These were recently acquired together from a New England country market. The 740 is a base embossed Foster Brothers in a deep transparent root beer amber while the 731.3 is an un-embossed unit in a deep transparent golden amber, both being the predominant batch colors of all five Stoddard glass factories. Both pieces have some manufacturing flaws on the lower skirt (not pictured) and appear to be unused having a glossy clean surface inside and out with no wire groove wear or any other scuffs or scratches typically associated with decommissioned service pieces. It is my humble opinion based on inductive reasoning and decades of extensive experience researching, collecting, reselling and digging Stoddard glass even at four of the five mid 19th century Stoddard glass works sites, that both were probably found at Foster's New Granite Glass Works site in the early 1960's, or in the 1980's during commercial excavations to expand the Stoddard General Store / Post Office at that location. Among the hundreds of bottle pieces and insulator shards excavated during construction, at least one whole example of a 740 Foster Brothers in a rich reddish root beer amber was recovered for which I had the opportunity to purchase from the late Dave Warris in the mid 1990's but had to decline for financial reasons at the time. The 731.3 was forever known to me as the "Stoddard 731" going back to the late 1960's when a pair of them was purchased at the old Hollis, NH Flea Market on a table about 50 feet away from where the late Edna MacDonald was set-up. She related the story to me as a youngster during my early collecting days in the late 1960's IIRC, when a fledgling collector walked up to her table stating he had just "bought the pair over there," as he pointed to the flea marketeer across the field, for $7 or $8 dollars each. The seller claimed to have "found them in Stoddard, NH" hence the nickname "Stoddard 731" was born. As you might imagine I am ecstatic to have these in my custodial care for all the aforementioned reasons, mostly being the Foster/Stoddard connection. As an aside: the 731.3 mold was either duplicated or traveled around to other glass works for the fact that this CD is also listed in aqua, a color that was never produced at any of the Stoddard glass factories.