The Corning Museum of Glass (CmoG) has a rather extensive collection of Steuben stoppers that were used during the Carder era. They were donated to the Museum by Otto Hilbert an employee of Corning Inc./Steuben. These stoppers were used in a wide variety of bottles and colognes. Many of the stoppers are in “as made” condition i.e. they have never been fitted to bottles or colognes and their tapered mating surfaces are unground. It should be noted that many cologne bottles were fitted with a very limited variety of stoppers. A lost or damaged stopper cannot be replaced with just any stopper and have the cologne appear to be correct . Presented here are about 60 examples of stoppers from the collection. They are presented primarily by form and use.
Flower Form Bottle Stoppers
This set of stoppers are flower form and were used primarily on wide and small mouth bottles such as shapes 6590 and 6733.
Bottle Stoppers
This set of stoppers are also used on bottles such as shapes 6590 and 6733 but are not flower form.
Flame Stoppers
This photo shows a number of Flame Stoppers that were used with many different Steuben colognes. Examples include shapes 1414, 1455 and 6237. This type of stopper is probably the most common form of stopper found. These stoppers can be found with a long drip, a short drip or with no drip.
Shown are three different stoppers that are labeled Silverine Rosa. A drawing in the archives of the Rakow Research Library has an example of a 6048 cologne and the ball stem is labeled Silverine Rosa. The ball is colorless glass that contains mica flakes and has an internal spiral of an orange glass. The Silverine in the name refers to the colorless mica flecked glass and the Rosa is the color of the spiral. While the color of the stopper in this bottle isn’t named it is almost certain that the same decoration in the stopper would go by the same name and so is called Silverine Rosa here. It should be noted that some of these ball stems seem to have a glass spiral of a lighter colored glass which is probably Coral.
Additonal Flame Stoppers
Cologne Bottle Flower Stoppers
These flower form stoppers are found on colognes rather than the more plain bottles. Depending upon the application they can have a long drip, a short drip or no drip at all. The Amethyst Cintra stopper is a rather fancy one and the Marina stopper is a rather plain stamen stopper without the flower petals. The stamen stopper had rather limited use but is the one used when the 6421 vase was turned into a decanter.
Pointed Rope Twist and Rounded End Stoppers
This set of stoppers consist of those that are pointed with a rope twist and those that have a rounded end. The pointed stoppers were used with colognes such as shapes 6024 and 6181. The stoppers with a rounded end profile were used with many colognes with the 3294 being the one that is seen most often.
