An all too common mistake that sellers make, while listing bottles on ebay, is calling a tooled lip an applied lip.

This is really only the tip of the iceburg when it comes to antique bottle inaccuracies, but it's one tip I can help you out with. Applied is almost always going to mean older to those who "know", and therefore I find it way too convenient when SO many seller seem to make that mistake. OOPs!

Anyhow, the difference is this. An applied top is a seperate piece of glass, pressed on to the top of a freshly whetted  neck (whetting is the name of the process used to remove the neck of the newly formed bottle, from the blowpipe used to form it in the mold - for a description of this, I plan on writing a different review ;-D) A special tool (basically designed like long-handled offset pliers) was used to hold and shape the blob of glass into the lip style, and then press it on the still plastic neck (plastic meaning pretty much what it sounds like, the glass was still hot and malleable or workable)

A tooled lip was usually formed in the mold itself, to a slight distance above where the top of the lip would end up. A very similar set of tools (in some cases the SAME ones that were used to apply where used to tool) was then used to encircle the top, and then spun around it to smooth down the jagged edges from whetting, and finish the lip.

A simple way to spot this (and this is SO contrary to what most bottle books say, but check my feedback, read my listings and TRUST ME) is that on applied lips, most times there's some measure of drip just under the lip itself, and the mold seams will disappear under the lip. Most times there will be an offset inside the neck where the lip was applied, or a visible (or twisting) line or any combination. Often stretch marks will disappear under an applied lip as well. 

 With a tooled lip, there's usually circular lines ringing the neck and lip. Also any stretch marks on the neck will stop where the tooling lines start, or at what's called the line of tooling demarcation.

Now what most bottle books say is that the lower the seam ends on a neck, the older the bottle is. This is total BS as on the oldest the seams go right under the lip.

Thanks for reading ;-D