Sea Glassing a Bottle Stopper
April 17th 2012 Posted for Beachcombing
3 Comments
The days are getting warmer and closer to summer. This has to be my favourite time of year when the ice leaves the shoreline and new discoveries wash up on the beach. Yesterday we dropped what we were doing and headed to Souris Beach to do a little beachcombing. My new buzz word is seaglassing, it all means the same thing “I’m gone to the beach.”
It was a beautiful day
Perfect for bending and stooping
Then! to my surprise I found one of the four things I have been looking for while beachcombing for sea glass, a bottle stopper. Laying in its beauty, old, history, glass and dating back to maybe 1860?
Then the happy dance
Amazing is the feeling when you find one of these bottle stoppers while sea glassing beachcombing. Early drug bottles were produced for formulas. Sent empty to local druggists or doctors and they had the task of filling it with dry or liquid prescription. These bottles called apothecary-style bottles were to protect dry medicines and chemicals from moisture intrusion or oxygen exposure. When your druggist filled the bottle they most likely sent you home with a cork fit stopper as the glass stopper didn’t travel well on horseback or buggy.
An apothecary stopper was on my list of “must find” while beachcombing. It’s a great prize to a sea-glass hunter, just ask me, here we are days later and I’m still ecstatic about it. I don’t know what I’ll do with my find but you want to bet I’ll have it on display somewhere about the house. Truly, a great number of these bottles were made between 1850 and 1900 and mostly in clear glass. The glass stoppers in tea drop shape were also made at that time for perfume bottles.
Imagine getting Phantom Powder instead of Hair Tonic…
My Favourite Find
Do you beachcomb where you live? Have you ever found a bottle stopper? Next I want to find a ceramic doll face. Soon we will be busy with the Tea Room and Bed and Breakfast and won’t be able to comb the beaches of Prince Edward Island as often as we’d like.
Barn I added to PEI Through a Lens a facebook page I made that has just photos of all my favourites from seaglass, to wirewrapping, barns, bales, lighthouses and then some, follow the link and check it out.
Well that concludes another day at the beach. Hope to see you beachcombing some day.
~cindy
3 Comments You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Hi Cindy. It’s nice to see you on your blog. This beach combing aurvntdee sounds like a lot of fun. I would love to get over to the island again but I don’t know if it will happen this summer. I’ll sure keep it in mind though. Take care. Blessings, Pamela
Hi, I live in Amherstburg Ontario and found a bottle stopper just like yours this spring…I was as thrilled.as you too!!!! My husband has a blob-top glass bottle he found scuba diving, and we placed the stopper in it on a shelf in our living room. So many treasures to be found! 🙂
Stacey Varsa
I have fohnd a bottle stooper, but wat do you make with it