Heckler Auctions Spring 2017

The Heckler property, April 2017.

The Heckler & Co. live auction season started up last week, with a nice selection of old bottles, other glass and a bit of stoneware. There were some of the more common Willington, Westford and Coventry flasks up for bidding. I picked up a matched pair of early dip-molded New England snuff bottles.

The live auction setup inside the barn, Norm C. Heckler in the vest.

Heckler's absentee auction 148.

Heckler's also had their May online auction up for previewing. As usual, there are going to be some quality Connecticut bottles included in the sale.

Coventry Glass Works pint sunburst flask, GVIII-3.

The GVIII-3 Coventry sunburst in this sale has excellent glass quality and a fine color on the greener side of olive, but some minor cooling cracks in the shoulders. Another notable Connecticut sunburst flask in the sale will be a GVIII-5a, probably from the Pitkin Glass Works; quite a rare flask but not quite a perfect example.

BY A.A. COOLEY HARTFORD CON blacking bottles, with insect powder and smelling salts bottles.

Two examples of what is thought to be a boot-blacking bottle made in Coventry, embossed A.A. Cooley, will be on offer. These come up for sale on a pretty regular basis, but the ones here have strong embossing and are probably better than most. 

GII-64 pint eagle flask, Willington Glass Company.

This Willington eagle flask is another relatively common bottle, but in a warm amber that stands out from the usual run of murkier, olive-amber Willington glass.

GII-68, pint eagle/anchor flask, New London Glass Works.

This New London flask is a warmer, lighter, cleaner shade of amber still. This color and quality of glass probably would have been nearly impossible for an earlier factory like Willington to achieve.

Willington Pickle Bottle Variant

Willington pickle bottle, typical small-size example.

The Willington Glass Company in West Willington, Connecticut is the source of three different sizes of cathedral pickle bottles, of a distinctive square, wide, chunky-looking and ornately decorated design. The smallest Willington pickle is about eight inches tall and three inches wide, with three sides with fancy cathedral-window designs with hanging "bellflower" decorations, and one plain label side. In typical examples, the three bellflowers are all more or less identical.

Variant small pickle bottle, side A.

Some years ago, two cathedral pickle bottles that were similar to the small Willington pickle turned up in a barn in Wallingford, Connecticut (about 40 miles from Willington). The details of the embossing on these two bottles is slightly different from typical examples, however, and it seems as if two different molds were used to produce small Willi pickles.

Variant small pickle bottle, side B.

 In the variant small Willington pickle, the three bellflowers are all slightly different from each other, and different from the bellflowers on the typical bottles. In the photos, variant side A is pretty similar to a typical example, but side B has noticeably more widely spreading petals on the dangling flower. On side C, the cathedral decoration doesn't have a component that really looks like a flower at all, instead bearing two loops and and a detached dot on its lower side. The fact that the variant bottle is shorter than the typical bottle pictured here, with a stubby neck, isn't significant, as the necks of these bottles are inherently variable, having been largely formed by hand.

Variant small pickle bottle, side C, with loops and dot design.

Whether the variant pickle bottle was actually made in Willington is an open question. It's almost identical to the small Willi pickle in most ways, but the differences in the bellflowers indicate that two different molds were used, although it might be possible that the differences are due to modifications made to a single mold. The owner of one of the variant bottles speculates that it could be a product of a different glass works, possibly New London.

Open pontil on base of variant pickle bottle.

In a further complication, Norman C. Heckler once owned a cathedral pickle bottle that he says was close to the Willington pickle bottles in form, but was distinctly smaller than the smallest of the three known sizes of bottle from Willington. Possibly, West Willington might have been the source of five different cathedral pickles.

Heckler Winter 2017 Auction

GIII-5 pint Cornucopia / Urn flask.

Norman C. Heckler & Co. is running an absentee auction (Select Auction 145) this month, and as usual there are some interesting pieces of Connecticut glass on offer. At first glance, the flask above looks like the common (as 180+ year old American bottles go) GIII-4 from Coventry, but there is a circular depression in the middle of the urn, and collectors consider it to be a separate mold, GIII-5. The source of GIII-5 is uncertain, but given it's similarities to a known Coventry Glass Works bottle, it is quite possibly another Coventry product. This flask is listed as "scarce," meaning about 35-75 examples exist, and I would guess that the number of GIII-5s in the world is probably towards the lower end of that range.

GIII-5 obverse.

The cornucopia side of GIII-5 is also distinct from the common GIII-4, but in a less obvious way, with a somewhat irregular depression on the horn. Aside from these depressed areas, the 4 and the 5 appear to be identical.

GIII-5 base.

It's impossible to know for certain, but I suspect that GIII-5 actually was made in a GIII-4 mold, in the latter part of the mold's useful existence when it had accumulated damage, repairs or modifications that are responsible for the depressions on the urn and cornucopia. Similar, circular to irregular, depressions occur on occasional examples of the GI-81 pint Lafayette / liberty cap, and since half of the mold has survived to the present day, the defects in the mold that produced the variant flasks could be examined. The unlisted Connecticut sunburst flask in a previous Heckler sale could be an analogous situation, blown in a modified or deteriorating GVIII-3 mold. A pair of Pitkin Glass Works sunbursts are another candidate for this type of explanation, with GVIII-5a representing the original mold and GVIII-7 being the variant, almost identical except for a pair of faint circles added to one face.

Free flown New England chestnut bottle, light blue-green color.

The auction includes quite a few New England free blown bottles, both chestnut and globular forms. Some of the larger examples have cracks, cooling fissures or potstones with "radiations" (stress cracks); such imperfections seem to be very frequent with big chestnut bottles. The example above is a rarer color, either light blue-green or a very dark aquamarine. Glass in this color was produced at most early Connecticut glass works, but not in anything close to the quantities that murkier olive/amber/yellow/green glass was made.

GI-80 Coventry pint Lafayette / Dewitt Clinton flask, with rare Moxie bottle.

One of the pricier items in this sale will probably be a just about perfect, delicately colored Lafayette / Dewitt Clinton pint flask from the Coventry Glass Works (GI-80). This is another scarce flask, though based on the number that turn up, probably on the more numerous side of scarce. The small, early Moxie bottle with applied top is not too bad, either.

GII-66 quart eagle / New London Glass Works flask.

The New London Glass Works (1856-65) technically fall outside of Connecticut's quiet corner, but were another manufacturer of figured flasks in the eastern part of the state. The large, quart size GII-66 eagle flask is a rare bottle, though this specimen in aquamarine glass and with a smooth base is not quite as desirable as the pontiled examples in clear shades of green and amber that exist. New London was active later than most of the Connecticut glass factories that I write about, and generally produced a more refined type of bottle glass than that made by Coventry or Pitkin. Glass in nearly colorless aquamarine, or the bright, clean colors seen in some New London bottles is rare or absent from the products of the early 19th century Connecticut glass works. 

The Coventry Dewitt Clinton Flasks

Detail of the GI-80 Coventry Dewitt Clinton pint flask.

Dewitt Clinton (1769-1828) was the sixth governor of New York, among numerous other elected posts, probably most famous for pushing through the construction of the Erie Canal, one of the first great public works projects in the young United States. Today seems an appropriate day to write about the three historical flasks (and one variant) made to commemorate Clinton's achievements, around the year 1824.

View into the town of Coventry, Connecticut, from the east. The Coventry Glass Works were in the valley to the left of the tower on the horizon.

Aside from his advocacy of "Clinton's Ditch," as the canal was known to the haters, Clinton worked to expand public education, improve sanitation in New York City and create programs for the poor. There was opposition to all of these measures; we tend to think that the dichotomy between those who want a minimalist government that protects private property rights and little else, and those who think that government should "promote the general welfare" with education, transportation infrastructure and social welfare programs, is a modern phenomenon, but it has been a point of contention since the dawn of the republic.There are definite echoes of 200 year old political controversies in modern America, and indeed in the 2016 Clinton presidential campaign.

Coventry Glass Works "LA FAYETTE / DE WITT CLINTON" flasks: half-pint GI-81, pint GI-80, half-pint GI-82.

None of the Dewitt Clinton flasks are exactly common, but the GI-80 pint is probably the most frequently encountered; I have even seen quite a nice example crop up in an area estate sale. Both GI-80 and the half pint GI-81 are considered "scarce" by McKearin and Wilson (American Bottles and Flasks), meaning about 35 to 75 specimens in existence, with 80 probably being at or above the high end of that range, and 81 being less common. A variant, GI-81a, exists, with two ribs around the base of the flask rather than three, but is very rare (10-20 examples). GI-82 is also very similar to 81, but without the "S & C" embossing. It is considered to be rare, with about 20-35 extant examples. The example here has a very soft impression, and some sloppy wings of glass that oozed out along the mold seam at the neck; these sorts of manufacturing irregularities seem to be pretty frequent with this mold.

The three main Dewitt Clinton flasks; GI-81a variant not pictured.

Lafayette side of GI-81, GI-80 and GI-82

Presumed 20th Century decorative flask, similar to GI-81. Collection of the New York Historical Society.

This cobalt blue Lafayette / Dewitt Clinton flask is certainly a reproduction, less than a hundred years old, though I haven't learned anything definite about its manufacture. Coventry is not known to have made blue glass, though it's not impossible that they could have experimented with artificial colors. The neck and mouth are probably too straight up and down and perfectly sheared to be an 1820s flask, and the lettering is cruder and more rounded than in the real thing, not to mention being sans serif, which is wrong.

A Unique Bottle from Coventry

The Connecticut Historical Society has a collection of interesting bottles, glassware and related artifacts from the state's eighteenth and nineteenth century glass works, and one of the most important glass objects in their archive is a heavy, clear olive-green freeblown bottle thought to have been made at the Coventry Glass Works. This "pinch bottle" is roughly square in cross section, pinched to fuse opposite walls of the bottle together and create wavy internal tubes at each corner, between upper and lower chambers, and two more tubes in the wall at the center of the bottle. The center tubes are narrow, and one of them looks like it might not be open all the way through. This style of bottle is known from European glass houses, but as an American and Connecticut product, this specimen is probably unique.

The Coventry pinch bottle is illustrated in American Glass (George and Helen McKearin, 1948) and in American Bottles & Flasks and Their Ancestry (Helen McKearin and Kenneth Wilson, 1978). McKearin and Wilson report that bottle was recovered in the Coventry area around the time of World War I, and that it matches the description of a Coventry bottle said by Edwin Atlee Barber to have been owned by Nathaniel Root, son of the first agent of the Coventry Glass Works.

An old collector's label has the inscrutable legend: B3 ARR #7 R.11.BB. I wonder if anyone still knows what any of that means?

The lip is also peculiar for an early American bottle: sheared and tooled into an outward flare, without any applied glass. The contexts where one does see similar lip treatments is early decanters (which is, I would imagine, how this particular object was used), and nineteenth century cologne bottles.

The flattened base of the probable decanter is also highly unusual, with a deeply impressed, cross-shaped pontil mark. The interior of the impression is surprisingly smooth, with only a couple of small patches of broken glass adhering from the pontil rod. Also visible in this view is a crack that traverses the bottom of the bottle and extends part way up one side.

The Coventry pinch bottle is a crudely beautiful example of the glassblower's art, and a remarkable survival from the golden age of American glass making.

Heckler Auction 138

Connecticut eagle flasks: GII-62 and GII-71

Norman C. Heckler & Co.'s July online auction, number 138, was set up for an early preview this past weekend, during their June live auction. I don't know if it was planned that way or not, but the offerings include specimens of many of the Bald Eagle themed flasks from northeastern Connecticut, just in time for Independence Day. The Coventry Glass Works eagle/eagle half-pint is a nice example, with lighter, greener glass and a cleaner impression than most.

Willington Glass Co. quart eagle flask, GII-61.

Willington Glass Co. eagle half-pint (GII-63) and pint (GII-62), with free blown handled jug.

Ther auction will have just about a complete set of the Willington Glass Co. eagle flasks (I'm not sure if both of the GII-63 variants were represented), which would also be a complete set of all the figured flasks that are thought to have been manufactured in Willington. The large quart Willi. eagle has a cooling crack in the neck (of the bottle, not the eagle); those sorts of manufacturing defects seem to be pretty common with this mold. 

"BY A A COOLEY HARTFORD CON"

The A.A. Cooley boot-blacking bottle is thought to be a Coventry Glass Works product. These turn up for sale on a fairly regular basis, but the embossing of the letters on this bottle is especially strong.

Pint sunburst flask, probably Pitkin Glass Works GVIII-5a.

There will be a very nice Connecticut sunburst flask in the sale, which I believe is GVIII-5a. This is a quite a rare bottle, but unfortunately this example has a chunk knocked out of the shoulder, somewhat crudely filled in with epoxy.

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Edit to add: Heckler's listed the sunburst flask as a GVIII-7 variant, and it does have two faint dots near the shoulders on the face opposite the one in the photo. It's definitely not a proper GVIII-7, though, with the circle in the center of the sunburst only present on one side, and with fairly angular shoulders that give the whole bottle an outline that's pretty close to the Coventry GVIII-3. Norm Heckler Sr. says that he didn't quite know what to make of this bottle, which probably doesn't happen very often.  

Museum of Connecticut Glass Season Opener

The John Turner House.

 The Museum of Connecticut Glass started its 2016 season of open houses this weekend, with tours of the ca. 1813 house of John Turner, one of the incorporators of the Coventry Glass Works. The temperatures were a bit cool, especially inside of the Turner house, with its massive double-layered brick walls and dearth of windows on the south side, but the weather was clear and bright and turnout was good.

The MCG barn, with guests arriving.

 The guests included some locals who saw the "open" signs and were curious, and also people who had traveled specifically to see the Museum. One fellow was an antique building specialist who was more interested in the Turner house itself than Connecticut glass; he was absolutely ecstatic to see that the structure had been stabilized, but was otherwise in mostly unrenovated condition, with 200 years of modifications and a lot of well-used grunginess. Visitors like seeing the house, but that sort of deep enthusiasm was something I hadn't encountered before.

Display of early bottles, of the kind made at the Pitkin Glass Works. L-R: black glass wine bottle, chestnut bottle, Pitkin-type flask, GVIII-7 pint sunburst flask, dip molded snuff bottle.

The display this month was glass connected with the Pitkin, Coventry and Willington glass factories, along with the more permanent collections of memorabilia and excavated shards from Coventry, and a small exhibit on the Meriden Flint Glass Company. The next open house will be May 21, 2016, in association with the Museum's annual tailgate-style bottle and glass sale.