Are Hip/Pocket flasks period?

[Johnny Lloyd]

Gents-

I have Googled this one to death :eek: and searched it on here more than a few times, but are hip or pocket flasks (flat, metal ones of 1800's design) period? Never heard much about them at all. I also once read that mid-1800s pants didn't have back pockets because people looked upon that as an excuse to carry a hip flask- temperance reared its ugly head, I suppose.
How about when the screw top was invented for a hip flask?

Anyway, please let me know... Johnny

[toccoa42]

Don't know about metals ones, but there is a photo of a wicker-bound flask in Echoes of Glory -- Arms and Equipment of the Union. Not that I would want to carry it in my pocket, but definietly in my haversack, were I of an intemperate nature . . .

[Hank Trent]

Yep, both the pewter and glass/leather kind. Try a search over on google books for pocket flask limited to pre-1865.

From Dictionary of Americans, 1860: "But you seem to have something pretty considerable in the right pocket of your trowsers; what may it be? Why, that's a wee bit pewter whiskey-flask, yer honor."

As for the screw-top, from 1864: "...taking a flask from his breast pocket, he unscrewed the top." From 1863: "Lewellyn had a small travelling flask in his pocket, which he had purchased the preceding day. He unscrewed the stopper, and poured the contents of the tumbler carefully into it."

What I've not run across is evidence for the attached-lid kind of screw top. I have a turn-of-the-century pewter flask, distinguishable from earlier ones only by the tiny "Made in England" on the bottom, and it has a regular screw-off lid. The attached-lid design may be period, but I just haven't run across evidence of it.

The flask I have holds 16 ounces and fits invisibly in a frock coat tail pocket, and is one solution to the eternal problem of how to look like a well-dressed civilian not carrying a canteen, yet still have a water container with you on a hot day when stranded yet again out in the woods or fields somewhere. :)

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[Vuhginyuh]

I have a 12 ounce 1852 hallmarked sterling traveling flask by John Figg, Fleet Street, London. It has a screw top attached to the seamless body with a swivel ring and chain.

[Johnny Lloyd]

Gents... Thanks for the responses. I have two antique silver hip/pocket flasks that I'll post pics of soon. I -think- they have the "attached" style of screw-off lid you were talking about, Hank. I didn't want to post them on here before I found out if they were period or not. Just confuses people and that isn't right on a site like this. :)

-Johnny

[Hank Trent]

The chain is cool info! How about the kind that's got a rigid horizontal bar to keep the top? Anyone seen that in the period?

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[Johnny Lloyd]

Hank... There you go, dead on- The "rigid horizontal bar" is the type of top attachment that I have for the two silver flasks... I'll post pics tonight when I get home.
-Johnny

PS- "Always do I enjoy a stiff dram, my good fellows..." ;)

[cwilson]

Garrison,

Any way you could post pics of our flask? Thanks.

[mightyreb]

i have a number of period flasks, my favorite has to be my glass pumpkinseed one with a pewter cup..

steve hutton

[D Harrelson]

About eight or ten years ago, I bought a box of dug and non-dug relics from a friend who had recently taken over a pawn shop and was disposing of some of the less-desireable goods from the original inventory. Among these items was a pewter flask. Nothing remarkable until I was perusing Francis Lord's Civil War Collector's Guide (vol.1) in that same box and turned to a dog-eared page to see a photo of that same flask staring right at me.... It was identified as an Antietam flask, so named because it had been carried by a Federal Lieutenant at that battle who had been wounded. I'd say flasks are pretty authentic and pretty tasty as well.

D. Harrelson

[Vuhginyuh]

Will post ASAP. The horizontal bar is called a bayonet cap and I have never seen one on a container prior to the 1870's. I want to reinforce Hank's Made In England statement, any item you come across that is so marked ( Made in ...) was most likely made after 1891.

[Johnny Lloyd]

My flasks have the said bar attachment, but do not say "made in" anywhere...

...at work now. But I'll post sometime over the weekend.

Thanks -Johnny

[Hank Trent]

Will post ASAP. The horizontal bar is called a bayonet cap and I have never seen one on a container prior to the 1870's. I want to reinforce Hank's Made In England statement, any item you come across that is so marked ( Made in ...) was most likely made after 1891.

To reinforce Garrison's reinforcement :) the "Made in Whatever Country" stamp is good for indicating something's post-period, but lack of it doesn't necessarily indicate something is period, unless it was definitely imported at the time. In other words, something made in England and originally sold in England, or made in America and sold in America, wouldn't be required to have it.

Off to an event this morning, but I wonder if a patent search would turn up anything on the bayonet caps?

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[mightyreb]

Here's another of my favorite flasks...she's a real beuty
the gilt wording says "Improved Traveling Comapnion 2"

steve hutton

[Johnny Lloyd]

To all:

Here are the pics of the flasks... both are silver. Markings are picture here too.

I think the one with "hand hammered" is a post-war one, but the other one with "EJ&B" (the smaller one) on it might not be.

Any silversmiths or tinkers out there that might know...:confused:

Whatcha think? -Johnny

[Vuhginyuh]

The Hammered silver flask is Edwardian.

Can you post a picture of the hallmarks and side seams, if any, on the smaller contoured one? I have only seen one possible mid-19th century flask that was contoured and it was questionable. It had the common screw off cap. The fact that your smaller flask has an elongated, loose ring & bail* cap retainer leads me to believe that it is 1890 or later. It's very similar to the cap on your ca. 1915 example. An English patent search can confirm or deny that.

But they are both very nice, I love the hammered piece.

& & & & &

*I stated earlier that it was a bayonet cap. It wasn't. I'll post an example of one soon.

[Johnny Lloyd]

The mark of "E&JB" on the neck is on the more plain one (smaller one)... nothing else is on it.

As I have no use for them, they are both for sale to anyone.

Wonder what it stands for... Johnny

[Vuhginyuh]

I didn't see that in the glare on my screen. E&JB is the Empire Arts Silver Co., ca 1910.

[Johnny Lloyd]

;) Thanks... still for sale or trade as I don't need them... :D

[Vuhginyuh]

Sterling traveling flask. John Figg, Fleet Street, London. 1852
5.5 inches tall, 2.75 inches wide (14cm, 7cm).

[mightyreb]

Mr. Beall, that is one handsome flask there...
steve hutton

[Vuhginyuh]

Mid-1840's bayonet style flask cap. Sterling cap, coin mouth w/ stud.