# Unexpected Jobsite Find



## hydrogeologist (Feb 8, 2017)

I found this bottle on a job site in PA and it interested me enough to Google research it. Apparently Dr. J.S. Rose began practicing medicine inPhiladelphia in 1825 and produced his own proprietary medicines in the 1840s and 1850s. I learned that J.S. Rose bottles are rare and Eye Water wasn't on any list of known bottles I could find which leads me to believe that this is a really rare one and might be the only one known.

here are the specs:  3 1/8" tall, aqua in color, has an open pontil and an inward rolled lip. It's kind of crude but is in near perfect shape with no chips, scratches, or cracks but has a small bubble or two. No seams are visible. It's embossed 'Eye Water' down the front, 'Dr. J.S. Rose's' down the right side and 'Phil' down the left side with a very faint 'a' showing.

So has anybody here ever seen one of these or know somebody who has? I'm just trying to understand just how rare this bottle is and maybe get a ballpark estimate on its worth to a collector...

-Guy


----------



## CanadianBottles (Feb 8, 2017)

Well it's not in Matt's Antique Medicine Bottle Nexus, so I'm thinking it's a very rare one, though hard to say just how rare.  Definitely a very good find!  Sadly I can't give a ballpark estimate but certainly a lot more than your average jobsite find bottle.


----------



## whittled (Feb 9, 2017)

Sure it is CB, Also in Greer, #1483, For value condition is key and listed at 100-120 presuming VG or better. Greers sold for 120 in 1989 but I don't see a big jump for today either. 
It's still a nice mid 19th century bottle and a good catch and save from the bulldozer.


----------



## whittled (Feb 9, 2017)

Ah, you must have the '06 edition, it was added in the later ones.


----------



## hemihampton (Feb 9, 2017)

Look for & save as many old bottles as you can. Save History & better then seeing them lost forever or tossed in garbage, ect. Nice find. Congrats. LEON.


----------



## hydrogeologist (Feb 9, 2017)

Thanks all for your responses! An unexpected find that has become an accidental hobby. I already found and dug a privy on the same site. The bottles were mostly 1920s but I think I found some that were a bit older. Found two embossed Hires Household Extract bottles, one clear and one a nice light blue-green, an embossed clear Linonine bottle from Danbury, CT, an embossed Tournade's Kitchen Extract bottle, an embossed clear Tonsiline bottle with a giraffe on the front, a clear embossed HHH Medicine bottle, about 10 A-1 Sauce bottles with two different embossed font styles, a cobalt ink pot, a Waterman's 2oz ink pot, a cool green art deco threaded jar, and about 20 glass stoppers in clear and green with two embossed GARSONS. I also found about 10 really small art deco bottles that I think were perfume samples.

I think I'm hooked!


----------



## hemihampton (Feb 9, 2017)

The Cobalt Ink sounds like a good one. Gotta a pic of that one? LEON.


----------



## hydrogeologist (Feb 9, 2017)

Pics soon come.


----------



## whittled (Feb 9, 2017)

> and about 20 glass stoppers in clear and green with two embossed GARSONS


Is Garson's correct? All I can think of is Garton's HP sauce.


----------



## hydrogeologist (Feb 10, 2017)

You're right, it is Garton's.


----------



## hemihampton (Mar 12, 2017)

hydrogeologist said:


> Pics soon come.




where's the pics?


----------



## hydrogeologist (Mar 13, 2017)

H.H.H. Medicine bottle from the PA privy I found and dug near the bottle I found. The bottles dated from the 1880s through the 1920s. I found a number of each of these mini perfume bottles, too.


----------



## hydrogeologist (Mar 13, 2017)

Oh, and I was looking over the Eye Water bottle last night and noticed it is embossed 1854 very crudely in smaller font next to Phil on the side. Very cool!


----------



## bottlecrazy (Mar 14, 2017)

Love the eye water bottle!  I'd be excited as hell finding that anywhere.  Congrats!


----------



## hydrogeologist (Apr 25, 2017)

I should start gambling, because I found this one today on the ground surface in a newly excavated soil pile not 50' from the other Eye Water bottle posted earlier in the thread.


----------



## hydrogeologist (Apr 26, 2017)

Pontil scar.


----------



## sandchip (Apr 26, 2017)

Damn nice open pontil scar.


----------



## hydrogeologist (Apr 27, 2017)

Looked at them side by side in the sunlight when I got home today. I'm new to this but they look intrinsically different. See below:



The pontils also look very different to me. I think the left one is an older iron pontil and the right is an open pontil. 



Again, I'm a newbie, but these two bottles look very different to me. I know this doc's proprietary medicine was sold in the 1840s and 1850s, so were these bottles two different stages of glass technology?


----------



## whittled (Apr 28, 2017)

It looks like the same mold (short and long legs on the "R") but at different stages of wear which might imply the right one is older. It may also just be the blower having a bad day for the left of two blowers with different techniques.
Can you get a few shots of the sides please?


----------



## sandchip (Apr 28, 2017)

Both are open (blowpipe) pontils.  Looks like the same mold to me too.  A little more glass in the gather, temp or variation in composition of the batch, working temp of the mold, different gaffer, etc. can result in noticeable variations in the end product.  That's what's so great about early blown glass.  Also, the iron pontil is later than the open pontil and was considered an improvement.  Very nice finds and thanks for sharing them with us.


----------



## hydrogeologist (May 4, 2017)

Sorry for the indoor photos, but here are both sides.

Left side on both is a crude Phil. A:




Right side is the money shot:



I thought I saw a crude 1854 on the first one I found that I posted earlier in the thread but it was bad light and my eyes deceived me.


----------



## hydrogeologist (May 4, 2017)

The  slightly cocked 'S' is another indicator these were blown from, or in, the same mold. 

Thanks guys


----------



## sandchip (Jun 22, 2017)

I see you listed one of your finds on ebay.  Not really interested in selling it, are you?  LOL


----------



## hydrogeologist (Jul 27, 2017)

HA! I was a little inebriated late one night and created an eBay listing for the second one I found. I was offered a very, very princely sum for the first one I found, so I set my start bid, reserve, and BIN price ridiculously high as a test. 

Ultimately the true test fell on me being unwilling to let go of something that the universe gave me, and I deleted the listing the next morning because the two bottles looked so nice standing side by side on a shelf in the early morning light. I'm not a hoarder, I just collect EVERYTHING. 

After my actual work was done today I drove across town to do a quick site walk. I found this one there today in the sidewall of a large soil stockpile.



And get this: there was a broken Eye Water bottle not 6" from this one!


----------



## hemihampton (Jul 27, 2017)

So whats this mean, you got 3 of them now?


----------



## hydrogeologist (Jul 27, 2017)

Yeah, I have 3 now, and this is the nicest of the 3 condition-wise (PERFECT), but the lettering seems a little cruder. 

Anyways,  I jokingly believe that I'm the global market share controller of Dr. J.S. Rose's Eye Water bottles, with 3 of the 4 known to exist on the collector market on display in my kitchen. Or so my research has led me to believe. 

Regardless of what I think I may know, I picked up an accidental new hobby with some seemingly extremely rare unexpected jobsite finds. And they keep turning up one by one.


----------



## sandchip (Jul 28, 2017)

That is cool.  I'd love to see a group pic of 'em!


----------



## hemihampton (Jul 29, 2017)

Yeah, That is very odd to come across 3 old pontils like that. It's hard enough to come across just one of any pontil. Congrats. LEON.


----------



## hydrogeologist (Jul 29, 2017)

Bottle porn right here:


----------



## hemihampton (Jul 29, 2017)

Cool pic. whatcha goin to do with them? LEON.


----------



## hydrogeologist (Jul 30, 2017)

The same thing I do with the mineral specimens and crystals I dig myself: put them on a shelf in nice natural light so I can look at them periodically and cherish the fact that I found them myself.


----------



## sandchip (Jul 31, 2017)

Way cool.  Good for ya.


----------

