Pontil?

[bend94]

Thanks a ton Red, i cant seem to find anything in my inbox though, but would love the information!

 

[glass man]

Even with the chip nice buy for 50 cents!!WAY TO GO!! I have been collecting since 1974 and now know I will never know all there is to know about bottles,but that keeps it freash and exciting!! MR. MATTHEWS knows so very much..he is a blessing on ere ..as are so many others !YOU FOUND A GREAT PLACE HERE!! If you can't find the answer here I doubt one cane found any where!! WELCOME!![&:]JAMIE

 

[RED Matthews]

Re: RE: Pontil?

Sorry Ben I must have gotten pulled away from what I was doing. Here it is - I hope: This is a collection of material information for newbee's in the hobby of Historic Bottle Collecting. There are several approaches to bottle collecting, and every one has a different interest, that keeps them going after bottles that represent their interest. My interest in putting this together; is to look at the development of bottle making and the methods that were used when the bottles were Hand-Made and Mouth-Blown. This is intended to mainly cover the bottles that were made in the development of the American Glass Making Industry, the first industry in our country.. New diggers and collectors, need to realize how to identify bottles that were made by Hand and Mouth-Blown vs the bottles that were made on an AUTOMATIC BOTTLE MACHINE (ABM). These glass items can be left for future collecting objectives; or recycled into the batch additive to today's glass production. If there are two vertical seams on the finish of the bottle, leave it or recycle it. The logic is the value isn't going to be worth taking it home; unless it is an unusual figural or fancy bottle. There are a lot of interesting bottles made later, but ones interest has to become more specialized. For example I have a bigcollection of large advertising bottles – that were never even filled. Whiskeys, beers, perfume, Coca Cola and many products. Multiple finish Wolfe bottles, and bottles that were made with special mold designs. So you can’t leave justification for saving others also.The number one thing to learn is how to identify and know Mouth Blown Bottles. One of the best things to learn is how to identify the pontil marks. #1 When a bottle has a round ring of glass on the bottom, it is telling us that the ring was made by having an empontiling done with the previous blow pipe with neck glass left on the end of that blow pipe. The diameters (inside and outside) will be about the same as the neck of the bottle under the finish. So this is a Blow pipe or Open Tube Pontil, on the bottom of your bottle. That previous blowpipe was laid on a rack by the glory hole to keep that glass tube end hot enough to stick to the next bottle. These are often referred to as: an open pontil but that is up to the collectors’ use of words.
#2 When the bottle has a contact mark on the bottom that illustrates that what was used to empontil it, that mark will be a round form with different textures in the mark. The mark is made by an iron punty rod and the diameter and style is different for: small to huge heavy glass bottles. These heated punty rods were often soft coated with a sticking agent like: graphite, red lead or white lead . The coated punty is then placed in; an open boxes with: powdered iron, glass chips, glass dust, sand, to mention the main ones. It is then stuck on the bottom of the new bottle to become a handle for the bottle-maker to apply glass to the neck of the empontilled bottle.
Some punties are even just coated with some hot glass from the melting crucible. Identifying the exact method of empontiling is not as important as just realizing it has been on a punty rod. #3 Now the last thing to look at is the finish on top of the bottle you are thinking of keeping. If the finish was applied hot glass it will be just a ring of glass or it might have lines going around it and down on the neck of the bottle indicating that a pinch action tool had been inserted in the neck and the hot glass rotated to shape the hot glass, that was put on the neck. In this looking at your bottle or jar – if you see two vertical mold lines on that finish – then it was made on an ABM (Automatic Bottle Machine) and left for a future collector. The only exception is if the bottle is a unique figural or has some other indications of being a collectors item. This will come after you have more experience. This is no doubt enough to get you on a good road. Clarence RED MatthewsMy email: <bottlemysteries@yahoo.com>
My homepage: http:www.bottlemysteries.com/welcome

 

[RED Matthews]

Re: RE: Pontil?

Well I am glad you got the one you did. The open pontils like yours are called puff's also because that is all the air it took to blow them. I am still working on a blog for pontil marks but my computer and camera aren't cooperating very good. I recently got some bottles with steel bands on them that all have what is called a sticky pontil, where some pasty material was used on a punty rod. I realize that they used a lot of different medias on the punty rods. They had a lot of choices, from graphite, to mold iron dust, to glass chips and dust, to other materials - but the books do not tell us everything. RED Matthews