Historical information

This barnacled bottle is typical of those used for storing and transporting liquor. It was probably made from 1840s-1870s. The marine barnacles on the bottle support the fact that it was recovered from sea. The bottle was found at the site of an unidentified shipwreck along the coast of Victoria around 100 years from when it was made. It is part of the John Chance Collection.

Black glass is one of the oldest bottle colours and was in use in the early 17th century. In the 1840s to late 1870s black glass bottles were mainly used for liquor and ale. All glass is made from silica, which is found in quartz sand. The naturally occurring sand has impurities, such as iron, that determine the colour of the glass. Residual iron leads to green or amber coloured glass, and carbon in the sand makes that glass appear as ‘black’. A strong light behind the glass will show its colour as dark green or dark amber.

This handmade bottle appears to have been made in a dip mould, with the molten glass blown into a seamless shoulder-height mould to give the body a uniform symmetrical shape and size. After the body is blown, the glassblower continues blowing free-form (without the mould) to form the shoulder and neck, then the base is pushed up with a tool, leaving a slightly flared out heel. The dip mould gives the body a slightly textured and sometimes rippled surface, with the free blown shoulders and neck being smoother and shinier. The mouth of this bottle appears to have been left unfinished, with the glass cut off from the glassblower’s pipe. There is a line around the shoulder where the mould of the body meets the shoulder, and a lump or mark in the centre of the base, called a pontil mark, where the push-up tool was removed.

Significance

Although the bottle is not linked to a particular shipwreck, it is recognised as being historically significant as an example of liquor bottles imported for use in Colonial Victoria in the mid-1800s to late 1800s and discovered in the State’s coastal waters.

The bottle is also significant as it was recovered by John Chance, a diver in Victoria’s coastal waters in the late 1960s to early 1970s. Items that come from several wrecks have since been donated to the Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village’s museum collection by his family, illustrating this item’s level of historical value.

Physical description

Bottle; black glass, handmade. Applied square band around cut mouth. Bulbous neck, vague mould line around shoulder. Body surface has horizontal ripples, shape tapers inward to base. Shallow pushed-up base with outward flared heel. Cream and white barnacles on sides, base and in mouth.