Using Bottle Maker Marks to Identify Your Sea Glass

By Richard LaMotte

Take a look at these examples of sea glass bottle bottoms, some you may be familiar with, and some that just might help you identify the shards in your stash.

1. Anchor Hocking logo with anchor inside a capital “H” was popular in the mid-1900s to late 1900s.
2. Owens-Illinois Duraglas logo shards. The O and I inside the diamond was common. On the right edge of the diamond is usually the date (single digit being the year in the 1940s and double digits in the 1950s and beyond). 
3. Brockway Glass logo without stippling and knurling 1933 -1950s.

4. "Coca-Cola Bot Co Easton MD" original straight-sided white Coca-Cola bottle from 1910-1920, then later greens from 1930s to 1950s versions. 
5. Circle M (Maryland Glass) circa 1940s - 1950s.
6. T above MC is Thatcher Mfg Co shards and were likely made between 1944 – 1985.

7. P.J. Ritter Gold medal Catsup, earned at the 1876 World Expo in Philadelphia, where the company later thrived. They once used German POWs during WWII to help with production.  This shard likely 1920s – 30s. 
8. THE POTTER DRUG CO. started in 1883 in Boston Massachusetts. Circa 1900 to 1920.
9. Woodbury Aftershave, a historic bottled aftershave in the early 1900s.

Read more about antique and vintage bottles and how you can identify your beach glass bottle shards:

• A Rainbow of Bottle Colors
• Anatomy of a Bottle: Bottle Morphology
• Historical Bottle Lip Shapes
• Getting to the Bottom of It: Shard Identification of Bottle Bottoms
• My Indelible Love of Ink Bottles: Antique Ink Bottles
• Fishing for Codd in the River: Antique English Codd Bottles
• Sea Glass Pastels: Bottle origins of pastel-colored sea glass
• Treasures in the Chalk Streams: Antique bottles from England
• Vanuatu Coca Cola Bottles: Sea Foam Treasure Trove
• West Indies: Treasure Trove of Black Sea Glass
• True Daffy's Elixir Bottles
• Schlitz Royal Ruby Red Bottles

Learn how to identify your antique glass bottles

This article appeared in the Glassing Magazine May/June 2018 issue.

For more details, refer Bottle Makers and Their Marks or the Society for Historical Achaeology Historic Glass Bottle Identification & Information Website for additional reference.