Rainy day project...

[JOETHECROW]

Dale,...My morbid curiosity got the better of me, and I went and looked up bilharzia,..(Actually pretty scary stuff,...I wonder if there was ever a quack cure for that![])...why not, They had sure cures for malaria,....etc. Anyhow, It looks as though you have a pretty interesting and impressive collection of antique bottles and go withs,...I find it interesting, and I'm sure there are things around Cape town that we've never heard of,....(bottles and creatures), I've always been fascinated with English/Australian bottles, (actually with the fantasy of traveling and digging them),...so it's doubly interesting to see your bottles and hear your stories...Laur goes through phases, coming over here to the forum, then not, so not sure about the p.m.[] Long of tooth, eh? Do you still dig? I'd love to see a close up of that window behind you... and thanks for sharing your cool stuff....I wonder what possible occasion they would make a figurine of the woman on the 'loo' for?[]

 

[SAbottles]

Hi, Joe - yes, your "morbid curiosity" ! Actually they can't really cure bilharzi, they just treat it. Wouldn't imagine the Victorians knew much about it, especially as they thought you got malaria from "sleeping under a fever tree" ! Don't know why they would have made the lady figurine, but then the Victorians & Edwardians were a rather kinky lot behind the scenes ! And talking of behinds ... here's another little whimsy. The baby peers out from the egg -

 

[SAbottles]

but turn it around and you get this ...

 

[SAbottles]

Will very happily show more pictures of collection if you like, but I feel I have rather hijacked what was your thread !

 

[JOETHECROW]

Well,...hey, it is under displaying and photographing,...[] (Or simply start another and I'll do my best to hijack that one...

 

[SAbottles]

OK, Joe, happy to oblige. As we were just a little colony, we tended to get the more utilitarian containers etc and not that many of the real exotics. I echo the sentiments expressed on another thread that, when viewing an incredible cabinet full of coloured historical flasks, one feels like hiding one's own collection away in the cellar !! But realistically one accepts that you can only dig & collect what is available (at least if you don't have pockets as deep as Bill Gates's !) I have been lucky enough to dig on some good sites here in Cape Town and also further afield around SA. (I was also fortunate enough to do a bit of digging in England and Wales in the 90s.) Here are a few photos of what I have accumulated; first that "blue window" you asked about. (By flashlight as it is late evening here now)

 

[SAbottles]

As an ex-English teacher, I have mildly specialised in inks and here are some of them:

 

[SAbottles]

We also find some quite nice transfer printed ointments:

 

[SAbottles]

and we do find some earlyish things. This is a green body unguent bottle:

 

[SAbottles]

with quite a pronounced pontil scar -