Bottle Glossary

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INTRODUCTION

This glossary covers all of the specialized terminology used within this website, as well as many terms not used on this site but which may be encountered elsewhere.  Some of the terminology is collector based, some is technical glassmaking jargon, some is a mixture of both, and some is of unknown origin.  All pertain to and are useful for a full understanding of historic bottles.  Where alternative words/phases describe the same concept, it is noted - like Bore and Orifice.  When directly quoted, the source of the definition or information is noted; otherwise the references are not typically noted.  This is particularly true if the definition is directly from John R. White's 1978 work on bottle nomenclature published in Historical Archaeology, since this journal article is widely accepted and referenced by historic archaeologists.  (Not every term from his list is repeated on this list; only those deemed pertinent).

The terminology and definitions here are a composite of information derived from an assortment of references, the most important of which include: McKearin (1941), Howard (1950), Scholes (1952), Tooley (1953), Lief (1965), Kendrick (1963, 1968), Toulouse (1969a), Munsey (1970), Switzer (1974), Ketchum (1975), McKearin and Wilson (1978), White (1978), Berge (1980), Wilson (1981), Miller & Sullivan (1981), Jones (1986), Creswick (1987), Fike (1987 & 1998), Jones & Sullivan (1989), Sives (1992), and Van den Bossche (2001).  Many others were variably consulted also.  See the References page for more information.
 

BOTTLE MORPHOLOGICAL TERMS

Before the moving into the main part of the Glossary, it is useful to have a quick overview of the basic physical features - or morphology - of a typical bottle.  A somewhat stylized, "typical" bottle is illustrated on the following page:  General Bottle Morphology.  Most of the "parts" of a bottle are easier to visualize than describe.  Bottle physical characteristic definitions are included on the General Bottle Morphology page as well as below in green below.

GLOSSARY
Click on the pictures to enlarge and on the hyperlinks - where available - for more information and/or a picture or illustration elsewhere within this website. Names in bold italics are specifically covered elsewhere on this page if a user is unsure about the meaning or definition.

ABM - Acronym for "Automatic Bottle Machine."  The term is a short hand reference to a machine-made bottle as compared to a mouth-blown BIMAL (blown in mold, applied lip) bottle.

Air venting - Small vent holes in a bottle mold which release pressure and gases from the mold while the bottle is being blown or expanded.  Vent holes usually leave small glass "dots" or bumps on the body and sometimes the base of the finished bottle which are typically slightly smaller than a pin-head in size.  Vented molds tended to produce bottles with sharper embossing than those made in molds without venting.  See the Bottle Body Characteristics & Mold Seams page for more information on air venting.

Annealing (annealed) - The gradual cooling of hot glass to room temperature in an oven or lehr (annealing oven) to relieve the stresses in the glass and make the bottle stable and less prone to breakage.

Applied color label (ACL) - A method of labeling, lettering, or decorating a bottle by applying a mixture of borosilicate glass and mineral or organic pigments (and other substances) with a low melting point to a bottle through a metal screen and then baking it in a furnace to form what can appear to be a "painted label."  In later years (mid-1950s), a thermoplastic wax medium was used and resulted in more versatility and durability.  Also referred to as applied color lettering, pyroglazing, pyro, enameling, baked enamel labeling, fire-fused, silk screening, painting, painted, and printing.  This style of marking bottles was most commonly found on soda, milk, and some beer bottles made from 1933 up until today, e.g., Corona™ beer bottles (Giarde 1989; Sweeney et al. 2002; Tutton 2003).  Click Mission Beverages for a picture of an ACL soda bottle from the mid-20th century.

Applied finish (or lip) - Also called a "true" applied finish or lip.  Applied finishes are a category of finishes where the glass for the finish was "applied" in a separate process after the bottle was severed (wetted or cracked-off) from the blowpipe.  (Click applying a string finish to view an illustration of the process of applying this glass.)  After the finishing glass was applied to the severed bottle neck it was then "tooled" to form the desired shape and dimensions.  Virtually all finishes had some tooling done on them to form desired shapes - even many sheared finishes.  What differentiates the applied finish from the tooled finish is the separate application of glass to the neck end; this was not done in the process that produces the tooled finish discussed below.  The process of "applying" a finish usually results in some amount of excess glass "dripping" down below the bottom edge of the finish, as shown in the picture to the right.  See the applied finish section of the Bottle Finishes & Closures pages for more information.

Automatic bottle machine (ABM) - Refers to a fully automated machine that produces bottles independent of human supplied labor, i.e.,  gathers the glass automatically from the furnace, uses mechanically air pressure to the blow the bottle to shape, and requires no hand finishing work to form or finish the lip.  These bottles are also sometimes called Full-Automatic machine produced.  The acronym "ABM" is used as a short hand reference for all machine-made bottles - those produced by the Owens Automatic Bottle Machine, other fully automated machines, most semi-automatic machines, and semi-automatic machines converted to fully automatic via a gob feeder.  The acronym ABM apparently originated from the collectors literature in the early 1960s (Tibbitts 1964).

Bail - That part of a toggle closure device which is connected to the lever wire and passes over the lid holding it in place on the bottle or jar.  Also called a yoke (White 1978).  A bail is easier to define with a picture than to describe.  Click bail for a picture; the bail is the vertical metal portion which holds the stopper in place.

Bar Bottle - A fancy, somewhat decorative bottle intended to be re-filled and re-used indefinitely for dispensing various types of liquor; usually made with colorless (clear) glass.  A bar bottle is generally distinguished from a decanter in that bar bottles do not have a flanged finish and are clearly designed to receive a cork rather than a glass stopper, though there are many exceptions to this (Ketcham 1975).

Barber bottles - A class of decorative, often art glass quality bottles that were used by barber shops and individuals to hold various hair treatments and products.  Barber bottles were intended to be refilled from other containers and reused indefinitely.  They were produced from the mid-19th century to the 1920s (Ketchum 1975).  The picture to the right is of a mouth-blown, turn-molded, blowpipe pontil scarred example from the late 19th to early 20th century.  It has the original "sprinkler" type closure which is made of metal and cork.

Base - The bottom of the bottle; the surface upon which the bottle stands. Any measurements of the base on this website are of the greatest diameter (round) or greatest width and depth (non-round).  The "resting point" of the bottle is usually the extreme outside edge of the base.  See General Bottle Morphology pop-up page.  Also see the Bottle Bases page for a comprehensive overview on the subject.

Base plate - Base forming portion of a bottle mold.  See bottom plate.

Batch - A mixture of raw glassmaking materials in the correct proportion ready for the melting pot.

Battledore - A wooden paddle used to flatten portions of a bottle as it is being hand blown.

Bead - A raised ridge of glass having a convex section which encircles the neck of a bottle.  The term itself can be applied to any such circle or molding; also a modifier indicating its specific location, e.g., closure bead, collar bead (or beaded collar), etc. (White 1978).  The term is also used to describe a raised ridge located between the screw-threads and shoulder on many 20th century fruit jars and which formed the sealing surface for the cap and rubber gasket.  Bead is also a type of finish - click bead finish to view a description within the Finish Types & Styles pages.  The upper closure accepting part of a crown cap finish is a bead.

Beaded seal - A bottle that makes its seal or point of maximum contact on a beaded ridge which encircles the bottle neck.  The ridge just below the screw threads and cap on a Ball® Perfect Mason fruit jar is a beaded seal.  The rolled top portion of a crown top finish could also be considered a beaded seal (see crown top picture below).

Beveled edge A term used in describing typically rectangular or square bottle shapes, this is a narrow flattened edge between two wider flat, perpendicular sides of a bottle.  Click bottle bases for a picture that includes two bottles with beveled edges: the rectangular bottle in the middle and the square one to the right.

BIMAL - Acronym for "Blown in Mold, Applied Lip."  The term is a short hand reference for virtually any mouth-blown bottle, as versus ABM bottles (Automatic Bottle Machine).

Bitters - A class of patent or proprietary medicines, usually containing ethyl alcohol - often in ample quantity.  This product was very popular during the 19th and early 20th centuries.  The term is also used for the category of historic bottles with the word "bitters" embossed on them. i.e., "bitters bottles."  Click on bitters for an example of a popular and widely distributed mid-19th century bitters bottle.  (See picture to the right.)

Black glass - The term used to describe very dark, typically thick, olive amber or olive green glass.  Black glass usually must be held up to a bright light to see the true color.  This color was most commonly used on pre-1800 up to the 1880s bottles used for beer, porter, ale and similar fermented beverages.  See the Bottle/Glass Colors page.  The Hostetter's Stomach Bitters bottle to the right is black glass and dates from about 1865 to 1870.

Blank mold - See parison mold below.

Blister - Glassmaker term for a large air bubble in the glass.  See definition for bubbles below.

Blob-top - The term for a relatively large class of one-part finish types that are rounded on the outside surface and "blob-like."  This finish was commonly utilized from the mid 19th through early 20th centuries on bottles that held carbonated beverages like soda and beer.  The blob finish formed a good anchor for wiring down the cork or stopper.  The term is also used to describe certain styles of soda a beer bottles - i.e., "blob-top soda".  For more information, click blob finish to view the description of this finish within the Bottle Finish Types & Styles pages.

Blob seal -  A typically round or oval disk of glass on the body, shoulder (most typical), or sometimes neck of a bottle impressed with a stamp while hot to form lettering or designs, much like a stamp used to impress sealing wax.  Also called a "prunt" or simply a "seal", these were most common on 17th through mid 19th century wine bottles, though used on all types of bottles to some degree and as late as the early 20th century on.  Called a "shoulder seal" when on the shoulder of the bottle - the most common location (White 1978).  (Picture to right)

Block - A typically wooden (usually apple or cherry, but sometimes iron) form, hollowed out on one side for the bottle body and with a groove for the blowpipe, used in the process of hand blowing glass to give symmetrical form to a bottle.  Bottles produced with a block are always round in cross-section and hard to differentiate from a purely free-blown bottle.  The block was usually kept wet with water or oil to keep the wood from igniting, to facilitate smooth movement of the glass on the block surface (Kendrick 1968).  The marver (flat surface) was used in a similar way as a block (hollowed out cavity) in the forming of a bottles shape without a mold or prior to the use of a mold.  A dip mold could also be considered a type of block or block mold; see the dip mold discussion on the Bottle Bases page.

Block mold - Alternative name for the parison mold on a press-and-blow machine which was largely a one piece "block" (Miller & Morin 2004).

Blow-and-blow process - A machine-made bottle forming process where the parison is blown in both the parison mold and blow mold.  The most common automated production process or cycle used for bottles, particularly those with narrow necks.  Also see press-and-blow process.

Blow mold - The mold within which the parison (slightly inflated gob of glass) is expanded into the final shape of a bottle.  For mouth-blown bottles this is usually the only mold used.  With semi-automatic and fully automatic bottle machines, the blow mold is the second - and usually final - mold used after the initial parison mold.  This second machine mold is also referred to as a "finishing mold" (Munsey 1970) or a "forming mold" (Holscher 1953).

Blow-over - A mold type where the entire bottle - base, body, neck, and finish - are formed within a mold which extends a short distance beyond the top of the finish.  Once the bottle is removed (usually burst-off) from the blowpipe and the mold, the rough glass surface on the top of the finish is usually (but not always) ground down to achieve a smooth surface (Jones & Sullivan 1989).  A typical item blown in this type of mold were canning jars with either external screw threads (e.g., Mason jars) or some other type of closure needing a flat sealing surface (e.g., Lightning jar).  The term blow-over also refers to a finish that was made in this type of mold, i.e., a blow-over finish.  See description of burst-off below.  Click closed mold to view an illustration of a mold that would have been used for the blow-over method.  Click on the following link to see an amazing film clip from the early 20th century showing glass blowers using the blow-over and burst-off method of detaching the blowpipe:  Early 20th century mouth-blown bottle making film clip.  Film clip is compliments of the Owens-Illinois Glass Company. (Many thanks to Phil Perry, engineer with that company.)

Blowpipe - A long, narrow, hollow iron or steel tube used for glassblowing.  The blowpipe was often referred to as just the "tube" by early glassmakers (Hemingray 1860).  Blowpipes averaged 4 to 5 feet in length and were tapered to a mouthpiece on one end.  The glassworker blows through the mouthpiece end of the pipe to expand a gather of glass on the other "gathering head" end of the pipe.  The gathering head was a thicker section of ferrous alloy pipe (something resistant to oxidation) welded onto the pipe end.  Blowpipes usually had a rubber covered section near the mouthpiece end for the glassworker to gain a better grip for more power when turning the pipe - something that had to be done continuously with the relatively fluid hot glass (Scholes 1952).  As noted below, the blowpipe in the early days was also frequently used as the pontil rod.

Blowpipe pontil scar or mark - Also known as an open pontil or "tubular pontil" (White 1978).   This is a distinctive round, sharp, and hollow "life-saver" shaped disk of glass on the base of a bottle which was usually formed when one end of the blowpipe itself was used for the pontil rod.  Click on blowpipe pontil to view a picture.  Please see the Bottle Bases page for more information on this and the other different types and variations of pontil scars and how to differentiate them from each other.  (Picture to the right of a blowpipe pontil on an 1840s New England liquor flask.)

Bocca - An opening in the side of the furnace through which the pot is placed in the furnace.  The glass batch is placed in the pot from which the gather is taken.  The image to the right below (from a late 19th century trade card) shows glass workers making gathers from the bocca on the side of a glass furnace.

Body - The main content containing portion of the bottle, which lies between the shoulder and heel (insweep).  See the Bottle Body & Mold Seams page for much more information on bottle bodies.  Also see the General Bottle Morphology page for an illustration.

Bottle - As used on this website, a bottle is a glass container that was used to contain some product or substance.  A bottle has a bore and/or neck which are significantly smaller in diameter than the body diameter.  See jar below.

Bottle glass green - The natural aquamarine color of bottle glass resulting from the presence of iron oxides in the sand (White 1978).  See the Bottle/Glass Colors page.

Bottom hinge mold - A two-piece mold that his hinged together at the bottom - base portion - of the mold.  See hinge mold.
 
Bottom plate - Also know as a base plate, this is the separate mold section that formed most or all of the base of a bottle.  White (1978) defined it as "The shallow depression in the bottom of machine-made bottles and jars designed to allow for stability..." which is really the effect produced on a bottle by the bottom plate.  Most bottle molds usually had a separate bottom plate which resulted in either a cup bottom or post bottom on the resultant bottle.  Hinge molds, and the key mold variant of the hinge mold, did not have a separate bottom or base plate.

Bore (orifice) - The opening from which the bottle contents are accessed.  Also called the aperture, orifice, opening, throat, or mouth of the bottle.  See the Bottle Finishes page for much more information on finishes and finish parts.  Also see the General Bottle Morphology page for an illustration.

Bubbles - Variably sized and shaped air or gas pockets in the glass.  Bubbles is likely a collector based term, though it is quite visually descriptive and is used on this site.  Bubbles are also referred to as seeds (small bubbles) or blisters (large bubbles) in the glassmaking industry (Tooley 1953).  The term seeds is used in reference to very small bubbles, i.e., "seed bubbles".

Burst-off - This process variation of the cracked-off finish.  It is formed as follows - "Hot glass is mouth-blown into a mould until it fills the mould.  Continued blowing results in a thin bubble of glass expanding over the mould.  This is easily burst, leaving the object with a jagged top" (Jones & Sullivan 1989).  Burst-off finished bottles were blown in a blow-over or blow-back mold.  The diagnostic characteristics that differentiate this from the cracked-off finish are covered in the cracked-off finish description on the Bottle Finishes & Closures page.   Click English ink bottle for a picture of a late 19th century English ink with a burst-off finish.  Click on the following link to see an amazing film clip from the early 20th century showing glass blowers using the burst-off method of detaching the blowpipe:  Early 20th century mouth-blown bottle making film clip.  Film clip is compliments of the Owens-Illinois Glass Company. (Many thanks to Phil Perry, engineer with that company.)

Ca. - Abbreviation for "circa", meaning approximately.  Used on these pages to denote an approximate age or age range, i.e., ca. 1850-1860.

Calabash - A large, gourd, or pear shaped bottle (also called flasks), popular during the mid 19th century - 1850-1870.  The name presumably originates from the resemblance of these bottles to the hard shelled, gourd-like fruits of the tropical American "calabash tree" - Crescentia cujete (Gilman & Watson 1993).  (Picture to the right)

Canning jar - Glass jar in which food is preserved at home, typically having a wide mouth for access and some type of (hopefully) air tight closure.  Canning jars are also largely round in cross-section, though there are some square and multi-sided jars.  Click HERE for a picture of a typical 20th century example.  Also called a fruit jar, though canning jar is the preferred term on this website since it is more embracing, though both terms may be used interchangeably.

Capsule - A lead or tinfoil (or in more recent years - plastic) secondary cover closure used to cover the closure and finish of a bottled product.  Most familiar today on wine and champagne bottles to cover up the cork help prevent seepage and/or evaporation of the contents.  Click capsule for a picture of one on a Ferro-China-Berner Tonic bottle that dates from the early 20th century.

Carboy - A much larger than usual (one gallon or more) bottle which is typically round or cylindrical and used for bulk liquid storage.  Carboys were often covered with woven wicker or enclosed in a wooden box to protect the bottle.

Case bottle - A square bottle which was designed to pack efficiently together in a packing box or "case."  A common use of this term is in reference to square gin bottles, i.e., "case gin" - a mid-19th century example of which is pictured to the left.  Case gins are covered in more depth at this link: Case Gin section of the Liquor/Spirits bottle typology page.

Case wear - Wear to the high points of the embossing, sides of a bottle, and/or the base from the bottles contact with neighboring bottles while being transported or otherwise handled in cases.  Case wear is most common on soda/mineral water and beer bottles which were usually re-used many times.  Click on The Dalles Soda Works to see a Hutchinson soda bottle that exhibits case wear on the high points of the embossing - a common location for such.

Chair - The name for a wooden bench with arms at which the glassblower (gaffer) works.  Kendrick's 1968 book contains excellent pictures of chairs taken at a Mexican glass factory still using 19th century methods.  "Chair work" was a term for the bottle making hand processes done while using the chair for mouth-blown bottle production (Kendrick 1968).  Click chair use to view an illustration of a chair in use.

Chestnut flask - An early American (1780-1830) free-blown and laterally compressed style of flask, typically produced by early New England glass factories (McKearin & Wilson 1978).  Click chestnut flask for a picture.

Clapper - Tool used in glassmaking to shape objects.

Closed mold - A type of bottle mold where the base, body, shoulder, neck, and most/all of the finish conformation was molded.  This is as compared to an open mold which just formed the base, body, shoulder, and usually neck; the finish not being formed at all by the mold itself, but rather by the tooling of the terminal neck glass or post-blowpipe applied glass.

Closure - A "device" such as a cork, stopper, lid, or cap used to seal a bottle.  See the Bottle Closures page.

Codd stopper - Internal closure intended for a carbonated product where the carbonation pressure forces an enclosed glass marble against a rubber gasket inside the bore to seal the bottle.  See Bottle Closures page.

Collar -Used often to denote the lower part of a two part finish, i.e., the finish portion which lies immediately below the lip or upper finish part (see finish below).  Some use the term collar to refer to the upper portion of a two (or more) part finish or even to the entire finish if it is composed of only one part.  The terms "string rim", "lower part", or ring are also used to refer to what is called a collar here.  See the Bottle Finishes page for more information on finishes and finish parts.  Also see ring below.  This is one of many variably and confusingly used terms regarding finishes.  Also see the General Bottle Morphology page for an illustration.

Collector jargon - Descriptive bottle related terminology which is collector based or originated.  Examples include "slug plate" for the typically embossed plate area of plate mold produced bottles and the generic use of the term "applied lip" for all non-machine-made bottles.  Collector jargon will be noted where it is pertinent to do so.

Continuous thread or screw-thread - See screw-thread (outside) below.

Cork - A tree bark (Quercus suber) utilized to produce a very functional bottle closure which is still in use today for wine and occasional other products.  In collector jargon it is a term used for the lip or finish itself - i.e., "a cork top" bottle.  To the right is a picture of an early 20th century (ca. 1900-1910) beer bottle with the original cork in place and the wire closure still present.

Cork press - Hand tool designed to squeeze a cork into the desired shape for use as a closure.  Click cork press for a picture of an ornate late 19th century cork press.

Cover groove - A groove on top of the closure or lid that receives the bail.  It keeps the closure from slipping (White 1978).  This feature is particularly common on Lightning type fruit jars.  Click Lightning lid for a close-up picture of the cover groove on a late 19th century Lightning fruit jar.

Cracked-off (cracking off) - A process of removing the blowpipe from the bottle.  Cracking or wetting off entails "...scoring the glass near the blowpipe with a wet file or other tool to create a localized thermal tension.  A sharp tap on the blowpipe detaches the glass object.  The crack-off surface is flat and uneven with sharp, often jagged edges..." (Jones & Sullivan 1989).  Cracked-off is also a type of finish; click cracked-off finish to view the description of this finish on the Bottle Finish Types & Style page.  Click scroll flask finish to see a picture of a cracked-off finish.  Other terms for this finish include "break-off", "burst-off",  and "wetted off"; see wetting off below. Also, see the cracking-off and shearing section of the main Bottle Finishes & Closures page.

Crazing (crazing lines) - An grouping of short fissures or cracks most commonly found in and/or immediately adjacent to the finish (i.e., upper neck) of an true applied finish bottle, though can also be found in some tooled finishes.  It results from the heat differential between the applied finish glass and the slightly cooler neck glass.  Click crazing marks to view an image of a bottle neck/finish with crazing evident.

Crown top or cap - Metal cap used as a closure on primarily beer and soda bottles and still widely in use with the same dimensions as when patented in 1892.  Also a type of bottle finish  that takes a crown cap.  (Picture to right)  Click on Bottle Finish Types page to view the section of those pages which covers this finish type.

Cullet - Waste or re-cycled crushed glass that is added to new glass batches. 

Cup bottom or base - A bottle base configuration formed from a mold bottom plate which was shaped like a very shallow and wide "cup" (actually more bowl shaped).  Bottles formed with this type mold have a horizontal seam mark at or just barely above and encircling the heel of the bottle.  The side-seams of a bottle formed in this type mold do not extend onto the base.  Chronologically, this type mold was generally used after the post bottom mold, but is variable depending on the type of bottle.  Click on Bottle Bases to view the section of that page that covers this subject and to view an illustration of a mold.

Cure - A patent or proprietary medicine that claimed to eliminate one or more diseases.  The use of the word "cure" was substantially curtailed after passage of the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906 and the Sherley Amendment in 1913 dealing with fraudulent advertising claims.  Thus, bottles with the word "cure" embossed (or on the label if present) will virtually always date prior to 1913 (Agee 1969).  "Cure" or "cures" is also a collector term for the category of bottles with the word "cure" embossed on them.

Date line -  From White (1978) in reference to the vertical side mold seam on a bottle and the ability to date a bottle based on the height of the seam line.  The concept dates from Grace Kendrick's 1963 book The Antique Bottle Collector.  This is a dated and misleading term as it is well understood now that the height of the vertical side mold seam is at best a poor indicator of the age of a bottle.  Click mold seam dating "thermometer" to view a discussion of this "myth."

Decanter - A typically highly decorative bottle made for dispensing liquor; usually of colorless glass but often colored.  It is usually distinguished from a bar bottle by having a flanged or flared lip/finish and sealed with a stopper (Ketcham 1975).

Decolorizing - Decolorizing is in essence neutralizing the effects of the iron and carbonaceous impurities in the glass mix or batch to obtain colorless (clear) glass.  This is typically done by adding selenium, manganese dioxide, and/or arsenic to the batch though there are other methods.  See the colorless glass description on the Bottle/Glass Colors page.

Demijohn - A larger than usual (one gallon or more) bottle which is typically ovoid or bladder shaped.  See carboy.

Deposition lag - (aka "time lag")  A significant time span between manufacture, use, and discarding of an item.  Used here in reference to a bottle being thrown away long after it was manufactured.  As an example, it is common to find the fragments of canning jars manufactured during the mid to late 19th century in dumps or deposits that date well into the 20th century; the jar only being thrown away when broken after decades of use.

Dimple - The small molded depression or hole on the bottle neck into which the lever wire of a toggle closure device is hooked (White 1978).  This is another bottle feature that is easier to picture than describe - click dimple to view a picture of this.

Dip mold - A one (or sometimes 2 or 3) piece bottle mold which forms the base and body of a bottle but which is open at the shoulder (mold ends).  A dip mold also has a slight narrowing taper from shoulder to base to facilitate removal of the expanded gather of glass.  The body and base of the bottle are formed in the mold whereas the shoulder, neck, and finish were formed by blowing and tooling, as in the case of free-blown bottles.  Dip mold bottles often slightly bulge at the shoulder where the mold ended.  Click dip mold ale to see a close-up picture of a dip mold bottle shoulder.  Dip mold bottles almost always date no later than about 1860 (Deiss 1981).  See the dip mold discussion on the Bottle Bases page.  (Note: A type of dip mold was also used with press-and-blow machines as the parison mold (Miller & Morin 2004).  However, when as used on this website, dip mold is always in reference to mouth-blown bottles as described above.)

Dish base - A concavity in the base of a bottle which is somewhat shallower than a push-up or kick-up (White 1978).

Druggist bottle - Also known as pharmacy, apothecary, drugstore, or prescription bottles.  These are a class of bottles used by local druggists to purvey their products to the public.  Most glass companies from the 1870s through he mid 20th century produced these types of bottles.  This category is covered within this website on the Medicinal/Chemical/Druggist page at this link:  Druggist/Prescription Bottles.

Duraglas - This was the proprietary name for a process used by the Owens-Illinois Glass Company where the surface of the hot, just produced bottles, were sprayed on the body, shoulder, and neck (not base or the top of the finish) with a stannic chloride vapor that allowed the tin to bond to the outer surface and providing scratch resistance and durability to the bottles.  (Information courtesy of Phil Perry, engineer with that company.)  This process - and the embossed notation of it ( in script) on the base of many Owens-Illinois products - began in 1940 and continued up until at least the mid-1950s, though the process is still in use today without the notation (Toulouse 1971; Miller & Morin 2004; Phil Perry, O-I engineer pers. comm. 2007).  The photo to the right (click to enlarge) is of a 1951 beer bottle with the Duraglas notation in the lower portion of the base embossing.  (See the machine-made bottle dating page Question #11 for more information on the dating of this bottle.)

Ejection mark - See valve mark below.

Embossing - Raised lettering, designs, or graphics on the surface of the bottle that are formed by incising on the mold surface(s).  Also see plate below.  See the General Bottle Morphology page for an illustration and the Bottle Body Characteristics & Mold Seams page for more information on embossing.

Empontilling - The process of attaching a typically iron rod (pontil) to the base of a bottle (and other glass objects) to secure it while the neck and finish were being completed (i.e., finishing).  See pontil mark or scar below.

Feeder machine - Another name for the gob feeder enabled automatic machines which were semi-automatic machines made fully automatic with the incorporation of a feeding device and a blank transfer mechanism (Pearson 1928).

Fifth - Collector jargon term for a 1/5th (approximate) gallon capacity cylinder liquor bottle which is relatively tall and narrow with straight (vertical) sides.  This is shape which is still widely used today for spirits of all kinds.  Click SF&PGW fifth for picture of a Western American made "fifth" dating from about 1880.

Figured flask - A generic name for the large class of liquor flasks primarily produced between 1815 and 1870 which are also referred to as "historical", "pictorial", or "decorative" flasks. These flasks were quite popular during that era because they were both functional and decorative (McKearin & Wilson 1978).  (Picture to right)

Figural bottle - A bottle molded in the shape of things - animal (including humans), vegetable, and mineral (Munsey 1970).

Filamented ring - A ring on the base of early machine-made bottles formed when the gob of glass was severed after being drawn into the mold (White 1978).  Also called a suction scar .  The filamented ring may be more a reference to the versions of this mark where the cut was "sloppy" like the in the pictured bottle in the description of the suction scar below.

Finial - The upper portion of a glass stopper which grasped to remove it from the bottle.

Finish - Simply put, the finish is typically everything above the distinctive upper terminus of the neck.  It refers to the combination of the lip (upper part) and collar (lower part) of a finish, if both are present, or any other distinct parts if present.  The term "finish" originates as a reference to the final process of making a mouth-blown bottle - completion or "finishing" of the lip and upper portion of the neck.  Generically, a finish can have one-part, two-parts (the crown finish to the above right is two-part), three-parts, and rarely more parts (Jones & Sullivan 1989).  The finish on a bottle is also referred to sometimes as a "top," "mouth," or "corkage" (Howard 1950; White 1978).  (Note: Semi-automatic and fully-automatic bottle machines start the bottle manufacturing process with the finish/lip but the term is used for all bottles - mouth-blown and machine-made.  On ground finish, external screw thread bottles the actual "finishing" part of the manufacturing process is the grinding of the top surface of the finish rim, as the threads were formed by the mold itself.)  See the Bottle Finishes page for much more information on finishes.   Also see the General Bottle Morphology page for an illustration.

Finishing - The last step in the process of producing a mouth-blown bottle - the development or "finishing" of the end of the neck where the blowpipe was removed (i.e., forming a lip).

Finishing mold - See blow mold.

Fire grenade - A type of bottle designed to be filled with carbon tetrachloride (a fire retardant) and thrown into fires to extinguish them; an early "fire extinguisher."  These type bottles were fairly common from about 1880 to the early 1900s, when vaporized chemical fire extinguishers were invented and found to be much more useful and efficient (Munsey 1970).

Fire polishing - The reheating of a bottle or portion of a bottle (like a sheared lip or neck) to remove tooling or mold marks and/or obtain a smooth surface.  Usually gives the glass surface a almost liquid like sheen.  Commonly done as part of the finishing process during the first half of the 19th century on pictorial or figured flasks.  The body of the flask pictured above was fire polished.  Also see picture near the sheared finish or lip description below which is a close-up of the same flask.  It should be noted that this was also done on the finishes of early (first half of the 20th century) machine-made bottles to smooth out the neck ring mold seams on the finish rim for better sealing by rim sealing closures - particularly screw caps.

Flared finish - A finish or lip that spreads outward so as to create an opening whose opening is wider at the top than any other point on the neck (White 1978).  A flared-sheared finish as described by White is pictured to the right.  A flare finish is also a type of finish covered on the Bottle Finish Types & Styles page.  The term is also used to describe a bottle finish which protrudes ("flares") away the neck horizontally more than its vertical depth or thickness.  Click flared finish to see a picture of this alternate type flared finish which is relatively common on  medicinal bottles from the mid-19th century through early 20th century.

Flashing - A method of coloring glassware or bottles by dipping the still hot item in a molten batch of glass with the desired color.

Flask - A bottle originally designed to be portable and easy to carry, which is typically oval or rectangular in cross-section and laterally compressed on two sides.  Though the shape can be found in a multitude of sizes, on this website flasks are considered to have a capacity of about 16 oz. or less which is a more or less the upper limit of a "portable" size.  Two sizes (pint and half-pint) of the "Eagle" style flasks are pictured to the right.

Flint glass - A heavy, leaded glass of high quality with high refractive power, and great luster used in the choicest cut glassware (White 1978).  The term was also used loosely by glass manufacturers in reference to clear glass in general.

Flux - A substance - usually soda - which promotes the fusion of glass.

Free-blown - Glass formed by blowing and manipulation by hand and/or with tools but without the aid of a mold.  Thus, a free-blown bottle has no mold seams or other mold induced markings.  Also called "off-hand" blowing or working (Scholes 1952).

Fruit jar - Glass jar in which food is preserved at home, typically having a wide mouth for access.  Click Atlas Mason for a picture of a typical 20th century example.  See canning jar which is the preferred term on this website since it is more embracing, though both terms may be used interchangeably.

Full sized bottle mold - A bottle mold that is used to form a specific shape and size of bottle where the interior surface of the mold is the same size as the outside of a finished bottle.  An inflated gather is placed into a full sized mold and expanded until the outside surface of the gather conforms with the inside of the mold.   A full sized mold forms the base, body, shoulder, and most - or even sometimes all - of the bottles neck/finish.  Also see dip mold and  pattern mold - both of which are generally not considered full sized molds.

Gaffer - A master glass blower and primary person that produced mouth-blown bottles.  Was assisted by a servitor.

Gather - The glob (gob) of molten glass gathered on the end of a blowpipe which is expanded to eventually form a mouth-blown bottle.  The process of collecting the glass on the end of the blowpipe was called "gathering" and the person in the shop who often did this activity the "gatherer."

Gasket - A liner applied between the sealing surface of the bottle (usually the rim, sometimes the shoulder like on Mason jars) and the closure to provide a airtight seal (White 1978).

German half-post - This is an early method of bottle production where the initial gather of glass is slightly inflated then dipped again into the glass pot to apply a second layer of glass.  This second layer of glass did not totally cover the first gather which is typically indicated by a thickened ridge on the upper shoulder of the finished bottle.  The picture to the right is an early American bottle (1790-1820) produced by this method; note the ridge just below the neck.  Bottles produced by this method are often called "double-dipped" in collector jargon.  See the Glassmaking & Glassmakers page for more information.

Ghost seams - Ghost seams are lightly imprinted (usually) and meandering mold seams found on the body, neck, and sometimes the base of machine-made bottles from a blow-and-blow machine.  These seams are conclusive evidence of machine manufacture.  Ghost seams are formed by the mold seams induced by the two halves of the parison mold.  The meandering ("wavy") appearance is due to the distortion caused expansion of the parison in the second blow mold.  Also and more precisely called "parison mold lines" (Miller & Morin 2004).  See the Machine-made bottles portion of the Bottle Dating pages for more information.

Glass-tipped pontil mark or scar - A pontil scar which was formed when a solid iron rod or bar, tipped with hot glass, is used as the empontilling tool.  See the discussion of the glass-tipped pontil scar on the Bottle Bases page.

Glory hole - Small furnace used for reheating the bottle to be worked upon.  Most often used for re-firing the neck and finish of bottle to facilitating tooling and for pre-heating blowpipes and pontil rods prior to use.  This term is also used to describe a small access opening in a larger furnace used for the same purposes.  Also called a "dog-house" in some countries (Kulasiewicz 1974).

Gob - A portion of molten glass which is to be expanded (blown) into a bottle or other glass item.  It can be the portion of glass that is delivered or fed into an automatic bottle machine (see next definition) or the portion of glass "hand" gathered on the end of a blowpipe.  It is the pre-parison glass.

Gob feeder - A gob feeder is a machine that delivers hot, molten glass to a bottle forming machine; also called a "flow machine."  This is the mechanism which turned semi-automatic bottle machines - which had to be hand feed - into fully automatic feeder machines and eventually eclipsed the Owens Automatic Bottle Machine in the production of bottles (Pearson 1928).

Graphite pontil mark or scar - Collector jargon (and inaccurate term) for a type of pontil scar which should more accurately be termed an iron, bare iron, or improved pontil mark or scar.  Iron pontil scars contain no graphite (carbon) (Toulouse 1968).  See the iron pontil definition below and the discussion on pontil scars on the Bottle Bases page..

Ground rim or lip on a Mason fruit jar.  The grinding is on the flat top surface of an external screw thread finish.  Jar ca. 1900

Ground rim/lip - A finish which has the top surface hand ground to enhance sealing and/or closure fit.  Most commonly (but not exclusively) found on hand-made bottles with outside screw-threads, and  in particular canning/fruit jars (picture to the right).  Unlike a machine-made bottle where the side mold seam will be evident on the rim of the finish, a ground rim/lip bottle will have the side mold seam ending right at the juncture of the vertical (finish side) and horizontal (rim of finish) surfaces.  The grinding process very often leaves behind a surface resembling very fine grit sandpaper and often resulted in very small (less than a pinhead in size) chips to the outside and inside edge.  Some of the chipping is visible in the enlarged version of the picture to the right, which shows the dull and slightly rough ground surface on a fruit jar with a outside screw thread "finish".  Also called a "bust-off and grind lip" (White 1978).  Click ground finish to view the discussion on the Bottle Finish Types & Styles page.

Hand made, Hand blown, or Hand manufactured bottle - Terms used to describe non machine-made bottles.  See mouth-blown bottle.

Heel (Insweep) - The lowest portion of the bottle where the body begins to curve into the base.  The heel usually terminates at the resting point of the bottle, i.e., the extreme outer edge of the base.  Put another way, the heel is the transition zone between the horizontal plane of the base and the vertical plane of the body.  Also called the "basal edge" (Firebaugh 1983).  See the General Bottle Morphology page for an illustration.

Hinge mold - This term is often used to refer to a two-piece mold with no separate base plate section.  A hinge mold (aka hinge-bottom mold) bottle is indicated by the side mold seam continuing around the heel of the bottle, bisecting the base, and continuing up the opposite side of the bottle as the other side mold seam.  Click hinge mold base for a picture of a typical hinge mold bottle.  This is also sometimes called a "snap case" base in collector jargon if there is no pontil mark superimposed over the mold seam.  In actuality, virtually all two (or more) piece bottle molds had hinges for ease of operation and fit precision, so the term is somewhat inaccurate.   A better term is simply a two-piece mold.  See the Bottle Bases page for an illustration of a two piece hinge mold.  Also see key mold below.

Hutchinson stopper - An internal stopper composed of a stiff wire with a loop at one end (upper portion and external to the bottle) and a disk and rubber gasket on the other end (lower and internal to the bottle).  The disk/gasket served as a seal between the liquid and the neck and was dislodged by pushing downward on the exposed wire loop (White 1978).  Used almost exclusively on soda/mineral water bottles and rarely on beer bottles.  To view an illustration of this stopper click Hutchinson soda bottle illustration.

Improved pontil scar or mark - See iron pontil.

Improved or Improved-tooled finish - An alternative name for the tooled finish.  Also a term for a type of tooled finish where some or all of the shape of the finish itself was mold formed.  The picture to the right is an improved-tooled finish on a ca. 1904-1915 liquor bottle where the finish was mostly mold formed as indicated by the side mold seam extending well into the conformation of the finish.  The term "improved-tooled" was apparently coined by Ronald Deiss, in his seminal 1981 MS thesis on the subject, to describe the entire category of tooled finishes.  See the tooled finish section of the Bottle Finish Types & Styles page for more information.

Inside threads - See screw threads (inside).  This is a finish type that has the threads on the inside of the finish.

Insweep (Heel) - See heel.  See the General Bottle Morphology page.

Iron pontil scar or mark - An iron pontil scar is the result of a red hot iron pontil rod being applied directly to the base of a bottle.  The resultant markings are usually a circular (though sometime oval, square, or rectangular) ground mark that is often covered or embedded with a gray, black, or reddish deposit (ferric oxide) which is from the pontil rod itself.  Also called a "bare iron pontil" or "improved pontil."  It is also erroneously referred to in collector jargon as a "graphite" pontil mark based on the frequently gray appearance of the ferric oxide deposit.  All types of pontil scars are highly variable in shape and appearance; it is suggested that a user view the page on Pontil Marks or Scars for numerous examples of the different types and variations of pontil scars.

Jack (Jacks) - A highly versatile steel, or sometimes wooden, tong-like tool used almost like "fingers" to manipulate hot glass by the gaffer.  Used for neck and finish forming as well as holding or guiding any other tool that was hot.  Jacks were also called pucellas or simply "the tool" (Kendrick 1968).  Click jack use to view an illustration of jacks being used to form a bottle.

Jar - As used on this site, a jar is a glass container used to contain a liquid or substance and which has a bore and/or neck which have a diameter that is close to or equal to the diameter of body.  Also see bottle above.

Junk bottles - Early (18th and 19th centuries) glassmaker name for black glass ale, porter, beer, and cider bottles though these bottles were likely used for all kinds of bottled products.  Click on New England Glass Bottle Company to see an example of an early (ca. 1830s) American made "junk bottle" (McKearin & Wilson 1978).

Keyed mold - A variation of a two-piece hinge mold in which the bottom mold seam is not straight, but instead arches up at the middle of the base.  Also called a "key mold" or "key molded base."  This feature is better shown with a picture than described - see picture to right.  A common variation to the one pictured has a squared off instead of arched jog.  Keyed bases are highly indicative of a molded bottle made between the late 1840s and the early 1870s and will often have a pontil mark superimposed over the mold seam, dating them prior to about 1860 (McKearin & Wilson 1978).

Kick-up - See Push-up below.  Kick-up and push-up are synonymous.  Also called a "shove-up."  See the discussion of push-ups on the Bottle Bases page for more information.

Label or labeled only - This is a commonly used collectors term to refer to bottles that lack embossed lettering; the contents were originally identified by a "label only."  This term particularly refers to bottles without some type of proprietary (commercial user of the bottle) and/or product (contents of bottle) related embossing, in that a bottle that has the volume capacity embossed (e.g., "12 OUNCES") is usually also referred to as "label only."  Some collectors (and a few archaeologists) also call these unembossed bottles "slicks", a term taken from the Western American slang term for unbranded cattle where the ownership is not evident.

Laid-on ring - Ranging from crude to refined, this consisted of a glass ring or bead trailed around and/or slightly below the opening (bore) and fused to the bottle.  It was added to strengthen the bore or neck (White 1978).  See the laid-on ring discussion on the Bottle Finishes & Closures page.

Lehr - This is the annealing oven or furnace in which the newly blown bottles were gradually cooled to enhance strength and reduce cooling breakage.  A "cooling furnace" if that is not an oxymoron.

Lightning closure - Also called a Lightning stopper.  An external stopper which can be made of various materials (porcelain, metal, glass, hard rubber), with a rubber ring encircling it as a seal and held in place on the bottle by a bent wire attached to the stopper and anchored to the outside of the neck just below the upper or lower (lip or collar) finish parts (White 1978).  A variation of this was used on the popular Lightning fruit jar in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  Click Lightning closure for a picture of a Lightning closure on a modern Dutch beer bottle showing that these type closures are still in use around the world.

Lip - This is one of the more confusing and variably used terms used in reference to bottle morphology.  As used on this site, lip has two meanings depending on the context, though both uses are better described with other terms.  It is used to describe the extreme upper surface of the finish, though the term rim is preferred (both are often used together on this website).   Lip is also used by some - and occasionally on this website as indicated by the illustration on the General Bottle Morphology page - to refer to the upper part of a multiple part finish (Jones & Sullivan 1989).  The term is also frequently used as a shorthand reference for the entire finish, lip and collar together, i.e., a "bottle lip."  However, for added confusion, the term collar is used by some to refer to what is called a lip here - the upper part of the finish or the entire finish if it is composed of only one part.  See the Bottle Finishes page for much more information on finishes and finish parts.    Also see the General Bottle Morphology for an illustration.

Lipping tool - A tool used to form the finish of a bottle.  Click Lipping Tool for an illustration of a late 19th century lipping tool.  The finish contact portions of these tools were designed to be interchangeable so that different size and styles of finishes could be produced with the same basic tool (Deiss pers. comm. 2003).

Machine-made bottle - Bottle produced by a fully or semi-automated bottle machine where the air pressure to shape the bottle is supplied by a machine. Also, used to mean having the diagnostic characteristics of a machine produced bottle, i.e., side mold seam through the top of the finish and usually on to the rim, ghost seams, separate mold seams below and on top of the finish, and a suction or glass cutoff scar on the base (Owens Automatic Bottle Machine only).  See the machine-made bottles portion of the Bottle Dating pages for more information.

Makers mark - Refers to embossing (or very rarely other types of marks) on the bottle that indicates what glass company actually produced it.  These are most often, but not always, on the base, heel, or lower body of the bottle.  Dr. Julian Toulouse's book "Bottle Makers and Their Marks" (1971, reprinted in 1972) is the classic reference on the subject, though much clarifying and correcting information has been uncovered in the years since its publishing.  (Toulouse was the former Chief Engineer and Manager of Quality Control for the Owens-Illinois Glass Company in the mid-20th century.)  Markers marks are covered by its own sub-page on this web entitled Bottle & Glass Makers Markings.  The picture to the right shows the makers marks for a 1951 bottle (beer) made by the Owens-Illinois Glass Company.

Mamelon - The following description of a mamelon is from Jones & Sullivan (1989): "A rounded eminence, a small circular protrusion found on the basal surface, usually at the tip of the pushup.  These may be a type of vent mark...On champagne bottles the mamelon is large and protuberant."  Click mamelon base for a picture of a early 20th century wine bottle that shows a mamelon in the center of the base.  As noted, it is thought by some that the mamelon acted as an early form of air venting which facilitated the exit of the hot gases around the expanding bottle and allowed for a quicker and better "fit" of the hot glass to the sides of the mold (Boow 1991).  The line between a mamelon and an embossed dot in the middle of an indented base (a common bottle base feature) is vague, although a mamelon would be more protrusive than a typical embossed dot, though both are formed the same way (by molding); mamelons are uncommonly encountered on free-blown and dip-molded bottles (Jones 1986).

Marver - A  metal or wooden table or slab - which was wax or oil coated for lubrication - on which the gob or gather of glass at the end of the blowpipe could be rolled to shape the bottle.  The marver was also called a "chill" as that is what it did to gather of glass - cool it down to a more workable viscosity (Scholes 1952; Howard 1950).  Some finishes on bottles could be formed, at least in part, by rolling the finish on the table while the base of the bottle was secured by either a pontil rod or snap case tool (Schulz, et al. 1980).  The process of using the marver as described is called marvering; click marvering to view an illustration of this process.  Click Early 20th century mouth-blown bottle making film clip which shows the gaffers using a marver (left side of image) to pre-form the gob of glass prior to dropping it into the mold and expanding it.  (Film clip is compliments of the Owens-Illinois Glass Company.)

Mason shoulder seal - On the famous Mason style screw thread, the sealing surface was the shoulder just below the screw threads, not the finish rim.  A rubber gasket was put on the shoulder between the glass and the metal lid and that combination achieved the sealing of the jar.

Measuring mold - See parison mold below; an industrial term used to refer to the parison mold on an Owens Automatic Bottle Machine.  On this machine, the parison mold did serve the function of measuring the proper amount of glass necessary for the particular bottle being made.

Mechanical cleaning - A process developed over the past 30 years where a stained or patinated bottle is polished to its more or less original luster using a mechanical tumbler, tiny pieces of copper, and cleaning compounds in solution.  Bottles having this done to them are referred to as "professionally cleaned" or "tumbled" by collectors.

Metal - A glassmaking term for the glass itself, molten or solid.

Moil - Residual glass remaining on the tip of a blowpipe after detaching the blown bottle (Kulasiewicz 1974).

Mold (or mould) - Typically a metal (usually iron or brass - very rarely ceramic or wood) form with a hollow interior within which the molten glass is expanded to form the type bottle defined by the internal mold surface design.  Some simple mold forms (i.e., dip mold or pattern mold), during the earlier years covered by this webpage, were used to assist the glassblower in shaping or patterning a bottle without being the absolute defining element.  A bottle from a full mold is called a mold blown bottle.   See the Glassmaking & Glassmakers page for illustrations of the different major mold types.

Mold cutter - Presumed to be a 19th-century term for the workman in the glass works (or independent mold producing shop) who did the engraving on the inside of the mold which formed the indentations that caused the resulting embossing on the bottle itself.

Mold seam - Raised lines on the body, shoulder, neck, finish, and/or base of the bottle that are formed where the edges of different mold sections come together imperfectly.  (Picture to the right.)  Also called "mold line(s)" (White 1978) and in the glass industry, "joint-marks" (Scholes 1952).  See the General Bottle Morphology page.

Mouth-blown bottle - A bottle which was not blown by a automated machine nor is press-molded, but is instead shaped (with or without a mold) via air pressure applied by mouth through a blowpipe.  Referred to also as a "hand-made," "hand-blown," or "hand manufactured" bottle.

The following link is to an amazing early 20th century film clip of a mouth-blown "shop" blowing bottles.  It shows two gaffers and one mold boy in smooth and efficient action.  The gaffer makes the gather from the glass pot/tank in the background, rolls and pre-forms the parison on the marver (table to the left), then quickly drops the parison into the mold which the mold boy efficiently snaps shut.  The gaffer quickly inflates the bottle and efficiently bursts off the blowpipe while pulling the blowpipe away from the mold (this is very interesting to observe and shows that shearing or cracking off wasn't always used or necessary).  The mold boy then removes the bottle from the mold with tongs while the gaffer knocks off the residual glass from the end of the blowpipe and then moves back to the glass pot/tank to make another gather.  The second gaffer is doing all of this on a staggered timing sequence with the first gaffer which allows the team ("shop") to produce a bottle about every 20 seconds!  Film clip is compliments of the Owens-Illinois Glass Company. (Many thanks to Phil Perry, engineer with that company.)    Early 20th century mouth-blown bottle making film clip.

Moyle - The residual and quickly solidifying glass left on the end of the blowpipe after the bottle is removed (e.g., cracked-off).  This residual glass was usually beaten off prior to beginning the next gather unless the blowpipe was being used also as the pontil rod in which case this glass is the base adhering glass that becomes the pontil (Boow 1991).  (The removal of the moyle by beating it off is shown well in the file clip linked above.)

National Prohibition - In 1919, the the legal production and sale of alcoholic beverages was banned with passage of the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act with the implementation of National Prohibition in January 1920.  Repeal of the 18th Amendment came in December of 1933 with liquor required to only be sold in bottles; bulk sales in casks was prohibited in an attempt to exert tighter controls and prevent a resurgence of anything resembling the old time saloon.  See the Liquor/Spirits bottles page for more information.

Neck - The (usually) constricted part of a bottle that lies above the shoulder and below the finish.  Some authors have considered the upper neck as part of the finish also since the upper neck was very often manipulated as part of the finishing process with mouth-blown bottles (Ketchum 1975, White 1978).  However, for this web site the finish is considered to begin where the conformation of the upper neck abruptly or changes alters (usually increases in diameter) at the base of the finish. See the General Bottle Morphology page.

Neck-ring or Neck-ring mold - At its simplest, this is the "metal mold part used to form the finish on a hollow glass (bottle) item" made by a semi or fully automatic bottle machine (Tooley 1953).  More specifically, on blow-and-blow machines this is the portion of a mold that held the parison in the parison mold and to mechanically transfer the parison to the second blow mold, where it also formed part of the mold.  It also performed this function on some press-and-blow (p&b) machines (like the Miller Press and Blow Wide Mouth machine) although on other p&b machine types (like the Lynch Milk Bottle machine - first illustration, second illustration) the neck ring was simply the guide for the pressing plunger and was not used in the transfer of the parison to the blow mold; a process instead performed by mechanical transfer tongs (Tooley 1953).

Non-continuous thread or screw-thread - See screw-thread (outside) below.

Opalescence - A glass weathering trait caused by moisture on the glass surface leaching out or dissolving the soda within the glass and depositing it on the surface of the bottle.  Also referred to as devitrification.  Opalescence may take the form of nacreous ("mother of pearl") discoloration or whitish, scale-like patina (White 1978).  See patination.

Open mold - A type of bottle mold which formed the base, body, shoulder, and usually neck; the finish not being formed at all by the mold itself, but rather by the tooling of the terminal neck glass or post-blowpipe applied glass.  This is as compared to an closed mold where the base, body, shoulder, neck, and most/all of the finish conformation was molded. 

Open pontil mark or scar - A collector term for what is more accurately called a glass-tipped or blow-pipe pontil scar.  This is the glass scar left on the base of a bottle by a glass tipped pontil rod (or equivalent) when it is removed.  All pontil scars are highly variable in shape and appearance.  It is suggested that a user view the pontil scar/mark section of the Bottle Bases page more information and pictures of different types and variations of pontil scars.

Orifice (Bore) - See Bore.  See the General Bottle Morphology page.

Owens Automatic Bottle Machine - The first fully automatic glass-blowing machine patented in 1904 (applied for in 1903) by Michael Owens of the Libbey Glass Company, Toledo, Ohio.  This proprietary machine gradually dominated production in the early 20th century, producing about 50% of all glass containers in the U.S. by 1917 (Barnett 1926).  The Owens machines, which used suction to draw the glass into the mold, were gradually overshadowed by more efficient "gob feeder" (gravity flow glass feeding) machines beginning in the late 1910s and 1920s.  Owens machine production declined gradually, producing about 30% of the total American production in 1947 (Miller & Sullivan 1981), to the end of use in 1982 (Miller & McNichol 2002).  The Owens machine was patented on August 2nd, 1904; click Owens Patent to view the actual 1904 patent drawings and descriptions.

The link below allows a user to view an amazing short movie clip that shows two different early Owens Automatic Bottle Machines in operation.  The first machine is the "Machine #5" which the film clip script notes as having been made in 1906 in Toledo, Ohio.  This was apparently the earliest of the viable commercial machines, and in fact, the clip was made to help promote and sell the machine to potential buyers.  The first person shown operating Machine #5 is Emil Bock, a mechanical genius who worked with Michael Owens from the "bicycle pump" early machine experimentation days (1890s) and transformed Mike's ideas into workable steel machines.  Michael Owens is the second person shown picking up and examining a couple beer bottles.  This clip is also reported to be the only movie ever made showing Michael Owens who was reputed to be "camera shy."  The last half of the clip shows a much larger, 15 head "AQ" machine in operation (Walbridge 1920; Owens-Illinois Co. 1959; Perry pers. comm. 2007).  Of particular note, the clip shows several the sucking up and cutting off of the glass from the continuous tank by the parison or blank mold.  Towards the end it also shows the shift of the parison from the parison/blank mold to the blow mold.  Film clip is compliments of the Owens-Illinois Glass Company. (Many thanks to Phil Perry - a senior engineer with that company - who graciously provided this clip.) 

Film clip of an early Owens Automatic Bottle Machine in operation.

Painted label - See Applied Color Label (ACL) above.

Panel or Paneled - These terms have several meanings.  According the the Merriam-Webster OnLine dictionary, panel is "a separate or distinct part of a surface."   For bottles, panel or paneled usually refers to the flattened sides of a bottle, i.e., a square bottle being a "paneled bottle."  The druggist bottle at this link - J. A. LOGAN - has a flattened "panel" with embossing.  The flattened panels may also be indented (aka inset or sunken) and are commonly seen on square or rectangular bottles.  These panels typically contained the label or the proprietary embossing.  The two aqua proprietary medicine bottles pictured below right have indented panels.  An alternative meaning of panel is in reference to the removable plates in a plate mold  that allowed the same mold to be used for differently embossed proprietary bottles (White 1978).

Parison - An inflated gather of glass which is not yet the finished bottle.  The term is applicable to both mouth blown and machine-made bottles.  With mouth-blown bottles, a parison is the early expansion of the gather (gob) of glass  which is then placed in the mold for final expansion to the mold induced form.  With machine-made bottles the gob of glass is sucked (Owens Automatic Bottle Machine), placed, or dropped (other semi and fully automated machines) into the parison mold which forms the parison.  In the machine process, a parison is a preliminary bottle shape with a fully formed finish and a partially formed body.  The parison is then automatically transferred from the parison mold to a separate blow mold for final blowing/shaping of the bottle body.

Parison mold - Also known as the blank mold, a block mold (on a press-and-blow machine), or on an Owens Automatic Bottle Machine it is sometimes called a measuring mold (Tooley 1953; World Book Encyclopedia 1958; Miller & Morin 2004)).  This is the preliminary bottle forming mold on all automatic bottle machines which transforms a gob of glass into a preliminary bottle shape with a fully formed finish (lip) and a partially formed body.  The parison mold on a blow-and-blow machine was made of two or more parts (not including the neck-ring mold) This formative bottle is then automatically transferred to a blow mold for final expansion to shape of the finished product.  On the Owens machines the parison mold was apparently sized to measure the glass being sucked out of the glass pot below, thus the term measuring mold.  Parison molds were unnecessary with mouth-blown bottles were only one mold was used.  See the Glassmaking & Glassmakers page for more information.  The blank (parison) mold concept was the revolutionary invention (patented in 1882) of Philip Arbogast of Philadelphia, PA. although the implementation of the blank mold - which forms the "finish" of the bottle - was not realized until the 1890s with the first semi-automatic machines (Howard 1950).

Parison mold seams - The mold seams that are formed on the surface of the bottle by the mold part interfaces (joints) of a semi or fully automatic machines parison mold.  These can include the ghost seams on the sides and a suction scar like mark on the base of machine-made bottles.

Paste mold - See turn-mold below.

Patent medicine - Also called a proprietary medicine.  A very commonly used generic name attached to huge category of bottles which held medicines or other remedial agents and were sold without a prescription.  Although medicines in the 19th and early 20th century were rarely patented (if anything they were more often trademarked) the name patent medicine is ingrained in the collector world (Munsey 1970, Fike 1987).  The picture to the right shows two variants of a popular 19th century patent medicine - Hall's Balsam for the Lungs.

Patination (patina) - The surface of glass will react variably, albeit slowly, to the natural chemical processes of decomposition in both water and the earth.  This process of weathering is called patination.  The results of this decomposition is a crust or other glass surface alteration with is referred to as a "patina", "sick glass", or simply "stain."  Some glass is more prone to patination than other glass and some environments produce patination more readily than others.  Thus, the presence or absence of patination does not imply anything about the age of the glass.  This effect is also called stained, opalized, opalescence, iridescence, or devitrification by collectors (Tooley 1953, Kendrick 1963).  Click on this link - ancient Roman bottle - to view an ancient (1700+ years old) bottle with obvious patination which corroded the surface of the bottle.  Click A. Gettelman Brewing Company to view an early (1910s) machine-made, export style beer bottle that has a rainbow patination that is actually quite esthetic.

Pattern mold - A type of partial and less than full sized mold with lines or "patterns" engraved on the walls in which a somewhat inflated gob or gather of glass is placed to give the bottle a general shape and the surface a pattern.  The bottle is then removed from the mold and further expanded to form the final dimensions of the bottle.  Click Pitkin type flask to see a picture of an American bottle produced in a pattern mold.  See the Glassmaking & Glassmakers page for more information.