i would lik to tap in to the combined vintage port wisdom here...
a local private seller offers 1 bottle of port as a 1943. there is one photo and of course the last number is rubbed away a bit.
but looking at the rest of the numbers and comparing them with others i think in this font the last number would be 5 instead of 3. (the closest font i can find would be on old Feuerheerd bottles)
what is your opinion? 3 or 5?
maybe a guess what producer this port could come from?
and as an extra, given the information (or lack of) we have; what would you offer for this bottle if you were to buy it locally?
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I would agree it's a 1945. Not many used stenciling for VP, but I can think of a few off the top of my head that did. Royal Oporto, Krohn, Rocha, Kopke.
I would also hazard a guess it was bottled in Oporto as i am not aware of any negotiant outside there that did so.
Worth the gamble if not too much money. I say that as most of the producers who did VP stenciling back then were not renowned for best of the vintage billing. If good fill level, perhaps $150-200.
2 other producers that are know for using stencil on their bottles are Barros and Feuerheerd. My guess would be one of the two or Kopke as Andy mentioned. Probably only worth a flyer. The Ramos Pinto though is stellar if you can find it.
Here is a picture of a Barros 70VP and a Feuerheerd 58VP. The bottle shape is similar to the one you posted and so is the font as well as the order of the words. Being vintage year on Top. The the word "Vintage" next and the word "Port" is missing but should go on the bottom.
Barros is indeed a good candidate. it has the same font and it would show a 5 in this way. it also has the order of the words right. (i wanted to check Barros in the port vintages book but it's not in there) i also just saw the same seller has a bottle of Barros colheita 1957.
Feuerheerd seems to have a different order for the words and a larger spacing between the numbers.
Andy Velebil wrote: ↑Sat Sep 24, 2022 6:44 am
I would agree it's a 1945. Not many used stenciling for VP, but I can think of a few off the top of my head that did. Royal Oporto, Krohn, Rocha, Kopke.
Sousa and Suarez also stencil VPs, but the bottles of those brands I have include the brand name stenciled on the bottle.
My only concern or I should say question on christening this as a possible Barros is how were the words "Porto" and "Barros" which would be 2 separate lines above 1945 be so cleanly erased? Everything else is relatively intact, but I don't see any trace of Porto or Barros at all. That seems odd. My question would be were there any producers who stenciled their names one one side and the year and vintage port on the other side?
"I have often thought that the aim of Port is to give you a good and durable hangover, so that during the next day you should be reminded of the splendid occasion the night before." - Hungarian/British journalist & author George Mikes
Hi Mike. I agree that it seems unlikely that additional lines of text above would have been so cleanly erased unless it was done deliberately; I can see little value to be gained by doing so, aside perhaps from hiding a lesser brand name and hoping that a buyer might believe it to be a greater brand, but without any real reason to believe so; it seems more likely to me that there were never any additional lines of text.
Looking at the VPID, I can find no 1945 vintage port bottle image matching yours; however, I can find six brands which have at some point produced bottles with stencilled text just showing "<year> Vintage Port" i.e. that does not include the brand name or word "Porto"; these are: Butler Nephew, Flagman, Gonzales Byass, Santos Junior, Souza and the Wine Shippers and Growers; of these only BN and GB have regularly done this, but in both of their cases there would be a label underneath the stencil (which your bottle shows no sign of) and the stencil is not a good match, so these seem unlikely.
Your stencil is potentially a very good match for Souza, which would be my best guess, but of course it could be any of the brands which regularly stencil and happened not to put the brand on that year. The stencilled bottles usually have a label on the opposite side of the bottle from the stencil - am assuming you've asked/checked that?
(on the images above, the Feuerheerd seems to be a better match on the stencil than Barros based on the T shape and is very similar to the Souza; however images of the Feuerheerd 1945 show the stencil text: "Feuerheerd's Vintage Port 1945" which even if the top line were lost would leave "Vintage Port 1945" which does not match "1945 Vintage Port", unless different bottles were stencilled differently; not impossible, but seems less likely?)
"I have often thought that the aim of Port is to give you a good and durable hangover, so that during the next day you should be reminded of the splendid occasion the night before." - Hungarian/British journalist & author George Mikes
Mike J. W. wrote: ↑Mon Sep 26, 2022 12:51 pm
My only concern or I should say question on christening this as a possible Barros is how were the words "Porto" and "Barros" which would be 2 separate lines above 1945 be so cleanly erased? Everything else is relatively intact, but I don't see any trace of Porto or Barros at all. That seems odd. My question would be were there any producers who stenciled their names one one side and the year and vintage port on the other side?
there is a patch of white ink in the middle above the date that if it was Barros would bet the tip of the first R.
Souza is indeed also a match with the placing of year and words but i can't find a picture of a Souza bottle that has a number 4 matching this font.
I found that Feist also has bottles with the same placing of words and year, the font also seems to match on of the fonts they have used... but i can't find any photo of a bottle with a 4 in the year to check if that number matches the font.
i also found out that this is from the cellar of the seller's grandfather. there were the 2 ports and an old cognac bottle in one wooden case. this photo is all i have so far because the seller is not at home for a few weeks.
The more I look at it, the more I think that's a '3' not a '5'.
In all of the examples shown, the right side of the bottom of the '5' is easily more than half of the height of the character. Not so - at least not as inarguably so as in the examples - for the bottle in question.
Also in all of the examples shown, the left side of the top half of the '5' descends easily down to the mid-point of the height of the character. Again not so for the bottle in question. In this case it could simply be that the paint is missing, but something about the remaining part of that section of paint says to me that it's not the same as the dagger-like examples.
Glenn E. wrote: ↑Sun Oct 02, 2022 8:15 pm
The more I look at it, the more I think that's a '3' not a '5'.
In all of the examples shown, the right side of the bottom of the '5' is easily more than half of the height of the character. Not so - at least not as inarguably so as in the examples - for the bottle in question.
Also in all of the examples shown, the left side of the top half of the '5' descends easily down to the mid-point of the height of the character. Again not so for the bottle in question. In this case it could simply be that the paint is missing, but something about the remaining part of that section of paint says to me that it's not the same as the dagger-like examples.
Respectful disagreement; I see where you're coming from, but in most examples I can find the arc of the 3 lower curve is very similar to the 5 (i.e. with the top half of the character rubbed out they would be indistinguishable). The key for me believing this is a 5 rather than a three is the top bar; in all the stencilled examples of 3 that I can find, none have a sharp top right corner - yes they do in many standard fonts, but I can't see this in standard stencilled bottles at all; all the stencils have the top half of the three as a full curve. For the 5 there is some difference between stencils, some have a flat bar across the top, while others the top bar dips slightly in the middle; on some the bar goes all the way to the top left corner and descends vertically, while on others (most) it stops short of the corner and descends on a very slight diagonal. All finish the top bar at the top right, whether having come straight across, or with a slight mid-dip. Again, ehile there are some fonts that have a similar straight bar across the top descending as diagonal down from top right, I have not seen this on a 3 on any stencilled bottle, with all of them being a loop in the top right half. This is therefore a strong indicator to me that this is a 5 not a 3, assuming the character has only been partly-erased and not distorted (and it seems consistent with the top-right end of other stencilled 5s, so this seems reasonable).
That's a good point about the top right of a '3'. I can in my mind, however, make a rounded top right fit with what remains of the paint. Though admittedly it takes exactly the right loss of paint to make that work. Unlike the top left where such precision isn't necessary. So I waffle back to thinking that is could be a '5'...
"I have often thought that the aim of Port is to give you a good and durable hangover, so that during the next day you should be reminded of the splendid occasion the night before." - Hungarian/British journalist & author George Mikes
Glenn E. wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 9:49 am
That's a good point about the top right of a '3'. I can in my mind, however, make a rounded top right fit with what remains of the paint. Though admittedly it takes exactly the right loss of paint to make that work. Unlike the top left where such precision isn't necessary. So I waffle back to thinking that is could be a '5'...
Niepoort used that type of 3 on their 1937 colheita for example, but with a very different font.
or this one:
feist have used it on colheita's as well but again a different font.
Bert VD wrote: ↑Tue Oct 04, 2022 1:18 pm
Niepoort used that type of 3 on their 1937 colheita for example, but with a very different font.
...
feist have used it on colheita's as well but again a different font.
Interesting; I'd seen it on a Niepoort bottle, but that was a significantly different font; but your Feist example is closer to showing the issue and is the first with a close-to-standard stencil but with the angled vs curved top right of the three; some obvious lettering differences in that font as you mentioned though, so I don't think Glenn needs to revert to his 3 yet.
Earlier in this thread I thought of these bottles that I had readily available in my kitchen. Now I guess I need to figure out what I bottles I have from '3' and '5' years with stenciling. Label format is not something I track, so I think JDA Wiseman's book might be a quicker source of information.
Eric Menchen wrote: ↑Fri Oct 07, 2022 9:59 am... so I think JDA Wiseman's book might be a quicker source of information.
While the book has a good number of labels, there are very few photos of stenciled labels, probably since they aren't all that informative. I also suspect there isn't that much standardization on a producer basis in the stencils. I did find a few relevant photos, and one had Royal Oporto bottles ... which had the '3' like the Noval bottle pictured in this thread, with a solid straight line.
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