It came from the well.

[RelicDude]

Today I went and checked out a new cellar hole I've been researching for the past week. I detected the area pretty well and found a colonial shoe buckle and some other finds. But the bottle i found on a Rock shelf in the well takes the cake. I wonder what it held and why it would be placed in the well? Hmm maybe to keep what ever it held cool? I'm pretty psyched about this one it is crude and has a open pontil. Any Ideas on what it would of been used for? And how old is it. Thanks for the help - Justin

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[Red James Cash]

So they wife could take a belt when she went out to get water

 

[Bass]

It is an ild one Justin. Maybe held a remedy or tonic of some sort. Nice looking bottle

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[RelicDude]

Thanks bass. The only info I can find out about it is that it's a utility/ druggist bottle.

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[Bass]

I like the way the lip looks. It appears to be wet in the photos.

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[RelicDude]

It was freshly cleaned before I took the photo it was still a little wet. And yeah the lip on this one is wild its really crude.

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[Harry Pristis]

I think you're right about it being a generic medicine bottle. I think there are more than a few of these around in various sizes and lip finishes.

The Arabian Balsam (below) is actually embossed vertically, though it has no pontil scar and is a later bottle.

​

 

[RelicDude]

Your absolutely right Harry about it being a generic med. but I'm still curious of the age on this piece.

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[sandchip]

I'd say 1830-1850.

 

[Harry Pristis]

Your absolutely right Harry about it being a generic med. but I'm still curious of the age on this piece.

I'd guess 1850-1870.

 

[RelicDude]

Thank you Harry.

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[Harry Pristis]

You can see the forerunners of this bottle on pp. 280-281 of the McKearin-Wilson book. Note that these bottles from "the first half of 19th century" have flange lips rather than the applied lip of your bottle and the rolled lip of my bottle. They also have "long sloping shoulders" which our bottles lack.
I think the lip finishes progressed for these bottles like this: Flange => Rolled => Applied => Tooled.

 

[RelicDude]

Very cool thank you much Harry. That's about the time period I was thinking.

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[masterjedi]

I know bottles... the glass ring on the bottom is a "Pontil" mark from a glass blow tube. This one is called an open Pontil. They started putting lips on bottles in approx 1840. They stopped using the Pontils in approx 1865. From then they used what they called a snap case and no more Pontil marks. This bottle was made between 1840 and 1865. Most likely in the 1850's. It was in the well because it was a throw away bottle used most likely for medicine of some kind.

 

[Harry Pristis]

There is an interesting account of Apothecary Vials on pp. 286-291 of McKearin-Wilson's AMERICAN BOTTLES AND FLASKS AND THEIR ANCESTRY. Unhappily, the authors don't address the evolution of form in a way that helps to put a date to RelicDude's find.

 

[masterjedi]

Mine does... ))

 

[gleaner1]

Certainly with almost 100 percent certainty, this is from between 1840 and 1870, that's for frikin sure. That aint just tootin. rofl. I say its 1852. lmao

 

[sandchip]

Admittedly, anything's possible with some gaffers shunning new tricks, but the chances of that bottle with an open pontil dating as late as 1860-1870 are mighty slim. Hang the top. Thousands of bottles had applied tops in the 1840s.

 

[RelicDude]

I agree completely I thinks in the earlier part of that time line. And master Jedi I don't think this bottle was thrown down the well it's thin glass and would never survive hitting the Rock sides of the well.

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[Harry Pristis]

We're not talking about all bottles here, we're discussing vials. Just look at pp. 280-281 in the McKearin-Wilson book to see free-blown vials as late as post mid-century. Old techniques for newer vials.

Some vial-makers adopted the 'full size piece mold'; and, by the late 1850s molds in which the lip finish was mold-formed were in use. You can see an 1858 patent diagram of such a mold on pp. 292 of McKearin-Wilson. Rather than an applied lip, I now think the subject vial lip-finish was produced in one of these molds.