Smallest Open Pontil bottle?

[Digger54]

Posted my smallest open pontil bottle on FB today and wondered what other collectors here might have. Please post up your smallest open pontil bottle.

Here is one I sifted while digging a very old house site in New Orleans in the late 90s. It is 35mm or 1 3/8" tall. I'm guessing a pill bottle.

 

[Harry Pristis]

I have a few small vials, most not pontil-scarred. Some I think were used for laudanum. No doubt, these vials (a specialty of the glass-blowers' trade) were single-use containers.
Here's a tiny bottle with a glass-tipped pontil scar:

 

[jeffrey.bean]

We would call those type of bottles “puffs”, don’t ask me why
We would usually find them longer, but I did have some tiny ones like yours. We always assumed it was a pill bottle.
All came out of privy’s.

 

[Digger54]

We would call those type of bottles “puffs”, don’t ask me why
We would usually find them longer, but I did have some tiny ones like yours. We always assumed it was a pill bottle.
All came out of privy’s.

Agree about privies. In this case it was a very unusual dig in that we were finding everything along the drip line of where the house had been. About 18" of compacted dark soil. Metal detected a green blob, bounced it off the shovel to knock the dirt off; when it popped open I was looking at the inside of what had been a badly corroded Louisiana coat button with pelican and baby chicks . Got some iron pontil squat sodas out of that site too. Very fun dig. and a great memory Site had a building put over it shortly after our dig.

 

[Harry Pristis]

I have never dug a privy, so it's interesting to hear your stories. Somewhere in my long history of collecting I picked up this little vial. I have not seen another like it . . . have you?

 

[jeffrey.bean]

I have never dug a privy, so it's interesting to hear your stories. Somewhere in my long history of collecting I picked up this little vial. I have not seen another like it . . . have you?

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Yes, the round style was very common to find in mid 19th century privy’s, in the Baltimore area. Don’t remember to many square ones though.
I was surprised that they came out of the hole intact, they seem so fragile!

 

[Digger54]

I have never dug a privy, so it's interesting to hear your stories. Somewhere in my long history of collecting I picked up this little vial. I have not seen another like it . . . have you?

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I found one exactly like that, only different. Damn Harry I thought I was the King of wrinkled fingers

In the late 90s I was in a lot just north of New Orleans that was being used to dump dirt spoils from a construction site somewhere (was never able to find out where). There were piles of very dark muddy soil that became crumbly after it was drying out in the sun and I was metal detecting the dirt. I spotted the base of a 5" bottle sticking out of the dirt and carefully dug it out. There were two amazing things about the bottle I found, It is a very thin glass bottle that somehow survived the trip to the dirt lot, and it still contained it's original contents with cork in place. The contents was a dark purple granular matter. I should have left the contents inside but cleaned it out anyway. The bottle is open pontil and four sided with channels. Guess that would make it 8 sided?

 

[Harry Pristis]

I like your NO vial . . . I'd call it "square with fluted corners." With vials, unlike my demijohns, there is always room for another example.

 

[jeffrey.bean]

I went digging through some old photos of my privy digging days ( early- mid 90’s).
Here are two photos, you will notice a number of “puffs” in the pics.
Looking through these makes me want to dig privy’s again, but my back says “ the hell you are”😄