Can a bottle be accurately dated by the height of the side mold seams?
One of the longest running myths in the world of bottle dating is that the side mold seam can be read like a thermometer to date the age of a bottle. The theory is that the higher the side mold seam the later the bottle was made – at least in the era from the early to mid 19th century until the first few decades of the 20th century. This dating tool was apparently devised by Grace Kendrick in her seminal 1963 book “The Antique Bottle Collector.” This book was pioneering and reprinted many times into the 1970s and is probably the most common and widely quoted bottle books (by collectors and archaeologists alike) ever written, containing a wealth of generally good information.
