Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: Laird on January 19, 2020, 03:42:41 PM
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I spotted this decanter today at an antiques fair. At first glance I thought it was mid to late Victorian. Now, having brought it home am having second thoughts. Comparing against illustrations in AMcC's Decanter book, I am now thinking it might be classified as a Prussian, but am unsure about that.
The stopper is a tight fit, but I'm not convinced it's original - the plug is clear glass rather than ground. Were stopper plugs usually ground in 1800-1830, or isn't this a reliable indicator?
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Prussian may relate more to shape rather than where it was made. All the original stoppers are ground if the inside neck is ground in my experience. A lot of colognes/perfumes had polished stopper plugs and polished inside of the necks to various degrees.
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it is this particular body shape that's being referred to when using the word Prussian, and not the country - the word may have some vague connection to Frederick the Great, but a direct attribution to that historic country remains elusive. We supported the guy in the C18 during the Seven Years War, financially, and these things do just about date back to the period.
However, if you look in McConnell, he is very keen to point out that correctly a Prussian bottle should really have neck rings - unless there are acres of prismatic cutting from the top rim to the shoulder, which would make it rather pointless to then apply neck rings.
So, whether we can call this bottle a Prussian I'm not sure.
I'm going to remain mum on a speculative date - dating bottles is fraught with difficulties due to the profusion of non-period copies.