When I was fortunate enough to dig in Virginia city, and before digging was basically shut down there, the one bottle I wanted to dig the most was the early "Geo' P. Morrill, Apothecary, Virginia City". This crude and typically deep colored "citrate" style medicine has a mystique to me and typifies early western glass. These bottles were blown in San Francisco in the 1863-65 time period, and are some of the first bottles blown at the Pacific Glass Works. They exhibit crude embossing, crude glass and that MONSTER top.They are also considered territorial bottles. I believe there are about a half dozen in collections and some of them have issues. It is hard to imagine how that huge top could have survived, use, being discarded, and dug up without being chipped but a few are perfect.
If I were to create the stereotypical western bottle, this would be a contender. To me it just has everything going for it including a rich Comstock history. It is VERY unlikely that any more will be dug or found and I was never fortunate to dig so much as a piece of one...thankfully a few other diggers did and I was able to add one to my collection. DM
Great bottle thank you for sharing the history.
ReplyDeletewonderful example of Western Glass, thanx for the history
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