Bottle from somewhere in the Bahamas

[theGOLD]

Hey guys long time no talk. Found a nice bottle in the B-Hams. Perfectly in tact. Ive found lots of shards of this brownish black glass around the site, but never a nice full bottle. Anyone have an idea of its origin or what it held? I believe its off a British ship...

Enjoy
-theGOLD

 

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[Gypsy Heart]

Ok...The bottle is nice,....but I really love those chairs at the table...is that your house...are those your chairs?

 

[pcolaboy]

Most definitely British....late 18th to early 19th century - I'm pretty sure that's a Port Bottle. I find lots of broken bits of those in Pensacola Bay but never a whole one. Congrats man!!!

Pcolaboy

 

[theGOLD]

Ha ha ha... yeah those are our chairs.
Yeah I was excited to find a whole one. Just lucky enough to be tossed into a sand hole and sloshed around in the sand instead of up on the rocks during storms. The time period is (1810-1830) on the ship. So you think its a port bottle, thats interesting. Its what I was thinking it was as well.

-theGOLD

 

[rgecy]

The shape and the depth of the pontil (or the depression inthe bottom) will help tell the age. Here is a graphic from Bob Marx showing bottle shapes and pontil sizes. Looks to me to be 1790-1820!

Robert

 

[theGOLD]

Thanks RGecy, thats good info. So here's another picture of the bottom of the bottle. Can't really tell how deep that indentation is in the bottom, but its better than nothing
Now I just need to find one with port still in it... Ive actually heard of that happening with cases of wine sometimes, or maybe it was rum or another type of liquer. I had thought it was up north somewhere, and the cold and pressure from the water had acted as a perfect wine refrigerator. Anybody know which one that was?

-theGOLD

 

[rgecy]

I have seen intact jars of pickles and fruits, wine bottles still full, and bolts of cloth that have come off wrecks back to the 1850's. The William Lawrence is know for its dispensery bottles and fruit preserves that are still being pulled up to ths day.

I wish I had some pictures!

 

[mad4wrecks]

Very cool find, and very rare. I have found many pieces of old broken bottles over the years, but just 3 intact ones.

Keep soaking and rinsing it in fresh water to remove as much salt as possible, or there is the possibility that when it dries out, the salt crystals will slowly expand and crack the glass.

 

[CaribbeanDiver]

Use Salt Away changed twice over 30 days then Distilled water changed three times over 2 weeks and you will be fine. As a precaution, i still give it a light spray with pure silicone spray, use the stuff made for dive equipment.

Nice bottle by the way, always an exciting find.

 

[theGOLD]

Thanks for the advice, Ill make sure to get it in water. Wow, I actually didn't know about the effects of chlorides on glass. I always thought that glass was somehow immune to salt. Great info for me to remember!

Thanks

-theGOLD

 

[SimonLakeSub]

Great find, 1810-1830 would be the nail on the head. I have similar pictures in my book "Bottles Of Old New York" A Pictorial Guide To Early New York City Bottles 1680-1925
As a foot note I state, these type bottles were also used to contain Rum and sometimes Beer. NICE FIND !!!!!

Regards Simon.....

 

[piratediver]

Nice bottle for sure! Bottles were one of the main reasons I started diving in 1972 and I still dive all year in New England as the best bottle spots usually have too much boat traffic in warm weather around here. One trick bottle nuts use to remove the salts from bottles is to put it in your toilet tank, the flushing seems to work quite well, just make sure you don't have any blue tablet cleaners in there!

As a bottle fanatic, just imagine what it was like for me when as a grad student at Port Royal with Texas A&M in 1982 we found 70 intact onion bottles in the back room of a tavern, I couldn't keep one of them, that was tough!


Pirate Diver

 

[Salvor007]

Wow, great story man....I imagine it was a thrill (despite the poor viz) to dive and recover artifacts from underwater structures, and a tavern no less!

 

[theGOLD]

Thats hilarious! One of my friends does that in the toilet trick with random cannon balls sometimes. It works really well. Oh man, I really want to find an onion bottle. I know there are other glass colors on this site too because I've found blue shards and green shards along with china shards.

Thanks for the stories and info!

-theGOLD