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BIBBEY & FERGUSON – GLENS FALLS, NEW YORK
Hand-Blown Soda / Mineral Water Bottle, c. 1882–1892
Standing 9.5 inches tall, this is a genuine late-19th-century blob-top soda bottle embossed:
BIBBEY & FERGUSON
62 & 64 MAPLE ST
GLENS FALLS, N.Y.
Blown in attractive aqua glass, this bottle survives in excellent, honest condition and displays all the visual hallmarks collectors look for in an early regional bottler.
Precise dating (tight window)
This bottle dates very confidently to circa 1882–1892, based on a convergence of features:
True applied blob top (hand-applied, not tooled)
Hand-blown construction with no machine marks
Abundant seed bubbles throughout the body
Heavy base with pronounced push-up
Street-address embossing, including a dual address
Absence of crown finishes or trademark language
By the mid-1890s, crown caps and more standardized production began to replace this style. This bottle sits squarely in the last great decade of hand-blown soda bottling.
What it contained
This bottle would have held carbonated soda water or flavored mineral water, produced locally and sold for immediate consumption or return.
In the 1880s, soda was not just a treat — it was often viewed as:
Flavors commonly included lemon, sarsaparilla, ginger, or plain mineral water drawn from local or regional sources.
The bottler: Bibbey & Ferguson
Bibbey & Ferguson were operating during Glens Falls’ industrial high point, when the city was booming with:
The embossing of “62 & 64 Maple St.” is especially telling. Dual addresses strongly suggest a successful, expanding operation, likely occupying adjacent buildings — one for bottling, another for storage, stables, ice, or crate handling.
Bottlers only advertised that kind of footprint when business was good.
Manufacture & glass character
This bottle was mouth-blown in a mold, then finished by hand:
The blob top was applied hot and shaped manually
The body shows lively whittling and waviness, especially visible in reflected light
Numerous tiny seed bubbles are suspended throughout the glass — a direct result of early furnace conditions and minimal refining
The base shows a deep push-up, adding both strength and visual weight
The glass has that unmistakable “alive” quality — it shimmers and shifts as you move it, something later machine-made bottles simply don’t do.
Condition
No chips
No cracks
No ghosting or haze
Clean interior and exterior
Numerous small rack scuff marks, exactly what you want to see on a bottle that was actually used and returned through a bottling system
Bold, legible embossing with no flattening
This is honest, working-class wear — not damage.
The address today
Maple Street remains a recognizable part of downtown Glens Falls, just minutes from landmarks locals know well — the walkable downtown core, historic commercial blocks, and the long-established residential streets that fed workers into the mills and factories.
While the original bottling works are long gone, the area still reads as old Glens Falls — the same neighborhood grid laid out when wagons rolled over plank streets and soda crates were stacked curbside.
This bottle is literally a piece of that streetscape, frozen in glass.
Why this bottle matters
This isn’t just “an old soda bottle.”
It’s:
A pre-1895, hand-blown survivor
From a named, address-specific Glens Falls bottler
With excellent glass character
And real regional New York industrial history
It bridges soda bottle collecting, Adirondack history, and late-19th-century American manufacturing — the sweet spot where eye appeal and story overlap.
