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Date: | Wed, 26 Feb 2014 00:24:15 +0000 |
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This just came in from Bill Lindsey:
The short story is I've never found a "start date" for umbrella inks (also called "pyramid ink" by glassmakers) which is really typical for all generically shaped bottles used for all kinds of products that were made by numerous glass companies throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
Ink bottles are also virtually never glassmaker marked...so that limits narrowing down date ranges.
The earliest hard reference I've seen is in McKearin & Wilson (1978) who noted the manufacture of "octagon" ink bottles by a New Jersey glass company in 1839. However, there are "pyramidal" octagonal inks as well as straight sided octagonal inks (Harrison's Columbian Ink during that same era)...so not sure what it is referring to. However, I'm pretty sure that umbrella inks were made by then but know of no tightly dated sites that would confirm an earlier date. The pages in McKearin & W. that cover inks is 265-269 if they want to read it more thoroughly.
-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Benjamin Pykles
Sent: Monday, February 24, 2014 2:44 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Umbrella Ink Bottles
Hello list members:
Recent excavations at a late 18th to mid-19th century domestic site in northeast Pennsylvania uncovered an isolated fragment of an amber-colored umbrella ink bottle. (I can email you a photo if you're interested). We are trying to determine the age of the bottle.
We have consulted numerous sources, including the SHA Bottle website, which says (citing Faulkner [2009]) that umbrella inks were made for a very long time, starting at least as early as 1840 to as late as 1909. But every source we have consulted seems to suggest a similar "soft" starting date, using words like "at least as early as..." or "around." Some even leave open the possibility that this style of ink bottle could have begun decades earlier than the 1840s.
Has anyone found similar umbrella ink bottles in tightly dated contexts? Is it possible that our fragment could date to the late 1820s?
Please feel free to contact me off-list.
Thank you for the help,
Ben Pykles, Ph.D.
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