Dating Antique Bottles

  I am often asked "How do you know how old these bottles are?".  Here is a five minute lesson that will assist you in dating most, but not all, antique bottles.  To simplify things I will be discussing exclusively bottles that are blown into a mold which covers all embossed bottles.  There are definitely exceptions but I would say ninety five percent fall within these parameters.
  The earliest bottles will have something called a pontil mark on the base of the bottle.  There a quite a few types of pontil marks or scars but the two most common are the open pontil (O.P.) and the iron pontil (I.P.).  The open pontil will be be seen more often on smaller and lighter bottles and the iron pontil on larger and heavier bottles.  Bottles that exhibit either one of these marks will generally date between 1830 and 1860.

Open Pontil Mark

Iron Pontil Mark

The age of bottles dating after 1860 can be narrowed down by taking a close look at the lip of the bottle.  If the bottle is blown into a mold with an applied lip (bimal) the seam will not go over the lip of the bottle.  There are two ages of applied lips that one can easily detect.  Earlier applied lip bottles will have a seam that appears to go right under the applied lip.  Bottles that have this trait but no pontil mark will generally date between 1860 and the early 1880's.

Seam goes under lip in top of photo

  In contrast later bimal bottles will have a seam that just seems to fade away on the neck of the bottle.  Bottles manufactured using this process will date between the early 1880's and the early 1910's.  If you look carefully it will appear like the seam was just wiped away.

Later applied lip with seam stopping on shoulder

Not all bottles blown into a mold have an applied lip.  Some bottles and most canning jars made before 1904 are finished by grinding the lip.

Bottle with ground lip

    

The newest bottles will be machine made.  Although the automatic bottle making machine (ABM) was invented in 1904 many bottle were still being made by hand for quite a few years.  By the 1920's virtually all bottles were being made by machine.  The easiest way to identify a machine made bottle is to check to see if the seam goes over the lip.  Machine made bottles will also have a machine mark on the base but these vary by manufacturer and are more difficult to describe.

Seam over lip, machine made

Hope this helps you date that special bottle that you found in an old barn many years ago, maybe it has a pontil mark on the bottom!

  

Buckets of Blue

The three sizes of blue BP pill bottles

 You just never know when some amazing bottle will just fall in your lap.  I was at work slaving away when a coworker of mine walks in with a small cardboard box that looked liked it had been soaked and dried about a hundred times.  "Bar, can you use these?"  I looked in the box and there were about 20 small, blue, turn of the century pill bottles marked B. P. & Co.  This was a bottle I had found before and was an easy sale for a few dollars.  "Sure" I responded, "Where did you get them?"  "Over at the Bond job, the're all over the place" he said.  As you can guess I headed over there right after work to check out the situation.  Unbelievable!  There must have been tens of thousands of these things laying all over the place.  I filled two five gallon buckets in about a half hour (three or four hundred bottles), figured I had a lifetime supply, and left.  The next day they covered it all over and the bottle bonanza was gone.
  Here's the interesting part.  First of all, it was not a lifetime supply.  I sold every one of those cute little bottles in about a month (Where did they all go?).  Second of all, when I was cleaning them I discovered that one of them was amber.  This is an extremely rare bottle that may be unique, at least after 41 years of bottle collecting I have never seen another.  I kept for my collection one of each size of the cobalt blue examples and of course the one amber example.  Every time I drive by that place all I can think of is the uncountable number of bottles buried under the side lawn of that building, now senior housing.

Extremely rare amber BP pill bottle

Remembering My Mom

  Bottle digging was an activity my father and mother also participated in. Maybe a year or less after we started searching for places to explore my mom told me and my father she saw a likely spot behind a row of early houses.  That was a great spot.  We probably found 20 or 30 bottles that first day, many from the 1850's.  The next day, all excited, my mom went back with us.  Wouldn't you know it, she found the best bottle in that dump. It was a cobalt blue soda bottle, eight sided, embossed W.P. KNICKER BOCKER SODA WATER 164. 18th St N.Y. 1848, in absolutely pristine condition!  That bottle has the distinction of being the first bottle I ever sold for $100.00, a lot of money to a 13 year old in 1971.
  Over the years I've sold so many bottles and artifacts that I could not even venture a guess as to how many.  The funny part is I have no idea where most of them are now.  I always knew where this bottle was.  The guy who bought it loved it and kept it all those years.  When he dispersed his collection a few years ago he offered it back to me for $700.00 . . . I bought it.
  My mom passed away in 2000 and I miss her but I will always keep this beautiful piece that she recovered from the ground.

Where are bottles found?

  The single most common question I get when people find out what I do is "Where do you find the bottles?".  To be honest with you the answer could easily be everywhere.  I have discovered them walking through the woods near some old houses buried a few inches under some leaves. I have spent countless days digging 5, 10, even 15 feet underground into some 100 year old town dumps.  I have dug hundreds of outhouse holes long filled in that often have bottles residing in the bottom.  I have even been driving down the road and spotted construction projects with glass shimmering all over the place.  One time I saw a massive tree that fell over and in the root ball about 10 feet off the ground there where 3 very rare local 1890's soda bottles that I needed a ladder to retrieve.  Sometimes great bottles are found in the walls, crawlspaces and attics of old structures. Wherever I go I keep my eyes open and when I least expect it  . . . . . .  Like the time I was walking on the boardwalk in Spring Lake after a storm.  The sand had eroded the dunes and 100 year old bottles where sticking out all over the place!  I took off my shirt, tied off the sleeves and filled my new bag with 20 -25 new acquisitions.