See also our Dyottville Glass Works photo album

GI-48 in pale green with applied banded mouth

GI-48 in darker blue green with refired sheared lip

GI-38 pint in olive amber

GI-38 pint in olive green

Dark emerald green open pontil GI-50 with applied lip

Two flasks purchased by a club member at the 2010 South River show.  The quart is a GI-37 Washington/Taylor in a light sapphire blue with an open pontil base.  This example has a base chip, a large open bubble on the Washington side as seen in the photo and it retains a light content stain.  The pint is a GI-38 Washington/Taylor in a very dark violet or amethyst coloration.  The coloration in this example is so dense that hardly any light can pass throught it.  It retains some high point wear and surface scratches.

Here's a nice grouping of Washington/Taylor flasks in a club member's window.  Many of them were blown at Dyottville.

Amber pint GI-55 owned by Joe Butewicz, photographed by Chris Woods at the site of the Coventry Glass Works in Coventry, CT in May 2009.

Light green taper top GI-55 pint owned by Glenn Quimby.

Dark olive green double ring collar top GI-52 pint owned by Glenn Quimby.

See also our Kensington Glass Works photo album

A GI-14 green Firecracker blown at Kensington Glass Works. This flask is darn scarce in this color.

See our Union Glass Works photo album which includes photos of several soda bottles manufactured by this company.

Cut Glass Lamps Attributed to the Union Flint Glass Works, Kensington, Philadelphia (PDF) by Ken Wilson. Published in the Corning Journal of Glass Studies.

Who were the first Philly soda bottlers? (PDF)

Pie plates were a common everyday item used in the kitchen for centuries in Europe and in America. Early Pennsylania German potters were influenced by German sgraffito plates. Sgraffito is a technique in which the body of the pot is covered over with the slip of a different color clay. The coating is carved away to exposed the diferent colored body of the pot. Slipware usually occurs as an earthenware body that has been decorated with slip or liquid clay. Slipware was introduced to this country by the Netherlands in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Soon after the English Staffordshire tradition was born. Slipware began to be made in Sussex, Kent Somerset and DevonCounties. It is the wares produced in these English counties that influenced the local American potteries that produced earthenware pie plates. I am guessing that local earthenware pie plate production started soon after settlement in Philadelphia. These wares were not difficult to make and were essential to everyday life. Raw materials such as clay and wood for firing were abundant in the area. Whole Colonial examples of slipware or sgraffito pie plates are rare. The earliest examples at the Philadelphia Museum of Art are from about 1792. There is an entire reference book documenting the Museum's collection. Most of the plates seen in this photo album are c. 1840-60. They are all dug from privies in Philadelphia and restored. In about 1860 the popularity of earthenware decorated vessels and plates plummeted. People began to favor the cleaner looking yellow ware pottery made famous by the Bennington, NH potteries.

View the photo album of pie plates

There is a new Philadelphia diggers website that can be found at www.phillydigs.webs.com. The site is hosted by Matt Waholek who is interested in forming a Philadelphia diggers bottle club.  For more information Matt can be reached at 215-594-9883.

Here are several photos of McKearin Mold GXIII-34 which was made at the Mechanic Glass Works in Philadelphia.