bass Assassin 22... a story to make you cry...

[unclemac]

Oh the humanity!!!

Well I have pretty much been spending the summer at the beach place because...well...why not? And the weather has been beautiful too. Now the thing you got to realize is that summer in the PNW doesn't usually start until mid August and lasts through mid September. I am not complaining mind you, that is just how it is out here and actually I rather like it. I can wear the same clothes in mid January as I do in mid June since we don't really have much of a winter either. But anyway...this year was different; July (which usually rains like a cow peeing on a flat stone on the coast) was warm, dry and well...summer-ee like. Now this is all well and good if you like picnics on the beach but I am a beach comber and nice weather means heaps....HEAPS...HEEEEEEAPS of seaweed. And heaps of seaweed means that the beach is COVERED in 18 inches plus of...well...SEAWEED. So all you can find is what drifts in on the tide which given that summer also means no storms and wish washy tides....means a whole lot of rubber gloves and plastic sports drink bottles from b*******s (pardon that) that toss their garbage over the side of their boats. (oh...and golf balls...I have found 29 golf balls so far this summer). So I guess what I am saying is hunting has been pretty sparse.

Well I finally got permission to take the five year old on a beach hunt on a stretch about five miles down the beach in a pretty rugged part of the coast...a place where you can walk naked in August and offend no one but elk, black tails, eagles, otters and the occasional hereon. Of course we were not allowed to walk the five miles (too far she said) down the easy stretch of beach to get there. No, no...I had to drive to a seasonal elk camp I know of and bushwhack my way to beach. No harm, no foul but all the same it wasn't really any easier.

So we get on the beach on the boy starts to find a bunch of "treasure". His idea of "treasure" is beach glass and more power to him, it is a great "gateway drug" to the illness of treasure hunting and really easy to spot. The problem is he has no discrimination as to what is "good" and what is "trash"...and most of it is trash. Luckily I can go "wow look at that, nice job!" and toss most of it back on the beach when he is not looking, other wise I would need a knapsack to bring all that stuff home. Well actually we were doing pretty well, we were in a favorite spot of mine and as luck would have it no-zero-nada seaweed. We were walking side by side playing “hot-cold” for finding the good stuff and as luck would have it, finding some nice agates, glass, and even a prosser button. When all of a sudden….WOW!

Sticking just out of the sand was this beauty. A really nice opium! Hot dam! I was excited, it was the find of the day and something I have always wanted to find too. Made my day complete, added a nice piece of color to my collection, gave me a better understanding of the area I hunt, etc. etc.

And then this happens!!! $%#&^^%$@(*&^!!!!!!!!!! Now I ask you why?...WHY in the name of all the saints did this happen and how…HOW too? I got it home, cleaned it, admired it, set it down in a safe place and when I got back to it…it had fallen apart into six pieces. No one touched it…it just disintegrated!!!

I guess I will live and I glued it back together but all the same…..

 

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[Bass]

Thanks for the story Unclemac. I never get tired of those. Did you use a cleaning agent on the piece of glass? Just really not sure what happened. Were the pcs still fit together when you found it?

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[unclemac]

I used water ...WATER, on it for crying out loud. And there wasn't a crack on it, it was perfect in every way when i picked it up.

 

[surf]

...And then this happens!!! $%#&^^%$@(*&^!!!!!!!!!! Now I ask you why?...WHY in the name of all the saints did this happen and how…HOW too? I got it home, cleaned it, admired it, set it down in a safe place and when I got back to it…it had fallen apart into six pieces. No one touched it…it just disintegrated!!!

Hey unclemac,

I always enjoy your tales from the beach. Thanks for this one. I'll argue with you about it being an 'opium," later.

I've had 2 bottles unexpectedly crack on me. One went all to pieces, like yours, and the other one just got this big meandering crack in the back side, I used to have a bottle display in the living room, in a North facing bay window. They would get some morning and afternoon sun. I was walking by the display with my hands full of something, on the way to the sun porch, when I heard this ominous "CRaaack!" I had to hunt through a hundred some bottles before I found the victim. It was a Dr. Greene's Sarsaparilla in a pale green.

​

I've heard explanations as to this phenomena from improper annealing, to thermal shock. I do not know, nor would I understand, the physics lesson behind this. Sometimes, crack just happens...

​

 

[Harry Pristis]

It (the fracturing) is an interesting phenomenon. I don't know of a simple explanation. It may be that the glass batch was not mixed thoroughly, leaving thin bands of weaker glass in the bottle.

It is certain that there are stresses 'frozen' in the glass. These stresses are from the pulling and pushing of soft metal as the bottle is blown. The slow cooling (annealing) simply avoids thermal stress being added to the inherent stress within the new bottle; it locks the stressed glass into the desired shape.

I cannot recall ever having a dug or dived bottle shatter like the vial 'UncleMac' showed us. I have an east-facing bottle window which gets morning sun, but I keep the mini-blind closed so I don't have a differential heating problem with the bottles.

​

I am not certain about the 'water-etched' bottles that are common. Are those etchings a result of incomplete mixing of the glass batch? Or, are they a manifestation of the inherent stresses within the blown glass? Or, could they be a combination of factors? Opinions?

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[unclemac]

crumbled like a sand castle at high tide...bummed me out
...so why not an opium?....if not, then what? This area had very early Chinese immigrants. In fact the only man ever executed in the county was a Chinese laborer in 1902.

 

[unclemac]

This bottle was on the beach or in the sand or in the bay or any combination of these factors getting pummeled by two tides a day and countless winter and spring blows...it is very sand etched from the tumbling....but it took me taking it off the beach and out of the sand and being very very very careful with it to make decide to fall apart when I wasn't looking. One thing i guess I should add is that (of course) it was filled with sand that I had to clean out so perhaps this had something to do with it.

 

[Bass]

I think surf and harry are on to something. I have seen instances where glass shattered due to being in the hot afternoon son. As a kid i remember our back glass sliding door shattered while we were all in our family living room. If there is a weakness in the glass, such as harry stated, direct sunlight could in fact crack it. Lets just say no to crack



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[surf]

...so why not an opium?....if not, then what? This area had very early Chinese immigrants...

Hey unclemac,

I know lots'a people call these "opium" bottles, and they are likely Chinese, as lots of them have been found in and around early Chinese sites. I believe they were something medicinal. I have really looked into these, because I have found two.

Opium, in it's cured form, does not lend itself to tiny, narrow necked bottles. Of course, it could be some sort of elixir, but the early Chinese in this country smoked their opium. That opium was sold and kept in tins. Look here: Chinese medicine, and here are some tins:

smoking​

Raw opium is a sticky, tar like substance that does not lend itself to bottling:

OPIUM, MORPHINE AND HEROIN AND THEIR HISTORY

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+++++~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~​

I am not certain about the 'water-etched' bottles that are common. Are those etchings a result of incomplete mixing of the glass batch? Or, are they a manifestation of the inherent stresses within the blown glass? Or, could they be a combination of factors? Opinions?

View attachment 856962​

Hello Harry,

My theory, on the "water-etched" bottles is that this is the result of mineral deposits laid down over many, many years on bottles that have been buried, mirroring the water table over those years. Here's one fresh outta the ground:

 

[unclemac]

yes yes of course...i guess i was just refering to what the bottle is known as to collectors. whatever was in these bottles must have been potent and expensive, as well as liquid.

 

[Harry Pristis]

Hey unclemac,

. . .

Hello Harry,

My theory, on the "water-etched" bottles is that this is the result of mineral deposits laid down over many, many years on bottles that have been buried, mirroring the water table over those years. Here's one fresh outta the ground:

The PAINE'S bottle in my image was dug, and there's no doubt that wet soil is bad for glass. BUT, your hypothesis that the etched lines on the glass represent mineral stains just doesn't hold water. [Sorry, just couldn't resist.]

Mineral stains would not explain the same etching on bottles immersed in water for more than a century.

Mineral stains mirroring changes in the water table would not explain the pronounced curves of the lines (best seen in flat-sided bottles) . . . water seeks it's own level, after all.

Finally, if these lines were simply mineral stains, they could be removed without grinding them away (and they cannot be removed without tumble-polishing).

No, I'll stick with my hypothesis that these lines are etched into the glass, differentially dissolved along mix lines, or along stress lines, or along both.

Here's a river bottle with some etched lines. Can you make out the lines?

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[Bass]

This is interesting. I have always believed what surf said above about mineral deposits but Harry makes a good point about the bottles that have been immersed for 100 yrs. But that only creates another question for me. Harry, if your hypothesis is correct, then wouldn't that mean that the weaknesses in the glass would be formed in the making of the bottle and generally in a vertical direction if the bottle was standing up? Not sure if that makes sense or not. It seems every time i see a bottle with the "striations" or "streaks" those lines are formed according to what the bottle's position is in as it lays in the ground. For instance, if the bottle is laying on its side, the streaks are running lengthwise. If the bottle was found standing up, then the streaks are found side to side. It just appears to me the streaks are usually parallel to the ground or waterline. Not sure if that makes sense or not. Just a question and i'm not trying to be disrespectful or start an argument, just trying to understand the mystery. Thoughts??

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[unclemac]

interesting...add to this conversation the beautiful rainbow colors we find from time to time....

 

[Harry Pristis]

This is interesting. I have always believed what surf said above about mineral deposits but Harry makes a good point about the bottles that have been immersed for 100 yrs. But that only creates another question for me. Harry, if your hypothesis is correct, then wouldn't that mean that the weaknesses in the glass would be formed in the making of the bottle and generally in a vertical direction if the bottle was standing up? Not sure if that makes sense or not. It seems every time i see a bottle with the "striations" or "streaks" those lines are formed according to what the bottle's position is in as it lays in the ground. For instance, if the bottle is laying on its side, the streaks are running lengthwise. If the bottle was found standing up, then the streaks are found side to side. It just appears to me the streaks are usually parallel to the ground or waterline. Not sure if that makes sense or not. Just a question and i'm not trying to be disrespectful or start an argument, just trying to understand the mystery. Thoughts??

Harry, if your hypothesis is correct, then wouldn't that mean that the weaknesses in the glass would be formed in the making of the bottle and generally in a vertical direction if the bottle was standing up?
Yes, differing mixture of the glass batch and/or random stresses induced in blowing the bottle could later appear as weaknesses in the glass. However, these weaknesses follow random, flowing patterns in any direction.

It just appears to me the streaks are usually parallel to the ground or waterline.
I don't think this is the case for the etching we're discussing. Look carefully at this image of the PAINE'S bottle, and try to find a straight waterline.

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[unclemac]

...good read on chinese opiums...

medicine

 

[Bass]

Harry, you make a good point and i respect your opinion. The bottle in the picture, what if were resting in a vertical position, right side up or upside down and slightly tilted to one side. Could the water line have then made that pattern? And if it gets moved or disturbed just slightly while in its resting state, couldn't that slight movement create that directional change in the wavy line?

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[bottlehunterofcoscob]

Is that waviness considered damage and would it devalue the piece? I have a lot of bottles with that. Interestingly, I would find one bottle with it, and one right next to it wouldn't have it. I don't know which theory I believe as they both seem to explain it. I respect both. I'll just see how this plays out.

 

[Bass]

I not sure if anyone knows for sure. The only way would be to get science involved. I have always believed the waves were a mineral deposit or something. But what harry says makes a lot of sense. At this point personally i'm not throwing out either belief.

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[bottlehunterofcoscob]

I not sure if anyone knows for sure. The only way would be to get science involved. I have always believed the waves were a mineral deposit or something. But what harry says makes a lot of sense. At this point personally i'm not throwing out either belief.

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Yeah idk if we'll ever know, but as you said, both could explain it.