Pontil Chips

[NCdigger5]

How much do pontil chips take away from the value of a bottle, if at all?

 

[sloughduck]

From my point of view,they shouldn't as the pontil is where the rod was broken off.Only problem I could see is if the snapping off produced a crack in the base.

 

[AntiqueMeds]

matters...
if its just a chip not much affect. The empontilling process is chipping in itself.
if its a crack that could migrate that's worse.
If it extends out to the corner of the base, that hurts the value.
Keep in mind all pontil marked bottles are early and somewhat unique so its hard to make general statements about them.

 

[botlguy]

ORIGINAL: sloughduck

From my point of view,they shouldn't as the pontil is where the rod was broken off.Only problem I could see is if the snapping off produced a crack in the base.

I agree that it shouldn't make ANY difference and as a Flask collector it doesn't matter a whit to me as it is an "in manufacturing feature" to me. There ARE those that it matters a great deal to. It is a matter of: "to each his own". As the duck says, a crack is a different issue altogether.

 

[AntiqueMeds]

in any case it should still be mentioned in the description if you are selling a bottle.

 

[botlguy]

ORIGINAL: AntiqueMeds

in any case it should still be mentioned in the description if you are selling a bottle.

Absolutely, positively.

 

[RED Matthews]

Hello NCdigger5 and sloughduck; I don't know if this is going to work but I put together a review of pun tee rod empontilling
that should give you some thoughts on your posted concerns. I hope it works. RED Matthews

The use of an iron puntee rod for empontiling some bottles required a puntee with a mushroom type of end, of a diameter large enough to hold the weight of the bottle being made.

This puntee was heated in the glory hole at the shop making the bottle. The attendant to the bottle-maker had the responsibility to have the working end of the rod heated, and then, he had to dip the facing edge of the mushroom head in a sticky paste around that facing edge, so that edge would pick up from box holding the glass chips and glass dust, that was to be used to hold the bottle.

When the bottle was ready for empontiling the bottle-maker would have it turning on the rails of his chair and then hold it still, while his assistant put the puntee rods working end - on the bottom center of the hot bottle. The bottle-maker would then chill the neck of the bottle and tap his blowpipe so it would break off.

Then the attendant handed the puntee rod handle with the bottle mounted on it - to the bottle maker. After that the neck glass was reheated and a ribbon of glass could be applied to the finish and the finish glass was tooled to the proper shape for use.

The bottle was then released to the handler, with his fork tool, on the neck. The punty rod was tapped and the bottle released from the puntee rod – the was carried to the annealing furnace. The annealing reheated the bottle and let it slow cool to the ambient room temperature. This annealing; releases the cords of stress developed in the process of forming the hot metal into the final product objective.

If these cords of stress were not relieved, the product could explode in breakage under conditions of shock impact, and/or, temperature change

Here are some pictures of glass chip pontil marks:


The picture didn't transfer - sorry about my lack of understanding these darn computers. RED M.


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