Framing the deck

Yesterday we worked on framing the deck. Somehow I mis-calculated and ended up 4 boards short so we couldn't finish. I forgot the camera at home again but I took a few pics with my cell phone.




While I was attaching the joist hangers to the ledger board I made a really cool find. It's an old bottle. I took it home and cleaned it up, the bottle was filled with coal. Also, it appears to be very old, pre-dating the age of the house (1888) by at least 20 years.

There is no seam at all on the main body of the bottle. The neck and the lip each have their own separate seams. There also appears to be a pontil mark on the bottom. The bottle is also iridescent.

This first picture above is before cleaning.

The next two above show the iridescence.

This one shows what appears to be a pontil mark.

This one shows the two separate seams, one on the neck (directly in front), and one on the lip (to the right on the top).

This one shows the coal that was in it.

So does anyone know anything about this bottle, what is was used for, it's general age, why there was coal in it...?