Ship in a bottle

Any idea on how old it is?

If the provenance is correct, my Grandfather died in 1947 at the age of 43. He was an active modeler probably for about 10 years before that.

It's been pointed out by Bill Morrison from the description as a five masted, black hulled Barque, as possibly the Potosi sailed by the Flying P Shipping Company out of Hamburg, launched 1895, sunk 1925.

That is just incredible!  I've been wanting to try something like that for years. Wouldnt no where to begin

It's an exquisite piece of art!

Beautiful. I have one too. I inherited it from my great-grandfather who bought it from a sailor on the trip he took back to Germany in the early 20th Century. His father was dying in the old country so he went back for a while. Immigration records show he took the  S.S. Abraham Lincoln which was a Hamburg American Line ship. ( When we entered WWI, the Abraham Lincoln was seized in New York. It was torpedoed and sunk in 1918.) Will get a picture of the ship in the bottle.

Fred

At the Manitowac Shipmodelling show a few years ago a proponent of in-bottle modeling gave a great seminar on how to do it.  Maybe contacting those folks with enough requests would schedule a repeat.

A priceless family heirloom. One nice thing about ships in bottles is that they don't collect dust (except on the outside of the bottle. Just keep it out of direct sunlight (if things are lined up just wrong, the glass can focus the sunlight, with disastrous results), and give it a shot of Windex now and then. It should last for generations.

I wonder what was drained from the bottle to make space for the ship.....very nice heirloom.

Thanks all for the information, and for the compliments to my G'dads skills.

He predeceased me by about 8 years, sadly as we would have certainly enjoyed knowing each other.

My dad couldn't stick two pieces of tape together, one of his very few "faults".

Grandfather was a model railroader and I have some "human interest" columns about him and his hobby in some of the Detroit area papers.

I do have a fair collection of his "trains".

One that got away is a 1/48 scale (his only scale) Southern Pacific "Cab Forward", my alltime favorite locomotive.

I'm not sure how an oil burning locomotive designed to operate through Sierra snow sheds quite fit into the scheme of things on his "New Michigan Central" running between Chicago and New York, but we all do get sidetracked from time to time...

Don, I appreciate the reference and I will certainly contact them. It's the same region, after all.

Dr. Tilley, a very prudent suggestion I wouldn't have thought of. Thank you.

Reminder ;

 If you decide to try one , Take at least two to four weeks draining the bottle !

After you get everything built and hinged to raise, you will need to drain the bottle just to get your sanity back.  I would need to put one in a 1.5 liter Jack bottle.  Keeps it from rolling over too.......

A 750 ml Brandy Bottle works too !

Seriously?  A ship in a bottle?  Way cool.

G.Morrison....mate....can you post some serious close-ups, from all angles?

I've seen the process of a "ship in a bottle".....so COMPLETELY NOTHING like making a normal ship model.  I'd LOVE to see more.

I will do so!

Hey !

Are you really going to try it ? If so , please keep us in the loop .Thanks ! Tanker - Builder

Here ius the one I inherited from my great-grandfather. It's hard to photograph for some reason:

I recall seeing a sub in a bottle- might have even been in FSM years ago - hull was cut in 4 lengthwise and put in then the sail placed on top - looked real nice. I recall it was a SSN.

Fred thats really nice. I think it's the glass reflections.

Sharkbait, I don't remember that but will look it up. Thanks.

I have been wanting to do an "in-bottle" model of an old Great Lakes bulk carrier, maybe one of the so-called lumber hookers.  But my big issue is the water.  The bottles I have do not have flat spots, so the water needs to be quite thick.  I know a lot of folks use plaster, but I have bad luck with plaster, but a polyester resin "water" would have to be thick-  but I guess if I do it carefully something around 3/4 inch should not be too much of a problem in PE resin, should it?

I don't suppose that's a problem. Obviously a bunch of pours and you can't clean up any glitches.

Which leads to a thought. I wonder if it would make sense to paint the water area first? Pour in paint and roll it around a little. Then bubbles and such in the resin wouldn't show.

I have a model of the Cutty Sark under normal sail (no studding sails) in a Haig "Pinch" bottle.

I'll get pictures.

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Stumbled across these great ship in bottle photos on FB