Unusual vintage glass “Telescope” bottle 

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UPDATE [Added June 18, 2025]:

Within just a few days of adding this webpage to my site, I have found three labeled bottles of this same type (perhaps not exactly identical, but close) by searching the Worthpoint.com site database of past auction listings – for olive oil bottles.   Archeologist Carol Serr suggested to me that the bottles reminded her of olive oil bottles she had seen before, perhaps the Pompeian brand.  I followed up on her suggestion, and although it appears Pompeian brand bottles were never shaped exactly like this, it spurred me on to do an extensive keyword search on Worthpoint.   After searching through over 1000 listings archived there, three “spyglass” shaped bottles (with their original labels still intact) were found.

All three of these bottles bear labels for Wyandotte Olive Oil, of Oroville, California.  The listings did not include base photos so we can’t be sure of the glass manufacturer who made the ones with the Wyandotte labels.  I suspect that Glass Containers, Inc. (aka  Glass Containers Corporation) of Vernon, CA (later Fullerton, CA) was the maker of those bottles. The bottles vary in height: one is 6 inches in height, another one 7 inches tall, and the third is 8 and 1/2 inches tall.

So, although we now know with certainty that at least some of these telescope-shaped bottles were made to contain olive oil, it is also possible that bottles of a closely similar appearance (and made by other glass companies) were sold to other food packagers/distributors in other parts of the US, and may have been used for other products.   Here are links to the listings of the three labelled bottles (THANK YOU to the sellers of these bottles – I don’t know their identity but will be glad to give them credit) :

Vintage Wyandotte Olive Oil Bottle – Worthpoint.com

Vintage WYANDOTTE OLIVE OIL Bottle – California – Worthpoint.com

Wyandotte Indian Chief Pure California Olive Oil Bottle – Worthpoint.com

In the meantime,  I invite any other reports from collectors who should run across a similar bottle in the future.   I will leave my original webpage here unedited (below) – as first posted on June 13, 2025.    THANK YOU!

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Over the last several years  (well, since 2019) I’ve heard from four different readers who had found an older glass bottle with three “tiers” designed in the general form of a telescope or “spyglass”.    I’ve tried to find more background information on this style of bottle but have come up with virtually nothing!   When doing a web keyword search, unrelated bottles made for Old Spice and Avon come up frequently, but very few examples are found of this glass bottle!

I believe this type of bottle was most likely produced for an unidentified brand name product – perhaps for a certain brand of cologne, lotion, or aftershave?  Or hot pepper sauce, olive oil or soy sauce? –  or some other unidentified condiment or food product?  Could it be a medicinal bottle?    Was this merely a “stock” bottle produced for sale to any company to use as they wished?

Many unusually designed bottles (of every style and type imaginable) have been marketed over the years here in the United States (and of course in many other countries around the world).  Many of them were short-lived “figural” designs – for colognes and other cosmetics, alcoholic beverages, bitters, sauces, foods, etc.     Even though in some cases the shape is unique or interesting, the bottles made for “throwaway” or common utilitarian use were usually discarded after being emptied.    This is probably why some rarely seen bottles are known only from a few scattered finds in old dumpsites.    Without an original label still affixed, it can be a bit difficult to find out what was contained in some old bottles.

This bottle design might be best described as a telescope or “spyglass”, but at a quick glance some observers might be reminded of a lighthouse or a tower of some sort.  The bottles measure approximately six inches in height.    I believe these examples generally date from the 1940s-1960s era – but cannot narrow that down to an exact year – since none of these bottles bear date codes (with the  possible exception of the bottle bearing the design number 3173 on the base).    I suspect that a design patent was issued for this style of bottle, but haven’t found information identifying such a patent.

So far, we have found, from studying the base marks of these bottles, that they were made by at least three different glass manufacturers.   Those three include Glass Containers Corporation , Vernon, CA, later Hayward, CA, and then Fullerton, CA;  Fairmount Glass Works, Indianapolis, Indiana, and Brockway Glass Company,  formerly based in Brockway,  Pennsylvania.    The glass company identification marks seen are, respectively, an “angular GC”;  an “F in a hexagon” and a “B in a circle”.  It is possible other glassmakers made a similar bottle.   If you find one, please let us know!

The amber bottle made by Fairmount Glass Works has an interesting circular geometrical design embossed on the lower part of the bottle that looks vaguely Oriental (see pics) and a raised circular design on the upper area of the bottle appears to be a representation of a nurse standing behind her patient.  Or does it represent something else entirely?    (The other examples of this type of bottle are entirely unmarked on the “face” or sides of the bottle – they are only marked on the base).

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Below are photos of these bottles – from Parker Kolb, Jane Roth, Andrea Handley, and Jessie Johnson.  THANK YOU to all of you for allowing me to post these photos!   Perhaps, as time goes on more examples will “come out of the woodwork” and we will find out more info on this style of bottle!

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Note that the two examples made by Glass Containers Corporation bear slightly different mold style numbers:  3173 and 3174.

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