Who Collects Wine Bottles?

[Fla-Gal]

Harry, your bottles are so beautiful.I love the squarish one....and WANT one !!!! when you get the chance,tell us how/when/where you became so "hooked" on such beauties....and,yall other guys,too. It is so great that treasure net offers someone like me the chance to learn and yearn for more info----and,pictures of yalls 'stuff'------thanks guys and gals,too.

 

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[Harry Pristis]

Harry, your bottles are so beautiful.I love the squarish one....and WANT one !!!! when you get the chance,tell us how/when/where you became so "hooked" on such beauties....and,yall other guys,too. It is so great that treasure net offers someone like me the chance to learn and yearn for more info----and,pictures of yalls 'stuff'------thanks guys and gals,too.

Well, thank you, 'Fla-Gal' -- I started collecting bottles when I started scuba-diving in rivers. Then there were lots of bottle and fossil and artifact shows. I always kept an eye out when traveling, too. Here's a bottle I picked up in the Alsace Region of France:

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[Harry Pristis]

Here's a colorful bottle from the late 1800s to TOC. This bottle was turned in a mold as it was blown, so it has no side-seams. It also has red spirals running through the body of the bottle. The lip is applied, which may suggest a date of 1880, or so.

I cut this bottle out of its wicker cover -- I was amazed at the colorful glass!

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[drgest]

Harry,

Question in regards to the "lady's leg" wine bottles. I have never seen or noticed the expanded or bulbous-like necks they have as opposed to straight or tapered. Very cool and I am very curious if you happen to know if there was any particular reason practical or otherwise for blowing them in that manner?

Thank you for your response, 'BuckleBoy' -- without feedback, it's easy to get the feeling that there's no one out there.

Please be aware You are being watched

 

[drgest]

Just had an afterthought. Would it be to be able to better grip the bottle when pouring?

 

[Harry Pristis]

Just had an afterthought. Would it be to be able to better grip the bottle when pouring?

If there is any practical reason for a bulbous neck, grip is as good a reason as I can imagine.

It may be that long necks for wine bottles came into fashion to keep the pourer's hand away from the guest's glass. But, certainly, not all wine bottles had exaggerated necks.

In my image, the inflation of the neck of the earlier wine bottles may be a sort of accidental "push-back" on the neck as the string was being applied. Not all of these early long-neck wines have the same degree of neck inflation.

Later wine bottles (a few, anyway) and bitters bottles may have been made in this fashion simply because the market demanded a distinctive bottle. Were it not for this demand for distinctive bottles in the nineteenth century, bottle collecting would be not nearly so interesting.

 

[Harry Pristis]

Here's another wine bottle, a magnum with an applied seal. The seal reads MADERA for Madeira, a fortified wine named after the Portuguese island of the same name. The bottle is English (or American) from the mid-1800s.

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[curbdiggercarl57]

Thanks for this post. I'm trying to learn all I can about bottles, and what you all just showed me helped immensely. Kudos.
Carl

 

[gleaner1]

This is a cool little champagne. Found in the railroad dump. It's a mini, 9" tall. Interesting base design.

 

[gleaner1]

Forgot pic!

 

[Harry Pristis]

This is a cool little champagne. Found in the railroad dump. It's a mini, 9" tall. Interesting base design.

Another hock wine form. I'll bet it's a half-bottle. What does the embossing on the base say? I cannot make it out.

 

[gleaner1]

Harry, it looks like a smaller fancy 'R' over a larger fancy 'M'. Mold damage makes the right hand leg of the 'R' appear to be a bit weird looking. It could be a P over M, outside chance.

 

[Harry Pristis]

Harry, it looks like a smaller fancy 'R' over a larger fancy 'M'. Mold damage makes the right hand leg of the 'R' appear to be a bit weird looking. It could be a P over M, outside chance.

Well, that is a lead to identifying the vintner or bottler.

It's more than possible that it is an American winery -- colorless glass is not typical for Alsatian wines; plus, there's no kick-up.

 

[timekiller]

Hey Harry Pristis,Timekiller here was looking through your post under bottles Nice Stuff you have! Wanted to show you one I had posted in todays finds! Found this last week at a early to mid 1700's home site here in N.C.!

 

[undertaker]

Here's a huge wine bottle I picked up recently. I was told sometimes these bottles did hold other liquids.

 

[Harry Pristis]

Hey Harry Pristis,Timekiller here was looking through your post under bottles Nice Stuff you have! Wanted to show you one I had posted in todays finds! Found this last week at a early to mid 1700's home site here in N.C.!

What an excellent find! I would call it an early "squat cylinder" wine bottle (after Roger Dumbrell). The form certainly fits your date for the home site -- say 1740-60. The bottle is likely to be English-made.

Great bottle! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Harry Pristis]

Here's a huge wine bottle I picked up recently. I was told sometimes these bottles did hold other liquids.

Great bottle . . . great BIG ol' bottle!

I think most of these bottles were used as fermenters in wine-making. In Europe, where wine-making is more than a hobby, many of these big bottles are still in use. A few of them turn up in the USA, but generally shipping is too expensive to ever see a whole lot of them here. Nice addition to your collection!

This is a pair of (probably) French fermenting bottles which are later than yours.

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[Fla-Gal]

Timekiller, unreal that this bottle survived the crossing and all these many years....know you heart was doing flipflops until you saw it intact...hopefully you will find more !!! Congrats .....

 

[timekiller]

Hey Harry Pristis,Timekiller here was looking through your post under bottles Nice Stuff you have! Wanted to show you one I had posted in todays finds! Found this last week at a early to mid 1700's home site here in N.C.!

What an excellent find! I would call it an early "squat cylinder" wine bottle (after Roger Dumbrell). The form certainly fits your date for the home site -- say 1740-60. The bottle is likely to be English-made.

Great bottle! Thanks for sharing!

Thanks Harry,You seem to know your bottles I had done some research already and your time line is right on.I was told by a archaeologist 1740-1750 he said english mallet though it's 8.5"by4.5" could you explain the difference?

 

[timekiller]

Timekiller, unreal that this bottle survived the crossing and all these many years....know you heart was doing flipflops until you saw it intact...hopefully you will find more !!! Congrats .....

Thanks Fla-Gal, After I had calm my self down from the find,that thought was one of my first too.I've been at this stuff for so long seen so many peices I was in a state of disbelief when I came across it.
Thanks for you kind words,
Timekiller