Glass Message Board
Glass Identification - Post here for all ID requests => Glass => Topic started by: ian.macky on December 15, 2020, 09:53:16 PM
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Hi all. I got a query from a detectorist who found an unusual glass article in an old brewery in the city of Frankenstein in Silesia, and wanted to know if I could ID it. It looks like a glass battery jar lid to me, though you'd expect that the hole in the center of the lid would go through, but this one is blind, with a rubber plug, and a side-hole near the bottom. It's embossed D.R.P. and "T i c" in logo-like lettering. D.R.P. is the usual, but the "T i c" rings no bells.
Anyone?
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Could it be from some sort of fermentation jar?
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I agree absolutely that the T i c looks liks logo lettering - and the particularly large T also looks like an illustration of some tool or other bit of equipment. Could that be a clue or hint?
I'm sure architects use large wooden t blocks, it's the same shape as the massive cast iron tool you use to turn mains water off under the pavement outside your house.
It could even represent an electrode in a Leyden jar.
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It looks a lot like a battery jar lid, but you'd expect the large central hole to go straight through-- so a large blind hole with a small side passage doesn't make much sense.
Yes, cast iron goods were made with a large wooden pattern, pressed into green sand-- one for each side-- then the pattern is removed and the two halfs fitted together and the metal is poured in. I gave my mom a large pattern of a pipe joint many years ago...
I did a lot of searching trying to figure out the T i c meaning, but got nowhere.
When I passed NevB's suggestion of a fermentation jar back to the finder, he said someone at his end had the same idea.
So, I guess we'll have to leave this open as an unidentified?
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I'm puzzling over the rubber bung bit. Could it be just a means of lifting the lid up?
Could it be that while the indent is real, but somebody has just found a bung which fits the space, and bunged it in? (but then why the indent in the first place?)
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I was thinking that the hole in the side and the bung are some sort of pressure release system?
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I thought the bit around the bung was solid? ???
Is that little, round, dark grey bit the red arrow is pointing at, in the bottom pic, a hole in that section that the bung would seal?
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I think so, ian.macky says there is a hole there.
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Here's a better view of the rather strange hole in the lid.
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So, it could be used to release any gas that was produced under the lid by twisting or removing the bung?
How good a seal would the lid make with whatever jar was under it? Is there anything which suggests a rubber seal was around it?
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There are lots of online images of glass fruit/bottling jars which look similar. Some have rubber seals some don't and they are secured with metal clips/clamps.
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It does also look like a canning jar lid, except those are sealed with a rubber gasket, and the older kind sometimes use some sort of metal clamp (of which many designs are patented)... but they're meant to be sealed tight. I don't see any trace of a gasket on this one, but you usually don't. I've yet to see any with a rubber plug and a vent hole, either. Usually you seal them tight then heat (sterilize) them in a double boiler or pressure cooker, and you definitely keep them sealed until ready for use. Has anyone seen one with a little vent hole? I haven't. The construction of the vent hole seems strangely and unnecessarily complicated.
Here's another pic:
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Hi, possibly the top part of a two part battery rest https://glassian.org/Battery/British/t30.jpg
That website home page: https://glassian.org/insulator.html
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Battery rests are meant to insulate old glass batteries, and are sometimes designed to contain any nasty chemicals that might leak out, so they don't have any sort of through hole. See Battery Insulators, Oil Insulators, and Chloride Accumulators (https://www.insulators.info/go-withs/battery_rests/battery_rest.pdf) (PDF)
BTW, I am glassian.org :)