a mistake in a mold, there would be hundreds of copies of the bottle going into circulation?

3. Did the bottler have to pay full price for the bottles if they had a mistake in them? Or did the glass house give a discount when they made a mistake?

4. Obviously bottlers seemed to use the mistake bottles, as evidenced by the fact that there are many mistake bottles out there today, and I often seen multiple examples of the same mistake bottle. But were there a lot of mistake bottles that were returned to the glass house & never used?

5. Are mistake bottles generally worth more to collectors? I usually offer extra money when I buy one, but maybe I'm a sucker.

6. Is there any kind of list of all the bottles with mistakes in the embossing out there?

7. Does anybody know of a particularly humorous mistake in a bottle's embossing?

 

[AntiqueMeds]

I'll take a shot at answers...

1. Did a glass company show a bottler the finished mold (or slug plate) before cranking out a bunch of bottles? Or did a bottler see the finished product for the first time when his supply of completed bottles showed up?
>considering that they spelled the proprietor's name wrong on many bottles I would say the buyer did not review the molds at least some of the time. I think people would at least know how to spell their own names. There may have been a review cycle on some bottles.

2. About how many bottles did a typical beer/soda bottler order from a glass house at a time? Was it in the hundreds? So if there was a mistake in a mold, there would be hundreds of copies of the bottle going into circulation?
> THe records I have seen typically indicated bottles shipped in multiples of a gross. There may have beed smaller specialty orders done in dozens but that would be a pretty tiny order. Custom molds were very expensive and it would seen foolish to have one made if you werent blowing at least hundreds of bottles.

3. Did the bottler have to pay full price for the bottles if they had a mistake in them? Or did the glass house give a discount when they made a mistake?
>>Hard to say for sure but my guess is no. What you have to consider is why they embossed bottles in the first place. They mostly did it to protect their brand/product from competitors and to get their bottles back. The embossing was not for the customer to see for the most part there would be a paper label for the customer. I dont think mistakes in embossing was really a big deal as long as you could basically still tell who produced the product.

4. Obviously bottlers seemed to use the mistake bottles, as evidenced by the fact that there are many mistake bottles out there today, and I often seen multiple examples of the same mistake bottle. But were there a lot of mistake bottles that were returned to the glass house & never used?
>> as I stated above I doubt embossing errors were that big a deal. Some more dilligent glass houses did appearently fix errors in molds but it seems most of the time they just used then till they wore out. I expect they used any bottle they received as long as it wasnt cracked and held a cork.

5. Are mistake bottles generally worth more to collectors? I usually offer extra money when I buy one, but maybe I'm a sucker.
>> as far as medicines go it doesnt increase the value a lot. Errors make bottles more interesting so the error version might bring a few dollars more. Battles cant be compared to stamps/coins were quality control is paramount and errors are rare.

6. Is there any kind of list of all the bottles with mistakes in the embossing out there?
> I note them on my medicine guide when I see then as variants. Never heard of a specific list of error bottles.

all just my own opinions for what they are worth. Others may have different info.

Hey what ever happened to the Potomac collectors website?

 

[bottlekid76]

Mysterious Pain Ease

Supposed to read... A Scotch Remedy

Scoth = v. To clothe or cover up

Kinda cool mistake [8D]

 

[chosi]

ORIGINAL: AntiqueMeds
Hey what ever happened to the Potomac collectors website?

It was brought down by a virus, and our webmaster hasn't had time to fix it. It may require an upgrade, which would require a lot of effort to migrate all the existing content. So if and when it returns, it may have lost some or all of the previous content.

 

[bottlekid76]

Hi Mike,

Did you ever have any luck finding any more info about the Haugstetter bottle?

All the best,
Tim

 

[chosi]

ORIGINAL: bottlekid76
Did you ever have any luck finding any more info about the Haugstetter bottle?

Nope, but I've got some vacation time I gotta use up in December, so I'll be doing some bottle research.
There's also an aqua squat with a round slug plate that says "KANOUSE / WASHINGTON / DC", that I haven't yet found any information on, so I've got lots of work to do.

 

[westernbittersnut]

I recently wrote a comprehensive detailed history on the early glass works operating in California. From my research I will venture to say that most glassworks sold their wares by the gross or 1/2 gross. A gross is a dozen, dozen or 144 in quantity.

 

[Ratzilla]

OK, I know they made mistakes on stuff, but you gotta wonder how this ever made through quality control (answer - I assume there wasn't any)...

 

[Ratzilla]

Pic didn't upload...

 

[Ratzilla]

All you had to do to read it was store your milk upside down...hope the lids were tight. Notice they made an actual error on the embossing as well, backwards 'N' in the town name. I've dug a lot of bottles with errors over the years, but this one is my all time favorite!