Collecting antique bottles

[uncleavi]

A few years ago I did a Commercial dive job next to the Ren Cen and found a really cool plate.
It said Georgian Bay Line and had a Great Lakes Ship on the logo.
I researched it on line and found it was a Canadian Shipping Company.
That was a cool find and I still have it

 

[riverdiver]

Hi did the plate look like this one? If so I can tell you all about it, if not post a picture, I have a book that lists all of the china that was used on the great lakes steamers.
Ed

 

[riverdiver]

Them are some nice finds, I stopped picking up glass bottles,I have found so many and no where to put them, but the clay ones that is different. This is a torpedo bottle or balast bottle.

 

[texdiveguy]

Get a copy of Wreck Diving Tales NS by Allan Henneberry....chapter 11 is a great read on chine/bottle hunting in Halifax Harbour!

 

[irishsquid]

Thanks Ed I tried to upload in that manner but the picture quality was too high. Here is a picture of some local pottery bottles, some from Detroit, Sandwich and Amherstburg Ontario. The ontario bottles are extremely rare. Hopefully I will have time to get out more this year to do some hunting for more local bottles.

Take a close up look of the bottle. It may be a bottle left by a time traveller and worth a fortune!

 

[texdiveguy]

Them are some nice finds, I stopped picking up glass bottles,I have found so many and no where to put them, but the clay ones that is different. This is a torpedo bottle or balast bottle.

The torpedo bottle were normal used to pack soda waters I understand.

 

[Detroit Mudpuppy]

The torpedo bottle were normal used to pack soda waters I understand.

Thats correct, these torpedo bottles represented a small percentage of the soda bottles used during the 1840's to the 1870's in North America. Similar bottles were used until the turn of the century in the UK, Australia and elsewhere. Popular belief is that the shape of the bottle allowed the bottle to lay on it's side to keep the cork moist which is not the case. The bottlers filling these bottles used a double pressure carbonization process and the bottle shape withstood these higher pressures without breaking while being filled.

Torpedo bottles which can be identified as being used by bottlers in the United States or Canada are considered rare to extremely rare amongst collectors and are highly sought after.

 

[Captain Walt]

Nice pix's....I live down here in Ga. and you can pull a bottle or two out of the rivers here.

 

[diverberr]

As Texdiveguy noted, there's a chapter in my book on bottling in Halifax. There's a photo of a couple torpedo bottles in the book. One is an H.W. Glendinning, one of Halifax's earliest soda water manufacturers and one of the rarest Halifax bottles. The other is a J.B. Heyl's from Hamilton, Bermuda. I actually picked up two of the Heyl's bottles about a foot away from each other on the same dive, and so far they're the only one's I've seen in Halifax, although I have seen a few other Bermudan bottles.

My collection is made up of stone ginger beers, medicinals, black glass, soda water, dairy, and assorted other bottles, as well as a few oddities like a Victorian-era charcoal water filter and a pair of antique French binoculars. And quite an assortment of shipping line china. Almost all from Halifax Harbour.

Cheers,
Al.

 

[TheMuseumGuy]

We found about 100 of these 1765 French Perfume bottles on one of the 300 wrecks in our territory. Of course 50% belong to the Dominican gov't and the rest are going into our museum.

I just think these fragile bottles encrusted in this huge piece of coral rubble will be a nice center piece in the museum display with the rest of the 50 we receive on our next division with the government! We were digging for more stuff today!

Also here is a pix of the display for pottery which is already set up and ready to go!

Here is a link to an :11 sec video of our bottles and glasses in a display already set up too: YouTube - Bottles and glassware recovered by NCR

Enjoy!

One of my fave finds! I'm so glad that so many people appreciate bottles and pottery as much as I do. I will continue to follow this thread. Come see my museum when it opens!
Jack