From the bottom of the ocean all the way to the moon, the human race has left a trail of rubbish behind it. But man’s dribble of debris is not all bad, because it tells us a story, and centuries of dumped objects, such as old glass bottles, tell us something about where we’ve been.
Here in the Caribbean, historians and aficionados can retrace our history through the evolution of the bottles they find lying alongside other artifacts, near sunken wrecks, in harbours, old dumps, river bottoms and long-abandoned settlements. After four centuries of explorers, military armadas and pirates prowling these waters, it’s no surprise the region is awash in old bottle specimens.
But what’s the big deal with bottles anyway? Collectors will quickly tell you that their inherent crude beauty, their decorative shapes and colours, their historic value, and, of course, the thrill of the find, make bottle collecting a surprisingly appealing hobby.
The Caribbean attracted numerous French, Dutch, Spanish and English ships, says master diver R.A.M. Edghill (everybody calls him “Ram”), “so there’s a wide variety of old bottles around most islands.” Barbados has long been a major attraction for bottle divers, because it was a bustling trade centre. What with sunken ships and tossed garbage, Carlisle Bay, the island’s harbour of old, was once littered with bottles just waiting to be found. These days, the 45-year veteran diver says, “Most shallow bottles are gone — you have to dive deeper.” Ram says the Bahamas and St Vincent are good sites as well, but “anywhere an island had a harbour, you will find bottles.” Also, pirates were a constant threat; many ships, using heavier bottles for ballast as well as cargo, sank when attacked and overpowered.
In the shallows of Barbados, the more commonly found bottles are oddly shaped aerated-drinks bottles from the 1800s, “hamiltons”, “codds” and “torpedoes”. “There’s a lot of ‘ports’ (squat cylinders) here, too,” Ram says, “but not many in other islands.”
Guyana is another bottle-hunter’s dream, with its rich variety of Dutch and English bottles from the 17th and 18th centuries. Though it’s difficult to reach the river-dredging sites in the interior where bottles are recovered, it’s easy to find “bottle men” in Georgetown hawking these treasures of old.
Harder-to-find bottles include free-blown 1700s black glass “ladies legs” (long necks) and “utilities”, ceramics, squat cylinders, and, of course, “onions”. Bottles with applied seals are very rare and highly prized.
Collectors can branch off into dozens of specialty areas, ranging from early black glass and seal bottles to the varied aerated-drinks bottles and decorative “poisons” with their bright colours and dense ribbing, intended to caution people that the bottle contained something toxic. And you don’t have to be a diver to find interesting specimens. Wherever there’s an old settlement or dump, bottles are certain to be nearby.
If you’re not inclined to digging either, bottles are readily found in antique and second-hand shops, and even on the Internet, from online dealers. In these situations, know your particular specialty well, because an entire industry of fakes, reproductions and commemoratives abounds.
Thanks to Willie Van Den Bossche, author of Antique Glass Bottles, Their History and Evolution, 1500–1850, who was of invaluable assistance in the dating of some of these featured bottles. Thanks also to R.A.M. Edghill and Annette Edghill, for contributions from their private collection.
The history of glass bottles
First hand-blown by the ancient Egyptians and Romans, glass vessels became scarce after the fall of Rome. The art of glass-blowing reappeared in the mid-1500s, producing tiny apothecary and utility bottles. Glass was the material of the elite until the mid-17th century, when it quickly overtook pottery and stoneware. The French and Dutch succeeded at hand-blowing larger and more durable onion-shaped bottles for wines and spirits, and some time around 1600 that skill crossed to England. A rugged green utility vessel required far more skill to blow than a little medicinal, with its rough, sheared-off lip. Now glassblowers had to hand-apply a lip and attach it to the bottle to render a better finish. That meant new tools and methods — and secret formulas. Into the 19th century, glasshouses operated in isolation, each closely guarding its secret recipes and techniques. This is part of what makes bottle dating a challenge. One glasshouse could easily have been years ahead of its neighbours, technique-wise. Quality, craftsmanship and style varied from country to country, with the Dutch and the English eventually dominating. But Germany, France, Hungary, the Far East and other regions were also busy at their bottle-making.
