A few months back I randomly stumbled upon probably one of the biggest stand alone antique shops I’ve been in for quite a while, where I bought multiple glass pieces for Dala because she collects glass and they were all awesome as shit. One of these pieces happened to be this blue bottle that I’m sharing with today, which I didn’t much think about until yesterday, when I decided to give it a second look. Granted, I don’t know much about glass but the thing is a fucking mystery, with a capital “F” and “M.” So here’s me, shit posting on the internet with nothing but conjecture because there’s no way in hell I’m gonna pay someone to appraise a bottle that I paid less than $10 for (that and I don’t know any glass appraisers around here).
So we’ll start with what I do know.
The thing is absolutely beautiful as fuck and the photos don’t do it justice. It’s a beautiful shade of blue with an uneven coloring that fades you get towards the edges. Personally, I’m thinking the glass was colored sometime during or after the piece was being made, because the thickness of the walls are pretty uniform and I’m fairly confident that if it was made out of actual blue glass, the color would be uniform throughout.
If you fill it up just to the neck, it holds 16 fluid ounces (also known as a pint, unless you’re British, which then you have 20 fluid ounces to a pint and I’m pretty certain a Limey Fluid Ounce and a Freedom Fluid Ounce are two different amounts). Here’s the fucking thing. It says “Rosemary” on the bottle. Not “Rosemary Oil.” So was it actually filled with rosemary oil and if so, what would one do with a pint of rosemary oil? Well, according to the back of the bottle, quite a bit . . .
In case you’re having a hard time reading it, it says
- Rosemary
Uses
Astringent, Pungent Cooking Herb, Hair Lotion, Tonic, Perfume, and Toiletries
Maybe it’s legit? I dunno. People used all sorts of things way back when for all sorts of stuff and some of that continues today. I know tons of people who swear by cedar chips to protect their books from pests, eating raw onion and using garlic oil to keep their blood clean, using vinegar and water as a mild cleaning agent (which is how I cleaned this bottle by the way), and on and on. With that in mind, all of those uses for rosemary on the bottle make sense. I mean, all of that stuff sounds pretty mundane compared to something as crazy as using Lysol as a douche.
Still. 16 ounces of Rosemary Oil sounds like a lot. Plus, I’m not shitting you here, Dala has a few old medicine/extract/tonic/totally liquor bottles in her collection and they’re mundane and plain as shit. Not to mention, a whole lot smaller. If you ever go antiquing, check out a place that’s known for selling old everyday glass pieces. Everything from medicine to beer to cleaning supplies were kept in plain as shit bottles. Fancy glass was for fancy shit.
Moving on.
If you look down the side, you’ll see a line. This line says quite a bit about the glass because that means the piece was made in a press. This tells us that it’s not completely handmade and was made in much more modern times compared to something made in say, I don’t fucking know, 1776 (most important year in American history folks). It means that this isn’t a one off, but something relatively mass produced. That said, it can't be too modern as there is imperfections in the thickness of the glass, air bubbles in the walls, etc. Also, going back to the coloration, why the fuck is the color off? Can anyone tell me? Dala? You glass fanatic you?
Since we’re talking about production, let’s look at the bottom, because there’s all sorts of codes and shit on the bottom of glass pieces that can tell you quite a bit about them if you know how to decode them. Funny story. I don’t.
“C . . . B”
FUCK YOU! That’s all I get? Who the hell is supposed to figure out shit from that? Fucking shit.
Fuck it. I’m calling it now. It’s a vase. Alright? It’s a fucking vase. Have a good day everyone. Mysteries suck.