Evolution of Wine Bottle shapes

[Littleneckhalfshell]

http://home.vicnet.net.au/~pwguild/a-botls.htm

This site shows a time line for the evolution of glass bottles, the first being 1630-1660

I have been trying to find 'cheap' sources for period looking glass bottles and ran across it.

on a side note, there are bottles that might well be true to GAOP that are still being sold today, something I am still researching. Franconian wines (region of Germany) are still sold in a particular style bottle, the "Bocksbeutel" which has historical testimony for the late 1600's. As far as I can tell, this is a flattened onion bottle shape, that some people associate with Portugal wines, but has it's origen in Germany.

[blackjohn]

You might find Ivor Noel Hume's book A Guide to the Artifacts of Colonial America worth purchasing.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0812217713

[Gentleman of Fortune]

Littleneckhalfshell (and interested others)

It just so happens that i am typing this post in the Heart of Franconia, where I have been living for the last 5 years.

The bocksbeutel ain't like a onion bottle though... its flatter and not "round" like an onion bottle. Like someone sat on it and smushed it a bit.

I think the Portuguese make a similar bottle. Apparently, it (bocksbeutel) derives its name from a Ram's (Bock's) nut sack, which they claim they originally stored wine in....

That's the legend anyway.

I have a few more pictures of shipping stuff as well.... I'll dig em up and add more later.

GoF

[Matty Bottles]

I have one of those bottles, and though it looks cool, I suspect it is blown with a mold, since I think there is a seem line running around the bottle. I do not know if they used bottle molds in the GAoP; for some reason I am think they did not. However, I am certainly no expert.

[Salty]

great information

here is a pdf on cermaics and glass making that may shed some more lightcermaics and glass pdf

[hurricane]

http://home.vicnet.net.au/~pwguild/a-botls.htm

This site shows a time line for the evolution of glass bottles, the first being 1630-1660

That's a pretty simplified chart. I would definitely recommend Hume's book. It has three pages of evolution on bottles. In some cases, just one year made a huge difference in design.

-- Hurricane

[Littleneckhalfshell]

But also remember that for a particular date or period portrayed, it is just necessary to not have anything from a later date, since things were used and reused until they were for the most part, broken.

Our Ancestors were way ahead of us as to 'recycling' and not much went to waste.

Bottle style charts are sort of a guideline if you will :angry: and though a NEW style could come about in a single year and change the next, still there were at the same time people making bottles the same way they had for the last 50 years.

I think the best use for the charts is to see if something can be used to relativly protray a particular period. (I for one am ok if the bottle shows mold marks, even if the original was free blown as long as the shape is in keeping with the period) Otherwise we might bring it all to an almost unobtainable requirement of using only true antique pieces, which in truth, being often marked with the ravages of ages passing, would truely not be recognized in period. After all, a whole bunch of stuff we think of as being period, we think of as 'old', and when it was in period, much of it was the new thing on the block, the very height of advancing technology. But I am all for being as true to history, as my poor sailors purse can muster.

[Matusalem]

Off the subject, I know, but Let's Talk Beer!

I was looking for authentic old-fashioned ale, something that would have been more representative of long before the Prohibition, and Budweiser, and I picked up a couple bottles of St. Peter's English Ale and Old-Style Porter in the microbrew section. But what's unique about the thing I read on the back label it says:

"Our beautiful flask-shaped oval bottle is a faithful copy of one made c. 1770 for Thomas Gerrard of Gibbstown, NJ, just across the Delaware river from Philadelphia"

Wikipedia says they are actually gin bottles. You can get more info here:

St Peters Brewery and Wikipedia

[Red Cat Jenny]

Both bottles are nice. Sans the metal cap of course..

Would bottles from the 18th C have those spring loaded tops (sometimes incorporating cork) you see on other jars and vessels of the colonial period? (Sort of like what holds down a mason jar lid? Or am I thinking of something later..

[Littleneckhalfshell]

I think you are thinking of something later.... such as the Lightning-type closure found on Grolsch beer bottles even today.

""Dating notes: In general, Lightning-type closures were popular on soda and beer bottles between the late 1870s to at least National Prohibition in 1920. After that time use was limited on beverage bottles; the crown cap dominated by then. The peak of use on soda bottles was the mid-1870s to early 1890s though some use was made at least until 1911 (Elliott & Gould 1988). For beer bottles, where this closure was as dominant as the Hutchinson closure was for soda bottles, the peak use period was wider than for sodas - about 1880 to the early 1910s"" http://www.sha.org/bottle/closures.htm#Cork

except for certain pewter screw tops that were in existance in the GAOP, wired cork (like champaign), tied cork, or just pressed in cork were the most common form from 1600 on to my understanding. Cork retainers (a early form that likely led to the Lightning type stopper) were patented in the mid to late 1800's (19th Cent.) So I would say that most metal, spring loaded type of closure systems are definitly out of period.