# Not a bottle, but a moonshine jug!



## carlo2343 (Mar 21, 2008)

I am trying to figure out how old this jug could be. There are absolutely no inscriptions or marks anywhere on this jug. I googled some moonshine jug pictures and they look the same as this, although the top part is more slanted and goes straight up to the top, whereas some of the google photos show a more rounded top portion. Any idea how old this may be and what it may be worth? Thanks.


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## carlo2343 (Mar 21, 2008)

Another


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## carlo2343 (Mar 21, 2008)

Last picture:


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## OsiaBoyce (Mar 21, 2008)

Syrup/molassass jug.  1920 +- 10yr.. 20$<>5.


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## kastoo (Mar 21, 2008)

Those are fun to dig intact.  My wife collects them.


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## glass man (Mar 22, 2008)

Living in the land where MOONSHINING is and was a way of life,as far as I know any jug was used to hold moonshine. Then the good ole mason jar was and is the container of choice. Just to throw in some good ole family history ,in the 40s my uncle [who was a Deacon in a Baptist Church] was caught driving down main street naked ,with a naked woman in his lap[not his wife]!! OH YES MOONSHINE WAS INVOLVED!!


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## cordilleran (Mar 22, 2008)

Good thing we abide by a standard dictum grammatically. The bottle could have held anything and probably did -- several times over. Reminds me of the so-called Chinese"opium bottles" found throughout the west. Dammit if opium isn't a thick substance and those users would've had to break those small bottles to retrieve same. Those "opium bottles" likely contained quinine, a natural white crystalline alkaloid having antipyretic (fever-reducing), anti-smallpox, analgesic (painkilling), and anti-inflammatory properties. 19th Century folks, particularly recent immigrants, were a diseased lot. Granted, blackstrap is not as thick and could have been doled out from a crockery container at leisure (mix in a little well water to the solution to get the last bit). Poor people are practical, if not simply financially destitute.

 Being the sad sack living on the lean side of the railroad tracks that I am, I suspect the container was used for multiple purposes over many years. No use in discarding a perfectly good earthen ware jug. With prohibition (Volstead Act), more illicit purveyors of home-distilled squeezins' were created than ever before. Those licit jugs could now be used for holding less-than-legal commodities.

 I bought a  rag-tag house in the country a few scant years ago. In the basement was a small, concrete enclosure joined by a tunnel away from the domicile of some 10 feet which was vented. The Victorian-era house across the street had a similar arrangement. As you might suspect, the small room, hidden for all the would to see, was used as a distillery. A jug of this description could hold $3.00 or $4.00 worth of 190-proof liquor (depending on distillation process) in 1920's currency if it wasn't used for personal consumption or to throw a shindig with a few close friends. No use in discarding a perfectly sound container, so the logic holds, even today.

 One thing about prohibition. It caused more problems than intended. Couple this with the psychological detritus of World War One veterans, women just coming into their own, a mobile, Henry Ford-driven social order and later, the Great Depression, and you have a sure-fire combination for Folks Gone Wild without the video camera (the so-called Lost Generation).


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