The Half-Leaf Mold Cavity Repair Mark

[RED Matthews]

Well I just received two new bottles in my collection, that have this half leaf mark. One thanks to a friend that aimed it at me, and one I purchased on the bay. That one is a neat squat bottle with the straight side of the weld in; parallel to the parting lines of the bottle and near the center back of the cavity. It has about two thirds of the leaf up into a recessed label panel. The bottle has a tooled finish with a small second taper and some sloppy glass under it. The side mold seams go into a recessed vent ring and the center of the recessed bottom cavity shows a small vent hole mark. It is a neat old bottle and it will require a trade of something when this man comes to my house this summer. Thanks BT.

The other bottle is a neat SARATOGA M/W bottle. It is s pint with the embossed "/ HAWTHORN SPRING " in the half round crescent form over the horizontal "/ SARATOGA N Y ". The half leaf weld repair has the straight side on an exactly vertical scribed layout line which showed as marked on the glass that is about twice as long as the half leaf form. To me this confirms that it is not the result of a pinched glass inclusion on the glass.

I hope all of you are looking for these marks on your bottles so you can at least send me pictures of your example. I still have not found a duplicate bottle from the same repaired mold. However I, did find a SARATOGA with two of these leaf forms X's one over the other on the glass; and I am sure they were not pinched glass overlaps. Unfortunately that bottle is in an uncooperative museums display case.

I have found that this method of mold cavity repair was very popular in the 1845 to 1870 SARATOGA operations system of mold repair. I have got to make a trip to some of the collectors in Upstate NY this summer; while we are there - to at least get pictures of what they have. I still have not found any written description of this mold repair practice, and maybe I never will. It is just a great anomaly of markings on glass, that has joined my bottlemysteries theme of the homepage and it's blogs. RED Matthews

 

[baltbottles]

I still have not found any written description of this mold repair practice

That's because its not a repair its a mold pinch. If you really want to prove its a repair cut one of these in half and view it in cross section and you will clearly see that it is a pinch of glass.

Chris

 

[tigue710]

Exactly Chris...

 

[cowseatmaize]

Hello Red. This may be one. It's been looked at and I'm still not sure. I was agreed it could be a piece of floor sweeping.
I read the description of how this is done but it wasn't until I had a dream that it made sense to me. I guess I'm a simple, plain English kind of guy. I explained it to myself in the dream. It woke me with the revelation!
Anyway, this is so far from the seams and there is no way a mold would be repaired in this way. It never got close to touching the mold and is deeper on the straight side that the arch. It also was at some point in the making connected to the opposite side. No bird swing was formed though.
I've shown this before, it's a double eagle flask.

 

[westernbittersnut]

This anomaly has nothing to do with a mould repair. It occurs because of the glassblowers mistake of not centering the slightly inflated globule of glass in the center of the mould before it closes quickly. This anomaly is seen on both sides of the US coast. It is always the same configuration and that is because the expanded globule of gather (which is expanded by the glassblower's breath) is convex in shape when inserted in the iron mould and the mould halves always have a straight inside edge near the cavity and this is where the straight side of this anomaly occurs and why the outer edge of the glass is always curved from the expanded bulbous shape of the hot gather (glass).

If any of you have ever read my recently published book on EARLY GLASSWORKS OF CALIFORNIA you would understand how quickly this whole procedure of blowing glass into bottle moulds is. It is explained in detail in many articles written by newspapers who witnessed the glassblowing procedures first hand during the 1860's and 1870's at two major glassworks on the west coast.

If your at all interested in reading about the early glassblowing techniques during the early nineteenth century there is a possibility that a few of my books may still be available; contact Mike Kaszuba or his wife Michelle at 13254 Idly Dr., Lakeside, CA 92040. (619) 561-8730 or abaeterno3@gmail.com

 

[tigue710]

I want one! And that eagle Eric, sweet bottle

 

[RED Matthews]

Hi cowseatmaize, I feel your marked bottle is out of a mold that was repaired with this method to fill in a nicked damage.
I would appreciate some angular pictures, but it just couldn't be a pinch from the side wall in the mold without being the design being messed up. RED Matthews

 

[westernbittersnut]

That simply is not true. Every one of these anomalies occurs the exact same way, that pinched piece of gather becomes a flap that eventually gets folded over the surface of the blown bottle. In every one of these anomalies the straight edge is always integrally part of the parison, while the curved or crescent shaped edge is distinct, meaning that it is a layed over layer of glass on top of the surface of the bottle. You can see and feel a distinct separation of layer.

This entire procedure is a mishap produced by the glassblower. There is nothing wrong with the bottle mould.

 

[annie44]

I thought we were relegating the mold repair theory to the myth or "misinformation" pile......

https://www.antique-bottles.net/forum/m-219909/mpage-1/key-half%2Cleaf/tm.htm

 

[cowseatmaize]

I pulled this from an earlier post Warren. Are those publications public? I'd love to add some to my larger reference than bottle collection.

I think you have the idea now. You have to realize that the entire process of blowing a bottle once the helper hands the glassblower the blowpipe with the glob of glass on it from the crucible is less than a minute to a finished bottle and on its way from the glassblower by a helper to the annealing ovens. The entire process of bottle making is really fascinating. This process which is written about several times as it was happening back during 1863, 1864, 1865, 1866, 1867, 1868, 1869, 1870, etc. gives the bottle collector an amazing look into the process of glassblowing by those individuals that made their living doing this. It's much more easily understood how these "factory flaws" occur once you realize how quickly this process of making bottles occurs.