Bottle 1282 - Moving Ships in a Bottle

Robert E. Searight of Long Beach, California made this very different bottle in 1950 with four miniature ships mounted on a wooden rod. The ship were very simply made with four masts and minimum rigging. The ships are on two levels with a ship on each side of the center pole. A wooden “paddle” does through a large hole drilled in the bottle on one side, through a ship, through the pole, and finally through the ship on the other side before it exits the bottle through a drilled hole on the opposite side. This is the same for both levels. The paddles can be moved around so as to rock and move the ships as if on waves.