Topic: UK Reg design 726384 and Bottle making machinery

[Frank]

Can anyone provide info on the maker of a glass bottle with a 1926/7 registered design number 726384.
Mod note: possibly incorrect RD no as 726384 relates to a different shaped bottle by JC Cottle

It is a whisky decanter/bottle in green glasswith a musical movement fitted underneath, the base is moulded to accept the movement held in place by a spring. Decoarted with Scotish soldiers and gilt. Bakelite cap.

Shows HERE Mod: Dead link, see below for Frank's images

Photo will be replaced when I get a chance to take pictures.

[Adam]

Immediately after WWII there were at least three Scottish glassworks making green bottles, all with some history.  Two were in the Alloa area of central Scotland called, I think Scottish Central and a name including the word Alloa.  The third was on the west coast at Irvine, Ayrshire called the Portland Glass Co.  This was the one which I knew well.  Although on mass production, like the others, they were doing some decorating (putting White Horses on a certain brand of whisky bottle) and clearly would have a legacy of skills.

Portland at that time did have some semi-automatic machines, out of use by then, which could probably have made the subject bottle.  Fully automatic machines were in use even by the 1920s but it is just possible, if they were making a similar bottle, to have modified one mould out of a set to do this, particularly if the production bottles were of the "push-up bottom" type.

Hope this helps,

Adam

[Frank]

Hi Adam,

Greatly appreciated, particularly as I have started to spread my wings to a wider range of Scottish glass.

On my site I show some of the bottle making equipment developed by MacNish at Moncrieff http://www.ysartglass.com/Moncrieff/MoncrieffMonish.htm

Would any of the companies you mention have used these.

Would you know if there were any standards used for marking bottles per works or machine - I know that from time to time bottles have various moulded numbers that are I presume mould numbers? Most of the bottle collectors are interested in hand blown bottles and getting any information on machine bottle production is very difficult.

It seems to be an area of glass history that is dropping out of sight.

[Adam]

Hi Frank - My practical experience of bottle works is very limited.  As a glass technology student I worked at Portland for eight weeks in 1947 and, apart from brief visits to several others, that was it.

I knew of Monish machines, of course, but I've never seen one.  My report on Portland has survived (there's not much else from those days) and I see that they had six Lynch Model R machines, three O'Neill models 42 and 44, three Roirants and two Forster hand-operated machines (these latter noted as out of use).  I only saw Lynch and O'Neill machines working.  One of the O'Neills was brand new but, in industry terms, the Model R Lynchs were obsolescent.  Their successor, the Lynch 10 was rapidly becoming the standard machine in the UK but it itself was later to be succeeded by the seemingly everlasting I.S. series which you mention.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, when I was at Jobling, a surviving Lynch 10 could still be seen in use for only a few weeks per annum serving the presumably dying market for glass (Pyrex) feeding bottles.

There are lots of drawings and descriptions of these (apart from the Forster) and others in "Glass Machines" , edited by W. Giegerich and W. Trier, translated from the German and published by Springer-Verlag in 1969.  Title of original edition "Glasmaschinen".

You are correct that many of the numbers seen on bottles will be simply internal things like mould numbers.  I can only remember one or two company logos.  Portland was (I think) P in a circle, Rockware was R in a circle and Beatson Clarke (Yorkshire) was a double arrow thing a bit like the old British Rail logo.  Somewhere in the past I have seen a list of these things and it must exist somewhere!!

Good luck!

Adam

P.S.  My wife has just told me that she has heard of musical movements in the bottom of Drambuie bottles.  No further info, I'm afraid.

[Anne]

Frank, this is still awaiting a photo from you.

[Frank]

Thanks Anne, and I clearly forgot to read this thread when posting on SG, must review and add the discussion.

Here it is LINK

[Anne]

Just revisiting this and checked Frank's link on Scotland's Glass where the RD no. is given as 725384 not 726384 and the shape is totally different to known 726384 examples.

[agincourt17]

Frank, RD number 726384 was registered on 6 January 1927 for J.C.Cottle. His address is listed as Napier Avenue, Hurlingham, Fulham, London SW6.

See the discussion about a clear, stoppered, pressed decanter bearing the same RD number at
http://www.glassmessages.com/index.php/topic,54850.new.html#new

Fred.

[Frank]

will recheck no on bottle asap.

[Fuhrman Glass]

Any idea when the Lynch R machine was produced? I recently acquired a series of original brochures of numerous Lynch machines, I.E. "M-B" machine, P-B-S machine, P-B machine, PBL machine, M-P-S machine, P-B-M machine, M-T machine for milk bottles, T-T machine for water pitchers, JPS machine, The Miller JP machine by Lynch, Miller Crack-off machines. Many of these were press machines and some were press/blow. I think most of these were from the 20's and 30's. Does anyone have any info on them?