# J. Reitzel sauce bottle, odd pontile like mark on base



## digger dun (Aug 21, 2014)

So, I've been going through boxes of old finds lately, looking for ones I should sell off, and I came across this one. Nothing special, really. A sauce/condiment bottle found in a 1890s landfill dump in Harrison New Jersey almost a decade ago. But What I noticed now was the odd mark on the base...I'll be doggoned if it don't sorta look like an open pontile mark, it's sharp too. Anybody got a thought on this?     [attachment=IMG_6294.JPG] [attachment=IMG_6301.JPG]


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## cowseatmaize (Aug 21, 2014)

I don't personally think that there is any way that could be a pontil. Maybe an early semi machine that might fit the time frame. They would often have a tooled lip and seem older.


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## RED Matthews (Aug 21, 2014)

So hello Toby,  That is obviously a punty rod mark, that probably had some glass dust on it.  They used them a lot and got them off center if they didn't pay attention.  They used powdered iron, graphite, and glass dust that even had small glass chips in the dust.  Nice bottle.  Congratulations.RED Matthews


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## botlguy (Aug 21, 2014)

Red does not go into enough detail on this subject and I do not have the expertise to add definitive information. I just received a WAW-WAW bottle from South Africa that has an apparent "Pontil scar" that I am positive does not date back to the acknowledged pontil era, 1845 or earlier. The base is embossed with the typical Rd. No. but also has a rough pontil scar appearance with glass / pontil deposits and an abnormal pushed in base.  Your picture indicates the bottle has a pontil scar but that is an anomaly in that that era bottle does not normally indicate the bottle was made in the 1840 timeframe. It's an anomaly, for whatever reason, and not made in the normal "pontil " era. Why this happens occasionally I don't know.       Jim


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## digger dun (Aug 22, 2014)

[attachment=IMG_6296.JPG] Yeah, it's an odd-ball...The deposits it came from were solidly 1890s. I dug that construction site many times over the course of like three years, and never found anything older then 1880s. My first thought was that it was a mark from a suction valve or whatever in an early automatic machine, but the lip is tooled, and kinda sloppy. Plus the mark is off center, and the base is kicked up slightly following that off center mark...and it's sharp. I tried researching the embossed name and got nothing.


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## cowseatmaize (Aug 22, 2014)

I think it's probably a ketchup. Maybe from THIS courtesy of Jim


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## digger dun (Aug 22, 2014)

That's got to be that same company...this bottle came from one of Newark's dumps. Too bad I didn't find one of those crocks


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## RED Matthews (Aug 22, 2014)

So I don't know how to be any clearer.  Punty rods were used for a lot of glass holding handles,  The media of particular material used to help the release from the finished bottle was up to the blower, I think.  I know that powder iron from machining mold iron, glass dust and/or chips were used, sand, and graphite; were used and kept in long wooden box bins, so the right material could be adhered to the iron end of the punty rod - a decision let up to the blower, I believe.RED Matthews


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## slugplate (Jul 8, 2016)

Hey Digger Dun,
I have the same bottle with a much different pontil mark.  Looks like a sand or carbon pontil was used on mine and it is off center.  Also, my bottle shows beautiful whittle marks from a wood mold.  From the pix it looks to me like a glass pontil?  Of course I cannot be sure.  But, it is definitely NOT machined.


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## Harry Pristis (Jul 8, 2016)

Here's my guess. J. Reitzel imported from France (most likely) some sort of high-end commodity packaged in bottles embossed with his name, but blown in France.  French commodities were commonly imported (remember all the capers and pickles bottles from France in the late 1800s to WWI).  The lip on this bottle is so crude, I suspect it dates to the early late 1800s, say 1875-85.  Just a guess.

Some French bottlemakers continued to use a disc pontil on their bottles until quite late in the 19th Century.  These disc pontil scars are very neat, minimal really, and are distinctive, easily distinguished from blow-pipe and glass-tipped pontil scars.  Here are a couple of examples:

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