Other Bottles: Ink, Poison, Cosmetic

The ink bottle with a large base and small neck is a nineteenth-century shape. In general, the shape of an ink bottle will tell its age. Cone and umbrella shapes were used from the early 1800s to the beginning of the twentieth century. Hexagonal and octagonal bottles were preferred from about 1835 to 1865. Igloo […]

Food Containers

Commercial bottles for food were common by the second half of the nineteenth century. Special shapes were popular by the 1860s. The gothic-panel bottle favored by pepper sauce makers is one of the special designs. Paper-labeled jars for foods like pickles or preserves, as well as for brand names like Heinz, are popular with collectors. […]

Flasks And Other Whiskey Bottles

“The first American bottles to gain favor with collectors and museums were whiskey flasks made between 1750 and 1860. Most of them were pint-size and were made by a pattern or mold-blown method. They had impressed or raised decorations on the glass. Blown bottles varied in size and consumers worried they might be getting less […]

Figural Bottles

It is impossible to list the hundreds of types of “figural” bottles. Any bottle that is shaped like a recognizable person or object is a figural bottle. Some large whiskey flasks—either ceramic or glass—and decorative bottles that held pancake syrup, mustard, ink, or any of the many products sold in fancy bottles, are included. Bottles […]

Canning Jars

Canning jars or fruit jars are popular with collectors in all parts of the country. The most famous is the Mason jar with the words “Mason 1858.” The “1858” is the date of the original patent, not the date the jar was made. Variations of the Mason jar were made long after the original jar, […]

Bitters Bottles

Bitters, the medicine of the last half of the nineteenth century, were mixtures of herbs, roots, spices, and barks that were blended with alcohol. Some ingredients, like opium or marijuana, are considered dangerous and illegal today. Bitters were taken by the spoonful—or the full bottle—and they were considered the wonder drugs of their times. According […]

Baby Bottles

Late eighteenth-century baby feeding bottles were usually made of pottery and shaped like elongated eggs. Liquid was poured into a large opening on one side, and the baby sucked it through a small opening at the tip. In the early nineteenth century, infant bottles were also made of metal, porcelain, or blown glass. Some were […]