# Antique Bottle Mold Slug Plates



## Plumbata (Feb 20, 2008)

Relatively recently I decided that I wanted to get some slugplates for my collection, as they were an integral part of what makes this hobby exist nowadays, so I hopped on ebay and bought some, at a good price considering how stinkin' rare these things are. I haven't seen any listed since, besides a set from the clevenger glass works which should still be in business! My father and I want our own slugplated beer bottles to be handblown so we can package our homebrew in them and impress the heck out of friends, and stuff. Anyone know of other places that still do that sort of thing? The following picture was from the ebay listing where all you see pictured was sold to someone for the starting bid; 24.99. Nice deal, if you're into that sort of thing. Ive only seen several plates listed in several years, not that I was looking hard for em, but someone decided to list several and I'm glad that I was there to nab em.







  Well, to get to the plates that I have, the one on top is for a bottle from "Diego Gibson Buenos Aires" Argentina and the other a nice big 2 pound plate for some "Elixir De Feras Dr Carlos Silva Para' (some iron tonic blood invigorator?) from Paraguay. Please note the abundant venting holes, the threaded socket in the back for fastening, the glassworks inventory numbers, and it may be hard to see, but note that the venting holes were drilled(i imagine) at whatever angle was easiest for letting the air escape. Some of them terminate at the sides, as you can see in the diego gibson plate, whereas most of them are drilled into the center so that they intersect with a far larger hole that was drilled through the middle lengthwise in every one(not pictured though) to let air escape from the majority of the vents which were drilled at an angle inwards. Holding things like this helps to teach you a lot about how the process of blowing glass was carried out.

  My favorite one, by far, was used for a little brown bottle from my hometown (coincidentally I don't have it yet, just the mold to make em, what the heck!), the only town that I have really collected glass from! It is from "ALLAIRE WOODWARD & CO. PEORIA, ILL" which was a botanical and medicine distributor, and is quite awesome to me as a burgeoning local collector. Next to it is a very nifty plate for a sunken panel bottle which reads "Jordan Marsh Company Boston" which was a department store chain, the last of which were converted to Macy's as of 1996 I believe. The company was founded in 1841 and lasted quite a long time. 


























  Well that's my humble slugplate collection, anyone else here have some of their own that they'd like to share pictures of?


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## GuntherHess (Feb 20, 2008)

I'd love to find an actual mold. I guess most were melted down as scrap.


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## Jim (Feb 20, 2008)

Very cool items! Slug plates are indeed very hard to find. Once the run of bottles that employed a particular slug plate ended, the plate became an outdated and useless hunk of scrap metal and was discarded as such.

 I would love to find a slug plate for one of my local Lewistown bottles, but I do not expect to. Our bottles were all made out of town, as we had no glass manufacturers here or in the close vicinity. ~Jim


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## GuntherHess (Feb 20, 2008)

The majority of slug plates I see for sale are from smalltown pharmacy bottles so you might have a slight chance to find one. Probably a few floating around out there.


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## Plumbata (Feb 21, 2008)

I figured that the WW2 scrap drives probably took care of the vast majority of the useless slug plates that weren't pitched beforehand. Probably alot of good stuff was destroyed during such scrap collection efforts, and it makes me sad, lol. Wouldn't it be amazing to find the entire original private mold of some rare pontiled squat or bitters that a glassworker took home to use as an anvil or doorstop or something? One can only dream, hehe.

  And have any of you seen original snap-cases or lip tooling tools? Know how much they might fetch on the market?

   I was lucky as hell to find the one from Peoria, but guaranteed there are others from your guys' towns floating around in boxes in people's garages and such. I'll keep my eyes open and inform y'all if I see any from Lewistown or Frederick, and please do the same if you see any from Peoria!


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## GuntherHess (Feb 21, 2008)

> I'll keep my eyes open and inform y'all if I see any from Lewistown or Frederick, and please do the same if you see any from Peoria!


 
 Will do. Slug plates show up on ebay every so often and you see them at bottle shows sometimes.


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## Jim (Feb 22, 2008)

Same here. Thanks to both of you guys! ~Jim


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## chisler (Feb 26, 2008)

Plumbata: To answer your question about Clevenger Glass, they are no longer in business. It weird that you've sent this post because I've just recently become a member, within the last 2 weeks.  If go back to last week I put a post up about doing this sort of work since my father and I did most of the engraving for Jim Travis who owned Clevenger Glass.  I now own my own company and although I specialize in suncathcers, I am in the process of making a bottle mould specifically for micro and homebrewers.  If you were to go to www.hollycityartglass.com you will see some of my work.  Any questions give me a call.


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## KentOhio (Feb 28, 2008)

Here's my slug plate. It says:

 L.P. O'Farrell 
 Pharmacist 
 Scarsdale, N.Y. 

 I've never seen a bottle to go with it.


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## KentOhio (Feb 28, 2008)

Side with code.


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## KentOhio (Feb 28, 2008)

Back with large screw.


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## capsoda (Feb 28, 2008)

Never thought about looking for slug plates. We didn't have a glass house anywhere near hear so not much hope of finding any from Pensacoal, FL.

 Lovem guys. You have the ultamate go with.


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