Posted 9 years ago
Reggie
(1 item)
I don't know what it is. It is glass with a lot of seeding in it. Looks like it is hand blown. It is 2" long and 1/2" wide. Don't know any history I've had it for a long time.
My little bottle | ||
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I hope someone can tell me what it was used for.
Doctor's traveling medicine kit.
Oh that sound great. Thank you
I disagree with both ideas.
A thick bottle like this would either have been accidental (too much glass) or was meant to travel, as Blunderbuss suggests. But the style does not reflect a medicine bottle. It is more reflective of a piece for a hand-bag, where it would contain a pleasant scent (for handkerchief) to avoid the noxious horse crap baking in the sun and dirty, sweaty people on the street.
SB. You can sure get graphic ! LOL !!
That's my job as a writer-- be graphic. :)
But, essentially, not every town cleaned up their streets. The crap, trampled down, mixed with mud and off-gased noxious scents from where it lay in ruts (created by wagons and cars) full of the last rain.
This is why they built board-walks along buildings.
But, of course, hiding in the shade of stores, the men taking a break after unloading all of this week's apples would surely smell-- after all, they don't likely often see soap on their measly wages, and their rarely-washed clothes clung to their sweaty backs; it is likely many slept in barns, as was common for the poorer people. So a lady would pull out her scent bottle and dab some onto a handkerchief or just sniff it when she had to go past things that totally appalled her. Of course, this could also be an insult.
The same things were used at suppers when someone.... Yep.
The earliest came in all sorts of beautiful designs and shapes, all done in silver and holding a small phial of scent.
Or, this could be some sort of perfume. I have a similar piece.
This is definitely not a too much glass accident, I have many just like it. It's an opium vial...The designs main purpose was to keep it safe during transport by ship.
How interesting! Were any of them full? Mine were inherited through an estate on the pacific northwest coast, where opium trafficking was rampant in the late 1800's, during the gold rush.
Highly doubtful it's opium. Scents were huge back in the day.
I understand that opium was a very powerful "scent".