Turpentining Terracotta

[Harry Pristis]

Anyone here find cups similar to these terracotta vessels? These are "turpentining cups" used to collect pine resin which is fractionated to produce turpentine. Often, there will be hardened pine resin still in the bottom of the long-abandoned cup.

The Herty cup seems to be the most common. It was named after a professor who developed it at the University of Georgia, if memory serves me. It has a perforation in the rim so that it could be suspended from a nail pounded into the pine tree.

I found these cups in Florida. I'm not sure if this turpentining is a southern phenomenon, or if it was practiced in the Mid-Atlantic states. Anyone up north find such cups?

[jpitt1970]

I find pieces of herty cups all over while relic hunting, but I'm not that far from you...Panama city. My wife found a whole one near Appalachicola but of course her damned cat knocked it off the shelf & it busted.

[jpitt1970]

I can't remember the link, but when I was researching my wife's Herty cup, I came across a site that is selling original turpentine pots as flower pots for around 20 bucks

[Harry Pristis]

I can't remember the link, but when I was researching my wife's Herty cup, I came across a site that is selling original turpentine pots as flower pots for around 20 bucks

I am certain that these cups got rough treatment in use; and, when turpentining was no longer profitable, the cups were much abused. I'm sure that many became targets for plinkers of all types. What else can you do with 'em!

The Herty cups don't make satisfactory flower pots (they're top-heavy with no drain). The Pringle cups are especially awkward with their curve to match the tree-trunk.

They are curios, mementos of times past. They are not particularly esthetic, and I don't display the few I have. But, I do value them.