How can you tell if a bottle is hand blown?
Look closely at the mold seam and where the lip meets the bottle. All truely hand blown bottles have an applied lip. The curious student of glass items will quickly learn when a lip has been formed onto the bottle and when it was applied by hand.
Can a turn mold bottle look like a free blown bottle?
One note of caution is that turn-mold bottles will, like free-blown bottles, have no evidence of mold seams either. However, turn-mold bottles will be very symmetrical, always be round, and just not “look” as old as free-blown bottles.
What makes a glass bottle look like hand blown glass?
If the bottle seems very heavy for its size, has a blobby top area and looks like hand-blown glass, it likely is. Before molds were used to create a more uniform bottle, glass bottles were made entirely by hand by a skilled tradesman blowing air into a blob of hot glass attached to the end of a long pipe.
What’s the difference between turn mold and free blown glass?
This is an important distinction to make since free-blown bottles usually date prior to the Civil War and often are much older than that; turn-mold bottles usually date from the late 19th century to early 20th century. They are discussed in more depth under the “Mold Induced Body Features” section later on this page. Body glass imperfections
How are glass bottles made in the seam method?
This greatly simplified the process of bottle making, as well as the amount of time it took to manufacture each one. Instead of making each part by hand, the mold allowed a worker to simply insert a hollow pipe or reed (with a glob of molten glass) into the mold and literally inject the glass against the mold.
One note of caution is that turn-mold bottles will, like free-blown bottles, have no evidence of mold seams either. However, turn-mold bottles will be very symmetrical, always be round, and just not “look” as old as free-blown bottles.
Look closely at the mold seam and where the lip meets the bottle. All truely hand blown bottles have an applied lip. The curious student of glass items will quickly learn when a lip has been formed onto the bottle and when it was applied by hand. Handwork in glassblowing disappeared in the late 19th century.
If the bottle seems very heavy for its size, has a blobby top area and looks like hand-blown glass, it likely is. Before molds were used to create a more uniform bottle, glass bottles were made entirely by hand by a skilled tradesman blowing air into a blob of hot glass attached to the end of a long pipe.
This is an important distinction to make since free-blown bottles usually date prior to the Civil War and often are much older than that; turn-mold bottles usually date from the late 19th century to early 20th century. They are discussed in more depth under the “Mold Induced Body Features” section later on this page. Body glass imperfections
