Need help with a bottle mark

cavedog · Feb 19, 2006, 12:47 AM

I have a small bottle about three inches tall. I don't know the type of bottle, but I don't know if that matters yet. What I can see is that on the bottom there is an impression of a Liberty Nickel dated 1900. You can only read it by looking into the bottle from the mouth and holding it just right into the light. It looks like someone took a red hot nickel and set the bottle on top. I've checked in Toulouse's book on bottle marks and had no luck. It's definitely an older bottle and is turning purple, has an applied lip and straight sides. Have any of you ever seen that mark? Thanks! (Sorry, no digital camera)

UPDATE: A friend identified this as a shoe polish type bottle.

**diggummup** · Feb 27, 2006, 07:04 PM

It doesn't sound like a makers mark that's for sure.You can actually read the date of the v (liberty)nickel? It's definitely been pressed into the glass,not just a ghost image that won't wash away from a nickel in the bottom of the bottle for many years?That's very cool.I don't know if it had to be done while it was being made or not.Not a glass expert.But sounds like an interesting bottle.Wish you had a pic.

cavedog · Feb 27, 2006, 07:15 PM

Yes, it is impressed in the glass very slightly, but enough to read the image. I have a moderate collection of coins so I am familiar with the coin. I'm not certain a casual observer would have recognized it as such. I'll see if I can borrow a camera because it is intriguing. My friend initially thought the bottle might have been set on a nickel accidently but unless the glass and the nickel were hot, I think the glass would have shattered, or at least cracked. Thanks for the reply.

**SHERMANVILLE ILLINOIS** · Feb 27, 2006, 07:34 PM

Cavedog,

sure that I have seen your bottle somewhere.

Is it a colored bottle??

Will do some checking, but I think it is a decorator
type of bottle. NOT SURE.

Think it was in a set of three or four different bottles
with different colors. Reproductions.

Let me know if it is colored, I'm thinking blue, green,
and another color.

have a good un......