Pontiled Labeled Poison from the 20s?

[photolith]

Ive had this bottle forever, cant even remember where I got it from, think it was some flea market in Arkansas like ten years ago. Its always confused me, its pontiled but the glass doesn't look old like a pontil mid 1800s bottle should. Ive researched the druggist, George W. Schools Druggist, Lebanon, PA. Everything I've found for this druggist is articles from the 1910s-20s. Im thinking maybe he just happened to reuse this old pontil and slapped his labels on it in the 20's or so. OR possibly, druggist bottles were sometimes hand blown still until the 1910's but I don't think so. If anyone has seen anything like this before, Id love to know more.

Untitled by photolitherland, on Flickr

Untitled by photolitherland, on Flickr

Untitled by photolitherland, on Flickr

 

[slugplate]

That looks like an open pontil and I feel pretty confident that it's an older bottle that was being refilled by the druggist. Here you can find a great history of pontils. https://sha.org/bottle/pontil_scars.htm

 

[saratogadriver]

In my opinion, those pontiled apothecary bottles were blown later than some of the other pontiled bottles. Back in the day when we were still digging we found a couple of those in with later trash. With that said, it's clearly a reuse, as it originally had a glass stopper for one thing (you can see the inside of the neck is ground), and I don't think there's any way it was blown as late as that druggist was in business.

Jim G

 

[nhpharm]

George W. Schools was born on December 2, 1856 in Lebanon, Pennsylvania and died on June 24, 1934. He is listed as a druggist in Lebanon, Pennsylvania at least as early as 1891 (at the address on that bottle) and as a druggist clerk in 1880. As others have noted, stoppered apothecary jars were pontiled much later than normal mold blown glass, but I also suspect that this was a situation where he was reusing an earlier bottle. It's a cool piece!

 

[photolith]

^
thanks. Do you just use ancestry.com to find out that info? And that’s what I figured is that it’s about an 1860-70 bottle that was reused by this druggist later. He probably worked in a druggist store that has been in operation since the mid 1800s and probably had loads of old bottles to use.

 

[nhpharm]

Ancestry is a great resource and well worth the money in my opinion.

 

[photolith]

I have it through my job, I work in oil and gas title so I didn’t even think about using it to research bottles, guess that was dumb.

 

[nhpharm]

I use it all the time but unfortunately I have to pay for it myself. Great research tool to get background on bottles and other items.