COLLECTOR DIGS UNUSUAL THREADLESS AT GLASS FACTORY SITE
Hello to all the collector friends out there! Some of you long time readers
might remember my old "Threadless Corner" and "Patent Pages"
articles of days gone by. Well, I've decided to get busy and do some writing
once again. Back in the late 70's there were eight or ten threadless specialists
who were very active, and a large number of other collectors who bought a fair
number of them. The interest seemed to reach its peak four or five years ago.
For a couple years after that, things were at a standstill, and during this past
year there was another big surge in interest. With the added interest in these
old critters, I've decided to start up "Threadless Corner" once again.
To start things off, we have a very unusual small hat to look at. Howard Dean of
Westerville, New York, wrote to me about this one. As the three photos show,
there is an unusual projecting ring at the top of these insulators. Howard found
several fragments of this insulator, and one almost whole one, shown in figures
one and two, at a glass factory site near Saratoga, New York. The insulators
were dug at the location of the works known by bottle collectors as the
"Saratoga Mountain Glass Works" or "Mt. Pleasant Glass
Works". For an interesting history of this glasshouse I suggest reading
American Bottles & Flasks and Their Ancestry by McKearin and Wilson.
The
works was completed in 1844 by Oscar Granger. He had previously been associated
with the Mount Vernon Glass Works in Vernon, New York (ca. 1810-1844). Due to a
shortage of a supply of wood needed for operations by the works at Mount Vernon, it was decided to relocate, and the Mt. Pleasant site, within ten miles of
Saratoga, was chosen. There was an abundant supply of wood there, and it was
located near the mineral springs in the Saratoga area, which created a large
demand for bottles. Mineral water bottles, flasks and medicine bottles were
produced there. The plant operated at Mt. Pleasant for approximately a quarter
of a century. A variety of deep colored glass was produced, including ambers and
greens.
The Insulator fragments shown were found in dark amber and at least two
variants of deep olive or olive amber. Locating an unusual threadless like this
is great, but locating it at its place of origin is fabulous! It has confirmed the
manufacturer of one of our early jewels. The insulators are quite small, similar
in size to the "Baby Battleford", as shown in figure five. As
mentioned previously, the interesting feature on this insulator is the
projecting ring that appears at the top. Whether it was made that way
intentionally is a good question. All the fragments located at the site were
made that way. It is quite possible there were two or more different sizes of
insulators produced at the works. One of them could have been a slightly larger insulator than this hat.
If that were the case,
there could have been two molds of slightly different sizes that were used to
form the top portion of the insulators. It's possible the top mold portion of
the larger insulator was used while making smaller insulators. (See figures two
through four for a better understanding of this possibility.)
These insulators
were formed in a three piece mold. The mold lines run from inside the base area,
up the sides to the lower part of the projecting ring. The main body of the
insulator was therefore formed in the mold which was in two halves. The top of
the insulator and projecting area appear to have been formed in one piece. This
one piece section can be seen in figures two and three at the top of each
insulator. One can understand how the same top piece of the mold could be used
for either of the lower mold pieces. In using it with the insulator in figure
three the top section would be flush with the dome. In using it with the smaller
diameter insulator in figure two, there would be a projecting ring.
Back in 1980
at the Herkimer National we had a conglomerate threadless display of 300
different items. Wow, does that bring back some memories. Seems like only
yesterday In the display were two insulators as shown in figures three and four.
The one in figure four looks identical to the Mt. Pleasant threadless, except
that it doesn't have the projecting ring. Both of them, as near as I can
remember, were molded in a manner very similar to the Mt. Pleasant item. Could
this be the missing link? Could this be the insulator with the slightly larger
dome?
I want to point out that the above mentioned molding theory is just that,
my personal theory of one explanation of the unusual dome. It's rather difficult
to make any positive claims without seeing "in person" all three
insulators once again. The photos I have of the threadless at Herkimer are of a
large group with the two hats included. It's rather difficult to see a lot of
detail in a small photo. Perhaps I can locate and correspond with the owners
of these other two jewels, and we will be able to learn a little more about
them. I'll keep you posted on what I find out.
Thanks so much to Howard for all
the information and for sending the pieces for me to examine and photograph. Let
me hear from the rest of you on what critters you have, or what you have found
in your diggin's. All letters and comments are greatly appreciated, so let me
hear from you. Next month will be the March subscriber issue, but come April
we'll be back with more Threadless coverage, and hopefully by then some of this
snow pack will be melted off to allow for some "hat diggin's". Catch
you later.
Figure 5. The petite "Mt. Pleasant" hat shown here with a
"Baby Battleford" and the huge CD 738 Chester hat.
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