historical flask Masonic Glass & Blown, Bottles, and Flasks historical flasks
ebay by Kevin A. Sives nasa

There are many interesting bottle and flask collecting specialties. Figural bitters, sealed bottles, and scroll flasks immediately come to mind. Many collectors specialize based upon the shape of the bottle, the glass house that made the item, or even the town or state where the item was made.
But there's one interesting category that not only transcends shape, glass house, and location, but also crosses the boundary from free blown glass to bottles to flasks. What I'm talking about is glass items with a Masonic history. Not only can you collect seal bottles, cut glass, and etched bottles, but also blown tableware such as decanters and wine glasses, featuring Masonic symbols as well. However, as bottle collectors, we certainly can't think of Masonic items without thinking about historical and pictorial flasks. As a matter of fact, there are so many different historical and pictorial flasks available, that they even have a separate category (Group IV) in the McKearin/Wilson flask classification scheme.
But of course talking about the bottles and flasks would only be half of the story. In order to put all of this historical glass into context, we need to discuss Freemasonry and the Freemasons.

HISTORY
In the simplest sense, Freemasons, or more commonly called the Masons, is a fraternal organization with millions of members worldwide. They are involved in such worthy charitable causes as the Drug Awareness Resistance Education (DARE). In addition, they operate a number of retirement communities across the country for members and their families, sponsor hundreds of other charitable endeavors around the world and through various appending bodies (e.g. The Shriners), operate children's hospitals as well.
The history of Freemasonry goes back to the formation of the original Grand Lodge of England, which took place on June 24, 1717, when four lodges from London and Westminster met in London and formed the Mother Grand Lodge. Although this is the date that Masons made themselves public by announcing their existence, they obviously existed before that time, as there were already at least four lodges in operation at this time. As a matter-of-fact, some historians believe that Freemasonry was introduced into England as early as 926 A.D.
In America, Masonic history is officially traced to June 5, 1730. On that date, the Duke of Norfolk, then the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of England, appointed Daniel Coxe of New Jersey as the Provincial Grand Master of the Provinces of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Even that date isn't early enough for some states, as Pennsylvania dates their Masonic beginnings to around 1727, when a Masonic charter was printed for the St. John's Lodge of Philadelphia.
Many of our founding fathers, including George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Paul Revere were Masons. In addition, many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were active Masons as well. Thus, when our country was newly formed, many Masons were involved in helping to shape the country.
Masons came to the forefront of American culture in 1826 when Captain William Morgan, from Batavia, New York signed a contract to print a book that he said would reveal the secret grips, signs, and ceremonies of Freemasonry. Some local Masonic lodge members became incensed, and on September 12, 1826 kidnapped Morgan, taking him to the abandoned Fort Niagara in New York state, where he was held prisoner. Morgan was never seen again.
Whether he escaped to Canada (which was the story told by his confessed captors) or was murdered (which became the popular theory), it prompted an enormous backlash against the Masons. This prompted much anti-Masonic sentiment, resulting in rallies, conventions, and even political parties. This anti-Masonic sentiment continued well into the 1840s when many politicians ran on the anti-Masonic ticket.
Eventually the anti-Masonic sentiment died down, with Masonry thriving during the Civil War. There are many stories of Masons discovering wounded 'brothers' from the opposing army and saving them or otherwise going above and beyond the call of duty, in order to help another Mason.
After the Civil War, Masonry continued to grow, peaking in membership some time after World War II. Today, as with most organizations, Masonic membership has decreased, but still is quite large. In the United States, there are approximately 3 million Masons, organized into local lodges. In Pennsylvania, for example, there is somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 lodges.
As an interesting final note on Masonry, we think of Masons as a "secret society". But there is no single subject about whom more books have been written than the Freemasons and Masonry. And even more interesting, a majority of these books were written by Masons themselves.

MASONIC SYMBOLISM
Before I get into the various types of glass and bottles available to the Masonic collector, let me just briefly touch on some of the symbols used in Masonry. We need to recognize some of these symbols in order to recognize Masonic glass, as none of the Masonic items have the word "Mason" written on them. Instead, there are various pictures or symbols that are used and understood by Masons, which makes a piece of glass or a flask Masonic.
As Masonry dates back to the time before everyone knew how to write, many of the Masonic teachings rely upon images or symbols to convey moral lessons. And what better symbols to utilize than those that were parts of everyday life? Thus, many common tools (e.g. setting maul, square, and compass) and other building items (steps, columns, and mosaic tile) were invested with higher moral meanings. The two most recognizable symbols of Freemasonry, the square and compass, have specific Masonic meanings -- the square, for example, symbolizes rectitude in life and conduct (i.e. treating someone squarely), whereas the compass symbolizes restraint in your daily life (i.e. the compass is used to circumscribe our desires).
There are dozens of other symbols, such as an eye, beehive, etc., that have a Masonic meaning, and can be found on a large number of items. Many of these symbols appear on historical and pictorial flasks. For anyone interested in learning more about Masonic Symbolism, there are a number of books that discuss that very topic. Two of the more commonly found books on the subject are: Masonic Symbolism by Charles Clyde Hunt and Sources of Masonic Symbolism by Alex Horne.

BOTTLES and BLOWN GLASS
Well, now that I've given you a little background on the Masons and the type of symbols you'll see on Masonic glassware, but what type of items can I find? Basically the glass that you'll find can be broken down into three different types of items -- bottles, blown glass, and historical/pictorial flasks. In this section, I'll talk about the first two types of glass -- bottles and blown glass.
A majority of the bottles and blown glass made during this period were made in limited quantities. For the most parts, there weren't production pieces, but were made for the use of a specific Masonic lodge or to commemorate a specific Masonic event. The bottles that were made were for use in a lodge room to hold liquor (although alcohol was prohibited from Masonic halls for nearly a century). A majority of the bottles that I've seen are what we call "black glass" with a seal either depicting Masonic symbols or with the name of Masonic lodges or other symbols cut or etched into the bottle itself.
The blown glass that is most typically encountered consists of tableware, such as drinking vessels and decanters, with various Masonic symbols etched or cut into them. These wine or spirits decanters, glasses, and other tableware were used during banquets or other dinners. Some of the earliest of these are what we call "firing glasses" and feature cut Masonic designs. These short, squat glasses were banged on the table after its contents were consumed, which resulted in a noise reminiscent of a gun firing (thus the name), which of course spawned another name for the glass - a shot glass.
As early and interesting as this blown glass is, no discussion of Masonic glass would be complete without an in-depth discussion about historical and pictorial flasks.

FLASKS
There are so many different Masonic flasks that when George and Helen McKearin were writing American Glass, and categorized historical and pictorial flasks, they decided to continue using Stephen Van Rensselaer's idea of giving Masonic flasks their own separate category. Designated Group IV, they range in number from GIV-1, through and including GIV-43, with a number of variations for some of the flasks, for a total of 51 different flasks. Add to that eight portrait flasks in Group I and one eagle flask in Group II that feature Masonic emblems along with other features. Thus, you can see that there are quite a number of different molds from which Masonic flasks were made.
However, in American Glass, the McKearins also discuss the fact that a few of the flasks designated as Masonic, namely GIV-38, 39, 40, 41, and 42, are now determined to have been made for the Junior Order of United Mechanics. This was another fraternal group that existed around the Civil War time.
But regardless of the actual number of mold variations, when you couple that number with the myriad of different colors in which many flasks were made, and you can see the possibilities of building quite an extensive collection. These flasks range in scarcity from fairly common to extremely rare, but for the most part, Masonic flasks are quire rare. You can fill dozens of shelves with some of the most beautiful, highly detailed, flasks ever made - but you'd better have a bit of disposable income.
Many of the earliest historical and pictorial flasks were produced in the early 1800s. With the Morgan Affair discussed above, the production of a majority of the Masonic flasks stopped around 1830s or so. As a matter of fact, there is only one flask, GIV-42 (if indeed it is a Masonic flask), which was made after 1840. This particular flask contains some Masonic symbols, and the initials "AD" on the obverse and "GRJA" on the reverse (which has been conjectured to stand for Alexander Delta Arch and Grand Royal Jerusalem Arch, respectively).
With the exception of GIV-31, 32, 33, and 36 (which were made at Midwestern glass houses), all of the other Masonic flasks were made at eastern, and especially New England, glass houses. In particular, a majority of the very earliest flasks, in the GIV-1 to GIV-14 range, came from the New England glass houses. Part of the reason is that many of the early glassmakers, such as Henry Schoolcraft and Justice Perry from the Keen-Marlboro Street Glassworks, were Masons. However, as there were so many different molds employed on some of these flasks, it's highly likely that many other New England glass houses made these flasks as well.
There are such a variety of pictorial and historical flasks that have Masonic symbols, or a Masonic connection, that it would be impossible to describe all of them. Most of these flasks feature Masonic items on one side, coupled with other motifs on the back, such as the American eagle or famous Masons, such as Lafayette or Andrew Jackson. There are very few flasks that have Masonic emblems on both sides. So it seems pretty likely that the flask manufacturers were trying to make their flasks more appealing to the general public, in addition to Masons, by including both Masonic as well as non-Masonic items.

SUMMARY
Masonic flasks and other Masonic glass items are one of the most interesting and historical groupings. And not only have these items been made for well over two hundred years, it's interesting to note that the symbols have the same meaning to Masons today as they did when they were originally cut into the mold or etched into the glass.
And for you computer folks, eBay's (http://www.ebay.com) "Collectibles" category not only as a "Bottles" category where you can locate flasks, but also a "Fraternal Groups" category, where you can locate Masonic paraphernalia. In this new millennium, most Masonic Lodges also have their own Internet Web pages, chock full of Masonic history and information. The Web site of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, for example, can be found at http://www.pagrandlodge.org, and contains a lot of interesting historical information.....

Bibliography
McKearin, George S. and Helen, "American Glass", New York:Crown Publishers, 1948.

McKearin, Helen and Kenneth M. Wilson, "American Bottles and Flasks and Their Ancestry", New York:Crown Publishers, Inc. 1978.

Pepper, Adeline, "The Glass Gaffers of New Jersey", Charles Scribner's Sons. 1979.

Van Rensselaer, Stephen, "Early American Bottles & Flasks, Revised Edition", Peterborough:Transcript Printing Company. 1926.

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