Old Soda? Bottle

[NewbieBottleHunter]

Here's a slightly different bottle from my small collection. It appears to be a soda bottle with a lip which I believe is called a "crown". This is the type of bottle top that I'm familiar with as it resembles the bottles that I drank out of (and returned for the deposit) when I was a kid (before the age of plastic).

From what I can find online this style of finishing dates from 1892 so that would seem to set a maximum age for this bottle. It is not too recent though as it still appears mouth-blown. There are several large bubbles along the side and it has a very thick and uneven base. I can clearly see, by the seams, that this was made in a 2-piece mold. The finish appears to have been added after molding and it is interesting that unlike the rest of my applied finish bottles this finish has two distinct mold lines as well (though they are about 90 degrees shifted from the main seems on the bottle). I'm guessing that this style of finish must have used some sort of clamping mold instead of the crazy looking contraptions that I've seen which were used to form the older finishes.

There is no embossing on the bottle sides (I'm guessing this type of bottle rarely would have been so decorated). On the "kicked-up" base there appears to be a very crude "13" which may mean something or be an irrelevant mark by the maker.

From what I'm learning I'm guessing that the bottle likely dates from the 1890s through maybe the 1910s and held some sort of carbonated beverage (likely soda). Sound about right?


-Newbie

 

[NewbieBottleHunter]

Here's a view of the applied finish. Hopefully you can see from the photo that the finish has mold lines and that they do not line-up with the lines on the body of the bottle (indicating a machine-made bottle which I would have left in the briney deep).

 

[NewbieBottleHunter]

This is a view of this bottle from the base. Maybe you can make out in the image the crude embossing of what appears to be "13". There also appears to be a raised mold seam around the foot so I'm guessing that a separate mold piece was used (possibly with varying embossings) to form the base.


I welcome any details this forum may be able to provide on this little bottle.



-Newbie

 

[MINNESOTA DIGGER]

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Old Soda? Bottle - 1/2/2013 10:43:17 AM   

NewbieBottleHunter
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this bottle looks machine made to me ,
 

Posts: 22
Joined: 12/13/2012
From: Southern Florida
Status: online Here's a slightly different bottle from my small collection. It appears to be a soda bottle with a lip which I believe is called a "crown". This is the type of bottle top that I'm familiar with as it resembles the bottles that I drank out of (and returned for the deposit) when I was a kid (before the age of plastic).

From what I can find online this style of finishing dates from 1892 so that would seem to set a maximum age for this bottle. It is not too recent though as it still appears mouth-blown. There are several large bubbles along the side and it has a very thick and uneven base. I can clearly see, by the seams, that this was made in a 2-piece mold. The finish appears to have been added after molding and it is interesting that unlike the rest of my applied finish bottles this finish has two distinct mold lines as well (though they are about 90 degrees shifted from the main seems on the bottle). I'm guessing that this style of finish must have used some sort of clamping mold instead of the crazy looking contraptions that I've seen which were used to form the older finishes.

There is no embossing on the bottle sides (I'm guessing this type of bottle rarely would have been so decorated). On the "kicked-up" base there appears to be a very crude "13" which may mean something or be an irrelevant mark by the maker.

From what I'm learning I'm guessing that the bottle likely dates from the 1890s through maybe the 1910s and held some sort of carbonated beverage (likely soda). Sound about right?

 

[MINNESOTA DIGGER]

this looks machine made , just a very primitive one as far as the 13 it does not mean anything i can think of , mold 13 maybe

 

[NewbieBottleHunter]

My understanding (limited at best) is that fully automated (machine made) bottle production could be detected by the seams of the bottle continuing up to and through the mouth of the bottle. That is to say that the bottle was completed in a single process leaving only one set of seams. All recent bottles seem to share this feature so I'm wondering could this bottle be from a transitional (early) machine made process? The copious large bubbles in the side and irregular thickness in the base would seem to indicate that they hadn't got all the bugs worked out if it was made on machine.

More information greatly appreciated.



-Newbie

 

[MINNESOTA DIGGER]

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Old Soda? Bottle - 1/2/2013 10:43:17 AM   

NewbieBottleHunter
Starting Member


 

Posts: 22
Joined: 12/13/2012
From: Southern Florida
Status: online Here's a slightly different bottle from my small collection. It appears to be a soda bottle with a lip which I believe is called a "crown". This is the type of bottle top that I'm familiar with as it resembles the bottles that I drank out of (and returned for the deposit) when I was a kid (before the age of plastic).

From what I can find online this style of finishing dates from 1892 so that would seem to set a maximum age for this bottle. It is not too recent though as it still appears mouth-blown. There are several large bubbles along the side and it has a very thick and uneven base. I can clearly see, by the seams, that this was made in a 2-piece mold. The finish appears to have been added after molding and it is interesting that unlike the rest of my applied finish bottles this finish has two distinct mold lines as well (though they are about 90 degrees shifted from the main seems on the bottle). I'm guessing that this style of finish must have used some sort of clamping mold instead of the crazy looking contraptions that I've seen which were used to form the older finishes.

There is no embossing on the bottle sides (I'm guessing this type of bottle rarely would have been so decorated). On the "kicked-up" base there appears to be a very crude "13" which may mean something or be an irrelevant mark by the maker.

From what I'm learning I'm guessing that the bottle likely dates from the 1890s through maybe the 1910s and held some sort of carbonated beverage (likely soda). Sound about right?

 

[soda bottle]

That is an early machine made crown top bottle. There is no tooling marks under the lip that would indicate an applied lip and also with an applied crown you would not see the line as the top was finished with a tool in a turning method, some crowns are hard to tell because the line is almost non-existant.
Heres a good site to read

 

[surfaceone]

My understanding (limited at best) is that fully automated (machine made) bottle production could be detected by the seams of the bottle continuing up to and through the mouth of the bottle. That is to say that the bottle was completed in a single process leaving only one set of seams. All recent bottles seem to share this feature so I'm wondering could this bottle be from a transitional (early) machine made process?

Hey Newbie,

I don't know where you're getting all this "understanding," but I've directed you to The BLM / SHA Site, elsewhere, and would really suggest that you read it thoroughly, if you're interested in learning about old glass bottles.

This is an early machine made soda or beer bottle, perhaps made on a semi-automatic machine.

From.

 

[NewbieBottleHunter]

Spectacular picture! Is that from the SHA site? It doesn't take to long googling "antique bottle" before you come across a link to the sha.org site and I've read bits and pieces of it. I guess I'll have to devote some time to digesting this site more thoroughly. My "understanding" about using the seam though the neck vs. stopping short of the finish was one of the first heuristic tools for quickly trying to classify bottles as older mouth-blown vs. machine made. This technique was taught to me by the people who introduced me to bottle hunting while diving. While underwater (usually in limited visibility and light) I've learned to look for more crude looking finishes without the contiguous seam and a "kick-up" on the base. Because of the limited time underwater (air, nitrogen, and cold limitations) you kinda have to do bottle triage to quickly decide if a bottle is worth adding to your goodie bag. I've learned through personal experience that a long surface swim back to the boat with a bag full of heavy, mud-filled bottles that turned out to be but a few years old is an excellent lesson on how to be a bit choosy underwater.

This early machine made soda/beer bottle may not be the oldest thing in my collection but I think it has a certain appeal and is an example of the evolution of the process of bottles from completely handmade to the billions of plastic bottles being made each year these days.

Thanks again for the recommendation for the SHA site. When I have some free time after my current project I'll try to digest the info on that informative site.


-Newbie