Bottle Colour and What it Might Tell Us

I've started working on a new project. I have a collection of bottles from an archaeological context in Vancouver. A number of them are, I believe, some of the very first fully automatic machine-made bottles from Europe. They are providing me with some very interesting data and I'm going to share some of my preliminary findings with you here. This study is part of an Arrowstone Archaeological Research and Consulting Ltd project, and is being conducted by myself, Sandi Ratch.

Here is the first post I'm going to share - some background and some colour:

The Earliest Owen’s Machine-Made Bottles in Europe

1907-1914: Seven Years That Changed the Face of the European Bottle-Making Industry

Sandi Ratch

An archaeological collection of hundreds of bottles from a dump site in Vancouver’s False Creek Flats has offered a unique opportunity to study some of the earliest Owens Machine-made bottles from Europe (check out the link for a good history of the Owens company). Most of the archaeological research on Owens bottles has been limited to the United States, the chronology of European-made Owens bottles is less understood. Through this research, it has become clear that most of the pre-WWI Owens bottles from Europe came from Germany - even those that were filled in Britain and exported to the Colonies (Meigh 1971?:7). I have also found that the history of the early Owens machines in Europe has a fairly tight timeline with some specific dates that can be useful in dating sites.

COLOUR


Recently, I discovered that prior to World War I, all beer bottles in England were made of green glass (wait until I publish it to get the reference). From this information and from the collection I have, I here theorize that there was a distinct colour difference between alcoholic beverage bottles (and maybe all low colour bottles) made in Europe (filled in England) and those made in the U.S. prior to WWI. In this collection, alcohol bottles identified as being made or filled in Britain are all yellow-based green – anywhere from the very dark “black glass” to the very pale green glass like Walkers Whisky or Gordon’s London Dry Gin. Even olive-coloured green glass is included here. Whereas bottles from the United States tend toward red based amber, pale blue (early beer bottles), or maybe blue-based green (emerald) - although I don't have proof of this last one ... yet.





THE DIFFERENCE IN "LOW COLOUR" BOTTLES, or the bottles that were made to be as clear as possible, but did not have manganese or other chemicals added to eliminate all colour. These trends are very loose and I wouldn't use them to try and identify place of manufacture at this time.

American bottles tend toward blue tints in their low colour bottles.

While British or European low colour bottles tend toward green.



BEER BOTTLES:

These trends a very solid for early 20th century bottles. American beer bottles from this time period appear to either be the low colour blue, or they are amber.

While British Beer bottles were all green to black (these are a collection of semi-automatic machine made bottles from John Lumb and Co.).

 




Take a look at your collections and see if these colours are reflected in your early-20th century bottles.


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