# Can anyone tell me what product was in this bottle and teach me about how it was made



## Mikez (Nov 22, 2017)

Phew that was a mouthful!

I'm really interested in the bottles from a historical point of view and I'm getting interested in bottle manufacturing. 

Ive perused the sites and learned alot but am overwhelmed by data overload. 
I wanted to see if any bottle geeks can help my education. 

This bottle came from turn of century. It must have been office products. Had a cork top with brush applicator. Still contained alot of solidified black substance smelled like turpentine. 
Anything about what was in it, especially a brand name, more exact age (I have a range) and any manufacturing notes would be much appreciated.


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## PlaneDiggerCam (Nov 22, 2017)

Don't know the brand, but I think it contained shoe polish based on the shape and your description of the applicator and contents. That bottle is very crude and has some nice bubbles too!


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## Mikez (Nov 22, 2017)

Shoe polish totally makes sense.  The applicator was the right size.

The bottle is amazing. Very thick glass. Like blue ice.


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## RelicRaker (Nov 22, 2017)

Sweet bottle—lots of bubbles and other irregularities. Shoe polish (or "boot dressing") was very popular before shoes were made from recycled truck tires like they are now. Sadly vintage shoe polish bottles are often unembossed—but the applicator, tarry contents, and turpentine smell are strong evidence. Cleaned a similar one in my kitchen last month, and the sink smelled like a shoeshine stand for 2 weeks.


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## Mikez (Nov 22, 2017)

Yep looks like shoe blacking it is.
So far I can't find a brand name. The popular brands seem to have bee embossed. No marks on this one but the two tiny **** on the bottom. 
Found in Massachusetts so Boston manufacturing good bet, though not for sure.


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## Mikez (Nov 22, 2017)

Sorry if I violated a rule. I meant to use an engineering term that means " bumps".


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## CanadianBottles (Nov 22, 2017)

Nah that swear word censoring software on this site is wonky.  I'm having a hard time thinking of what you wrote, but it often picks up on innocuous words.  Before the update we couldn't write "analyzed" because, well...


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## Mikez (Nov 22, 2017)

Well anyway, I didn't intend to be crude.
The bottle has two little side by side bumps on the bottom, they resemble female upper frontal apparatus.


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## Mikez (Nov 22, 2017)




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## andy volkerts (Nov 23, 2017)

I think he meant **** on the bottom see that isn't so bad!! lol. yes shoe blacking or polish is what came in your little bottle. It was blown into a "snap case mold" so the top ring could be added or tooled, any time side mold marks do not go to the top of a bottle, means it was applied or tooled top, pre about 1885-90. the snap case mold made pontils obsolete in about 1865 or so, depending on the glasshouse making the bottle. ( the glasshouses used different technologies often and only the big ones were on the leading edge of breaking new techniques) some glasshouse were making pontiled bottle into the 1870s. your bottles color is called aqua and is the second most common color after clear or flint glass. Touluse wrote a good book about bottle-glassmaking, it is out of print, but you can find them on e-bay and some bottle auction sites. it is rare and will cost yu a bunch, but worth it for the info given.......Andy


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## andy volkerts (Nov 23, 2017)

It wont let me say the four letter word for mammary glands LOL


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## Mikez (Nov 23, 2017)

andy volkerts said:


> I think he meant **** on the bottom see that isn't so bad!! lol. yes shoe blacking or polish is what came in your little bottle. It was blown into a "snap case mold" so the top ring could be added or tooled, any time side mold marks do not go to the top of a bottle, means it was applied or tooled top, pre about 1885-90. the snap case mold made pontils obsolete in about 1865 or so, depending on the glasshouse making the bottle. ( the glasshouses used different technologies often and only the big ones were on the leading edge of breaking new techniques) some glasshouse were making pontiled bottle into the 1870s. your bottles color is called aqua and is the second most common color after clear or flint glass. Touluse wrote a good book about bottle-glassmaking, it is out of print, but you can find them on e-bay and some bottle auction sites. it is rare and will cost yu a bunch, but worth it for the info given.......Andy



Thanks! Just the kind of information I was looking for.


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## andy volkerts (Nov 23, 2017)

Your welcome, Your bottles basic making ingrediants are soda ash, silica sand, salt, cullet (broken pieces of old glass) lime, and sometimes a bit of arsenic in each batch. from (whitney glass works formulae entry)  old line glasshouse and now out of business. mostly the cullet was of the same color that the batch is, but occasionally some other color cullet would get in a batch and cause the bottles made in that batch to be a different color then was intended, (to the delight of us bottle collectors I might add ....also somebody may have thrown a wrong chemical into the batch, such cobalt, which makes blue glass.


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## Mikez (Nov 24, 2017)

Thanks Andy that's good stuff.
So you do think it was Whitney? Does that give any clues to the brand of shoe polish?
I love to know the product so I can look up advertising. Gives me a connection to the past. 

Do you think the extra thick glass (wherein lies much of the beauty) is to protect against breaking and causing a nasty mess with the toxic black content?


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## andy volkerts (Nov 26, 2017)

Could be Whitney glassworks, and it could be just about any glassworks, as shoe polish was a common product and all the glasshouses made polish bottles at one time or another. Its just to unknowable  to make a call.  No I think the extra thick glass is just an anomally that happened during the gathering and blowing process. I have seen a series of glass bottles that were all the same style and for the same use (soda water) that were made at the San Francisco glassworks in the 1870s. There were thirty of the same style and brand, and not two of them were alike not only in color, but height, weight, embossing lettering, and crudeness varied wildly. so it was just what happened in the days before mass production started to make everything exactly the same. which is why some collectors will decide to collect all variants of a certain brand of bottle. Ferdinand Meyer, President of the FOHBC has a color run of Drakes bitters that must number twenty different colors, and they are all the way from neatly made , to crude as all get out.  oh! the possibilities of bottle collecting are very vast, so enjoy our hobby, it is one of the most fascinating known to man!!


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