THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

[hemihampton]

BOB, Rusty unreadable cans OK with me. Crushed, dented cans also. I can fix them & clean the rust off. Heres a pic of a 100% rusty unreadable flat top I found. I only soaked top half in acid to clean & see what it was. a half & half experiment. Pic below. LEON.

 

[cowseatmaize]

That's wild Leon. I had know idea that would be possible. Was that oxalic acid?

 

[hemihampton]

That's wild Leon. I had know idea that would be possible. Was that oxalic acid?

Yes it was. LEON.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Back to Buckman Springs ...



In my opening comments I said the Buckman Springs lithia water plant was established in 1875 and that the amber blob-top bottle was one of the company's earliest bottles and that the paper labels have a copyright date of 1909. Well, I recently paid a visit to our local county museum, which I haven't been to in about a year, and discovered they have a Buckman Springs bottle on display that I had forgotten about and am trying to make sense of. The bottle pictured below is the one in question which you will notice has what I believe is a "Double Tapered Lip" which apparently dates between about 1815 and 1885. But notice that the bottle also has one of the 1909 labels on it. When I asked the museum curator about a 1909 label being on a possibly 1880s bottle, all he could tell me about it is that the individual who donated the bottle to the museum said it definitely originated from the Buckman Springs bottling plant and that it had been in his family since the early 1900s.

What I am trying to determine and need some help with, is ...

1. Does the bottle in fact have a tapered-lip finish that dates between 1815 and 1885? Is it a straight-tapered finish or a rounded-tapered finish? Or some other type of finish?

2. And what about the 'Lady-leg' neck? Based on my research, that type of neck was primarily used on brandy-type bottles - but I suppose it could have been used on lithia/mineral water bottles as well. ???

But what confuses me more that anything else is the fact I have dug around the old bottling plant numerous times during the past forty years and never once have I found a broken shard with that type of tapered-lip finish. So it's really hard for me to make sense of the bottle, thus my request for help that will not only benefit me but the county museum as well.

The only thing I can think of that makes sense is that the person who donated the bottle to the museum was merely guessing and that the 1909 label was applied at some later date and that the bottle and the label are not original to one another.

What say you?

It would be mucho appreciated if anyone can date the bottle pictured below to within about ten years.

Thanks in advance for any assistance you can render me.

~ * ~

Here's a couple of links regarding bottle finishes and how to date them ...

[URL]http://www.sha.org/bottle/finishstyles.htm#Mineral[/URL]

[URL]http://www.sodasandbeers.com/SABBottleLipsSoda.htm[/URL]

Double tapered lip, circa 1815-1885

The type of lip first made its appearance on black glass wine and beer bottles. The shape second taper was a refinement of the earlier lips used on these bottles. The second taper was used to hold wire that was wrapped around the bottle and over the cork to hold it in place. This type of lip was the mainstay on Saratoga shaped bottles. Its popularity started to fade during the 1880s when it was replaced with the rounded taper.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

One more question ... 3. What is the absolute earliest date for blob-top bottles?