Almost any eighteenth- or nineteenth-century bottle is of interest. The best bottles are the oldest, rarest, or the most unusual in shape or color—not necessarily those that are the finest examples of glassmaking. Bottles were commercial containers, not works of…
Almost everyone has a piece of old glass that has been in the family for years, and every piece seems to have a glamorous history behind it. Most of the stories are more fable than fact. There were stories in…
The earliest bottles were free-blown by the glassmaker, then transferred to a pontil (also called a punty rod) for additional shaping. Free-blown bottles have a neck, a shaped body, a flattened base, and a mark or scar on the bottom…