Small 3-piece mold black glass bottle

[NewbieBottleHunter]

Here's another of my favorite black glass bottles from my most recent bottle hunting trip. The mold marks show that this was made in a 3-piece mold as the ring around the neck of the bottle and adjoining vertical lines are fairly apparent. From what I have learned online this bottle shows what I guess is termed "whittle" which I guess happens when the mold pieces are not up to the proper temperature and steam or some other process causes the wavy surface. You can also see that the lower portion of the bottle has some interesting wavy lines where the glass has a rougher, more matt surface texture. I'm going to guess that possibly this was not as visible when the bottle was made or used but that sitting underwater in marine mud for a century might be magnifying slight variations in the surface of the glass. I'm assuming that the pattern probably has little to do with the mold surface and probably more to do with the shape of the glass as it was blown into the bold.

The foot is rather warped and as a result the bottle does not stand perfectly straight. This irregularity gives the bottle character and with other rustic attributes is why it is one of my favorites. I'm guessing a bottle of this size (about the size of a modern beer bottle) would have held ale, ginger beer, or something similar. The bottle has a fairly regular applied finish to the top with little squeeze out but other than assuming it is pre-1900 I know little about the bottle's age or use.

 

[NewbieBottleHunter]

Another interesting feature of this bottle is it's base. I already mentioned that it's not quite even and the bottle lists slightly to one side. As can be seen in the accompanying image the bottom surface is very rough and has a bit of a circular depression in the middle. Could this possibly be a pontil scar? The bottles that I've found on my few forays into the collecting addiction seem to date to after pontils were traded for more mechanized methods of holding bottles to apply the lip and I wander if this bottle has evidence of the older method? All thoughts and inquiries welcome.


-Newbie

 

[Asterx]

Nice find. It's most likely an English ale bottle and I would call that base pontiled, although there are people who say nay and those that say yea. The matte areas are "haze" from being in contact with the elements for 100+ years. I am no expert on black glass so the only age window I can give is 1850's-1890's, with later being more likely Imho. Got to love the amount of character in those bottles though []

 

[NewbieBottleHunter]

Ale bottle was where I was leaning (with little but intuition to go on) as its usage. Thanks for the term "haze" I'll add that to my vocabulary when describing this bottle (or others) to friends and family. When you first start collecting (at that nascent stage is where I am at the moment), you end up crossing several milestones as your collection grows. My first trip out I had all to do to find some mouth-blown bottles from the background noise of Heineken and Amstel bottles (and worse recent wine bottles). Once I started to look for mold seams and understood the process of the applied finish I got pretty good at sussing-out the copious wine/champagne bottles that the British Navy (and I suspect others) tossed overboard. So first stage was simply finding something non-machine made and over a century old.

On my second outing and under the tutelage of experienced experts we were able to get into some really nice old trash (and by that I mean bottles). I passed the mile marks of finding my first "torpedo" bottle and first Codd bottle and this is where the hook was set on the addiction. While others in our group showed the difference experience makes as they pulled-up treasure after treasure from the deep, I kinda hit a plateau after my first two dives and found mostly wine and ale bottles on the third dive. Closer inspection of these bottles at the end of the dive showed that I had unknowingly crossed another threshold in that several of the bottles were made in 3-piece molds (which was another first for me).

Some of the bottles had a lot of rustic character (as can be seen by my other posts) but all seemed to be produced with the use of a "snap case" tool which means that most of my pre-1900 bottles date from the late 1800s. From what I can find researching online is that the use of a pontil rod was pretty much supplanted with the snap case method sometime in the 1850-60 time frame. Finding a bottle with a pontil scar would likely push the date of my oldest bottle back a couple of decades and would be another milestone in collection.

I'd love to hear from others to see if they think this base shows reasonably believable evidence of a pontil being used in its manufacture.


-Newbie

 

[TROG]

ORIGINAL: asterisk80

Nice find. It's most likely an English ale bottle and I would call that base pontiled, although there are people who say nay and those that say yea. The matte areas are "haze" from being in contact with the elements for 100+ years. I am no expert on black glass so the only age window I can give is 1850's-1890's, with later being more likely Imho. Got to love the amount of character in those bottles though []

I would agree with the above comments and definitely pontiled but like to add that the bottle dates 1860 - 1870

 

[j.dinets]

I purchased a group of these back in the 80's which were found in the mudflats in California. Some had sharp shoulders, some round, and various degrees of crudity, mostly in an olive amber color, and some olive green. The one thing they all had in common was the 3-piece mold and the identical pontil base. They were all circa mid 1860's. I also dug some in Charleston , S.C. in a provenance which supported that date. If you find you are interested in black glass, I would suggest Roger Dumbrells' "UNDERSTANDING ANTIQUE WINE BOTTLES". The ISBN#for the book is 0907462146. Nice finds and keep searching.