ANTIQUE amethyst EYE REMEDY bottle BIM Murine CHICAGO old BLOWN GLASS vial phial

Description

A
3 1/2 inch tall
round, cylinder-shaped
light LAVENDER AMETHYST colored
antique
EYE WATER
vial shaped bot
tle
.   This
i
s an ORIGINAL ANTIQUE
hand
B
lown
I
nto
M
old vial (
BIM
) with a tooled top, dating
all the way back to the late 1800's
.
Bottle embossed
:  "
MURINE / EYE REMEDY / CO. CHICAGO
".
Condition
:   Bottle has some content stain that may wash out with an overnight hot water and soap soaking.  Otherwise it is fine, NO cracks, chips, dings, damage, etc.  Please see picture to get idea of bottle's overall appearance!
Age
: An ORIGINAL ANTIQUE hand-blown bottle (Blown-In-Mold = BIM) with a tooled-top, ca. late
1800's
.
Shipping
:
FREE
domestic shipping,
includes
insurance.   We do NOT insure International orders unless buyer specifically requests this and we are able to provide an insurance estimate.  If an international shipping charge is much more than the actual shipping cost, we will refund the excess so what YOU pay for shipping/insurance is very close to, if not exactly, the ACTUAL shipping costs! This is important for foreign buyers to know as most of our foreign shipping charges are estimates.  We do not falsify information on the Customs Form, such as a price other than what the actual purchase price is, so please do not request us to do so. We ship several times a week and your prompt payment will hasten the turn-around time.
This is one of the few antique EYE water bottles that claimed to be a REMEDY, not just a medicine.   From old advertisements we have seen for this product, it was touted as a cure to be used for all kinds of afflictions of the eyes.  Much like a cure, a remedy is something that fixes the problem forever and that is what this bottle's contents claimed to do.  Some of the early-day eye water or eye drops contained OPIUM or MORPHINE to really soothe the pain but in the early 1900's the Pure Food and Drug Administration started to crack down on such use.  It seems you normally see the short squat Murine bottles, the small embossed vials like this are not quite as common.
Then too there is the COLOR
...
you hear about old glass turning purple in the sunlight ...the purple color is the result of having manganese in the glass.  Manganese is a mineral, a rock, that was mined, crushed, and pulverized into a powder, then added to vats of molten liquid glass, and acted as a decolorizing agent to turn the natural aqua-tinted glass into a pure crystal clear colorless glass.   Then it was blown into a mold to create a bottle, jar, or other object.   But when exposed to the ultraviolet rays of the sun or other sources of UV rays, it triggers a chemical reaction and the manganese starts to oxidize and slowly turns a lavender or amethyst color.   The end result is what collectors refer to as SCA (Sun Colored Amethyst) glass.   The longer it is in the sun the purpler it becomes.  This bottle was passed through some concentrated UV rays. which has the same affect as the sun, but a lot faster.   It has not been colored, stained, or altered.    No matter how a bottle or jar has turned purple (direct sunlight or UV rays in controlled environment) they all turn the same purple color as it is the same chemical reaction taking place.   The only difference is the time it took to turn purple.  What is important is that a bottle or jar has to be old enough to turn purple as with few exceptions, only clear glass from before 1915 has manganese in it and will turn SCA.
Then with the beginning of WWI, manganese was no longer available as foreign imports deceased and domestic resources turned towards the war effort.   Selenium sulphate then replaced manganese as a glass de-colorizer and when exposed to UV rays, it turns a yellow / straw color, and a dark burnt amber color.
Not only do
es this deep purple/amethyst color make this a great looking antique bottle, but it also authenticates it as being truly antique
,
lQQk
,
c
heck it out!
Terms of Sale
:   Our goal is 100% customer satisfaction. We put our 30+ years of experience in antiques to use in describing every item we list. Items are sold in a store front format and your purchase is a binding contract, so please don't be hasty when looking over the listing. We find that communication is the key to successful transactions so PLEASE completely read the item description AND ask questions before purchasing,
thank you
!
3259-61x
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