7/2/22 Report - The Dating Game: Three Bottles Found On Treasure Coast This Week.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

Three Bottles Found Yesterday.

Here are three bottles I found Wednesday.  The second and third bottles have very noticeable bubbles in the glass.  The first bottle (left) has only a couple very small bubbles in the glass.  I didn't see them until cleaning and inspecting the bottle very closely.  

 There is no side seam on the first bottle.  The seam on the middle bottle goes about a third of the way up the neck.  And the seam on the third bottle, goes up to the bottom of the crown top.

The second bottle has good identifying markings on the bottom.  It is embossed R & CO., which indicates the Reed and Company, which operated from1887 to 1904.  

Although this factory was also known locally as the Massillon Glass Works (at least for a period of time during the 1880s), the business firm name is given as Reed & Company in most contemporary records.  

This R & CO mark is seen primarily on the bases of hand-made, tooled blob-top and “crown” style lip amber or aqua export-style beer bottles.   Reed & Company specialized in producing beer bottles, although they are believed to have manufactured several other types of bottles as well.  Source: Society of Historical Archaeology (SHA) web site.

So the beer bottle is between 1887 and 1904.

The third bottle had almost no embossing, except a "1" on the bottom, which I presume is the mold number.  As I said, it has some nice size bubbles.

I figured it to be a sauce bottle.  I thought I'd seen one like it before, so I looked through my bottle finds and found one of the same size and shape.  Thankfully, the one I already had was embossed.  It is shown immediately below.  It still needs a good cleaning.

Embossed LEA & PERRINS Bottle.

The bottle is embossed LEA & PERRINS on one side, running from bottom to top, and WORCESTER SAUCE around the shoulder.  

Lea & Perrins first launched in Worcester back in 1837, when local chemists John Wheeley Lea and William Henry Perrins concocted a new condiment which, after 18 months, they found had matured into a delicious sauce. So delicious in fact that they decided to put it on sale...

By the end of the century Lea & Perrins’ iconic orange label had been added to all bottles to ensure they stood out from copycat competitors (the label has hardly changed since) and in 1904 Lea & Perrins was granted the Royal Warrant which it holds to this day.

In 1897 the company opened a new factory in Worcester, where it remains in operation to this day, ..

Source: Our Story - Lea & Perrins UK (leaandperrins.co.uk)

Since the company has been operating for nearly two hundred years, knowing the company name tells us almost nothing about the age of the bottle.   Fortunately, the embossed bottle, though, shows the bottle maker's mark on the bottom.

Bottom of Lean and Perrins Worcester Sauce Bottle.

The Society of Historical Archaeology (SHA) web site has an extensive list of glass maker's marks.  Here the link.  Makers Marks (sha.org)

The JDS mark shown above indicates John Duncan's Sons, circa 1877 through the 1920s.

I assume the unembossed bottle found Wednesday is not too different in age since it shows the same mold number (1), but that is not certain.  

It seems that is all I'm likely to learn about the sauce bottle.  Now I'll move to the bottle that really confuses me.

The first bottle shown above, as I mentioned, has very few bubbles, and the few I found are very small.  It has no seam at all that I can see.  

From the shape of the bottle, I'd guess it to be an olive oil bottle, or something like that.  I found another just like it that I previously foundl  Here they are.

Pair of Found Olive Oil (?) Bottles.  

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The one on the right is the new find.  The one on the left was among my previous finds.  

It looks to me like the neck and lip was made in one piece, instead of the lip being applied.  There are no seams or changes in size or anything between the wider lip and neck.  It has a high kick-up.

It has no maker's marks or anything, but on the bottom of the one on the left, there appears to be the impression of a tool or a mold used to push the glass up.  

Both bottles have the same shape.  Any differences are virtually undetectable.

I did find a very similar bottle shown on the SHA web site, which seems like the same kind of bottle.  Below is what I found there.

Olive oil was bottled in an assortment of different shaped bottles during the era covered by this website (early 19th to mid-20th centuries) with most types being cylindrical or round in cross-section - the subject covered by this section.  (Square/rectangular styles are covered in the next section.)  These bottles also likely contained other vegetable oils although olive oil was by far the most popular and available during most of the noted period (Toulouse 1970a).  Some of the types pictured and illustrated here are among the most likely to be encountered on historic sites.  Although other oil types may have been contained in these bottles, they are referred to by most (and on this website) as "olive oil" bottles.

One of the earliest common styles closely identified with olive oil were bottles like that pictured to the left and right.  These type bottles are tall and narrow, being at least 3 times taller in the body than the width.  The bottle to the left has no mold seams in evidence indicating either free-blown (likely) or dip mold production (there is a very faint line or glass disjunction at the shoulder indicating this possibility).  It also has a crudely tooled (or possibly rolled and refired) finish, a crudely pushed up base (over 1.5" from heel to top of the push-up/kick-up) that is off center and obviously not mold formed, and a visible though slight splaying out of the glass near the heel.  This latter attribute is often indicative of free-blown manufacture, although some dip molded bottles can express this feature if the glass was still plastic and "flowed" after withdrawal from the dip mold.  The pictured bottle was likely made during the end of the pontil era (late 1850s to 1870) as it does not have an obvious pontil scar indicating the use of a snap case tool of some type.

Several dozen bottles identical in size, conformation, and manufacturing method (including being free-blown but not pontil scarred) to the pictured example were uncovered from the S. S. BERTRAND which sank in the Missouri River in April 1865.

Source: Food Bottles (sha.org)

Olive Oil Bottle Illustration
from the SHA web site.

So, for now I'm concluding my new find is a free-form blown bottle with a tooled, retooled or refired finish very similar to bottles recovered from the S. S. Bertrand, which sank in 1865.  I have a hard time believing it is that old.

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Source: nhc.noaa.gov

Not much acitivity on the National Hurricane Center map now.

Just a two-foot surf expected for the next few days.

Good hunting,

TreaureGuide@comcast.net