Very small bottle. Was wondering if it is old or modern.

[Vermont treasure hunter]

I found this a while ago in an old dump that I like to hunt. I have not found to many old bottles from it but was wondering if this one is old. It is the smallest bottle I have ever seen and the glass is prearranged thin. No idea how it is still intact. One of the seam lines is very worn but the other one I can see. It goes up from the bottom to the base of the neck, not all the way up the neck. If anyone can tell me what this was used for or if it is old that would be greatly appreciated. There are no markings of any kind on it.

 

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[Fossils]

It’s likely from the early 1900s. I excavated a turn of the century bottle pit a little while back and found several of those little vials.

Small vials like that were often used for old fashioned medicines. You can see some examples here: https://www.stonegateantiques.net/i...Medicine-Case-Cannabis-Opium-Morphine-Bottles

 

[Gaspipe]

Yes 1890-1910 .Likely medicinal.

 

[tom smith]

I found 2 exactly like that there cool.

 

[Vermont treasure hunter]

That makes sense for the date of the dump. Thought it might be medicinal related. Thanks for the info!

 

[NJKLAGT]

Nice vial! Though I wouldn't agree that it dates to the early 20th c. I have found very similar vials in contexts from the 1940s and 50s, and have also found earlier vials that are 'obviously older' (far much more glass, whittle, bubbles, crudity, etc). I believe that these vials are either machine-made or semi machine-made. Some of them will have vanishing seams and were possibly hand-tooled (or even machine-tooled?), because a true full machine process wasn't yet perfected on such a small scale. For this reason, most of the latest blown bottles are very tiny (the earliest machine-made bottles weren't small, they were wide-mouthed fruit jars, milk bottles, etc).

NJ

 

[diggingthe1]

I always thought they held pills, but from the picture in the link they held powder also.

 

[gleaner1]

Not sure but I guess they were generic and sold by the glass makers by the millions wholesale to "druggists", doctors, dentists, or any shop that could use them to sell stuff. Probably for dispensing any pills, herbs, or powdery or otherwise granular merchandise, poison perhaps. Maybe also liquids but not sure. Many of the ones I dig have crystalline remnants in them. Be careful of this stuff as it could be arsenic, cyanide, heroin, cocaine. If in doubt, throw it out.

 

[NJKLAGT]

Not sure but I guess they were generic and sold by the glass makers by the millions wholesale to "druggists", doctors, dentists, or any shop that could use them to sell stuff. Probably for dispensing any pills, herbs, or powdery or otherwise granular merchandise, poison perhaps. Maybe also liquids but not sure. Many of the ones I dig have crystalline remnants in them. Be careful of this stuff as it could be arsenic, cyanide, heroin, cocaine. If in doubt, throw it out.

Yep, I've seen some scary looking powders in these too. There needs to be a public service announcement about not smelling/ingesting the contents of old bottles. One time, back when I was very inexperienced, I was about to smell the contents of a half-full 'whiskey' bottle but set it aside and kept digging. Got home and Googled around and found out that it was a concentrated nicotine pesticide, could have killed me, never smelled the contents of any bottle after that. Not worth it!

 

[Vermont treasure hunter]

Thanks for all of the replys and the warnings. Always good to be carful!

 

[caretaker]

years ago I hit a dump that had tons of them, people have told me they are opium bottles or insulin, they are cool little bottles, I have some that are different heights, the ones I have are all clear, good find

 

[caretaker]

here is a pic of some of the ones I have

 

[pepperj]

Might be one very similar on the right hand side.
Just above the perfumer.
I'll have a look at it when I get back to the shop.