Glazed and Unglazed Lips / Snuff Versus Medicine Bottles

[George]

From Raymond Li's book, "The Medicine Snuff Bottle Connection"

A distinctive feature often emphasized by dealers is that snuff bottles always tend to have narrower mouth whereas certain types of medicine phials have a rather wide mouth for pouring out pills, tablets and powders.



Some of the porcelain bottles intended for use a medicine phials had the pouring lip covered with resset glaze or, at least, a matching lip guard glaze.



Snuff bottles on the other hand, frequently had unglazed lips or lips glazed in white, gold, etc.



Bottles with wider "fire cracker" necks were customarily used for pills and tablets, while those with narrower mouths and everted lips tended to be used for healing powders rather than pills.