Twisted aqua bottle 2 ft. tall!

[ride on]

Would a glass maker design a piece that would stand in their window to demonstrate their skill like a shoemaker might have a big shoe hanging from his sign? Could this be one? I suppose it would have a maker's mark then.

Would this be a competition piece for a State exhibition? Were there glass bottle making competitions?

 

[Book N Curio Shoppe]

To KAT:

I photographed the seam showing that it follows the twisting motion that deformed the bottle. So it was blown and then twisted while still warm. Also easy to see the may bubbles in this piece, note that the bobbles are elongated and twist as well! I think the bottom didn't change much as it was so heavy that I'm sure it was set on it's base while warm and then twisted. The twisting motion stops about 3/4's down so the base area has no twist. Otherwise it would be very unstable. As it is this piece can be rocked a couple of inches to the side but it is bottom heavy and settles right back to upright. Handy as it is so big it's best let on the floor!

I like Ride On's idea! Remember seeing stuff like that as a kid (60's) at the Illinois county fair. Usually they were brand name soda bottles like Coke or 7 UP.
CSJ

 

[Book N Curio Shoppe]

Here is a photo showing that the seam stops at the lip

 

[Book N Curio Shoppe]

and another showing that the seam on the lip is separate from the bottle's seam. What's interesting is that inside the lip, the seam is smoothed and can only be seen from the exterior. The entire lip has a different texture than the bottle, rougher. The tiny bright spots on the bottle aren't dust but bubbles.
CSJ

 

[Book N Curio Shoppe]

To Ride On:

Here is a link to a "Twisted Coke bottle" on eBay. What I remember seeing in the 60's.[8D]
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=1350&item=3291653295&rd=1

Enjoy!
CSJ

 

[Harry Pristis]

I think that this bottle is not all that old. My guess is that it is a bottle for imported wine -- chianti is often bottled in large and imposing forms.

It is machine-made, no doubt. I have tried to imagine the mold in which this bottle was blown, but the bottle appears to be impossible to remove from a two-piece mold in this form.

I think that the vertical ribs were never intended to be twisted. I think the bottle slumped under its own weight during the annealing process. That slumping put the twist in the ribs.

(Of course, the slumping may have resulted from later heating, say in a kiln. But then you have to ask, Why would anyone do that to a bottle that was already a novelty?)

The question remains, How did this grotesquely-deformed bottle get into circulation? Why wasn't it thrown into the cullet bin? Perhaps some glass-works employee decided that it was so homely that it was beautiful.

Modern glass-makers still bring home "error bottles," and there may be some limited collector interest in them. Errors just don't get into normal circulation these days.

Anyway, that's my theory.

--------------Harry Pristis

 

[ride on]

To - Book N Curio Shoppe

Veeerrry interesting, thanks for sharing that link to the Coke bottle on e-bay. I enjoyed it!