Antique Bottle & Glass Collector | November–December 2023

$7.00

November – December 2023

Featuring...

Boy, Have You Got Moxie!

Carbonated Soft Beverages: from the American Drug Store to the Convenient Bottle

Also in this issue...

Nicholas Longworth and his Catawba Wine Bitters

ACL #7–Politically Incorrect The Fabulously Odd Mr. Klinkner and his Red Rubber Stamps Spirits Found Suddenly Last Summer and so much more!

The official publication of the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors

Vol. 34

No. 6

Vol. 34 No. 6

November–December 2023

TABLE OF CONTENTS

No. 269

On the Cover: Boy, Have You Got Moxie!

To Advertise, Subscribe or Renew a subscription, see pages 66 and 72 for details.

FOHBC Officers | 2022–2024 ...................................................................................... 2

To Submit a Story, send a Letter to the Editor or have Comments and Concerns, contact:

FOHBC President’s Message ............................................................................................ 3 Shards of Wisdom–Heard it Through the Grapevine ....................................................... 4 FOHBC News–From & For Our Members ..................................................................... 6 FOHBC Regional News ...................................................................................................... 8 Virtual Museum News by Richard Siri .............................................................................. 10

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Nicholas Longworth and his Catawba Wine Bottles by Ferdinand Meyer V ...................... 12 ACL Corner #7 – Politically Incorrect by Mike Dickman ................................................ 20 The Fabulously Odd Mr. C.A. Klinkner and his Red Rubber Stamps by Mike McKillop ....... 26 Boy, Have You Got Moxie! by Dennis Sasseville and Merrill Lewis ..................................... 32 A Story I Like to Tell by Gary Beatty ............................................................................ 46

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Spirits Found Suddenly Last Summer by John Savastio .................................................. 48 Unlisted Koopmann’s Bitters Found in Charleston by Ferdinand Meyer V .......................... 56 Lost & Found ................................................................................................................. 60 Member Photos ............................................................................................................ 64 Classified Ads .............................................................................................................. 66 FOHBC Sho-Biz–Calendar of Shows ............................................................................. 68

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Membership Benefits, Display Ad Rates, Donations to the FOHBC ................................. 71 Membership Application, Classified Advertising & Article Submission ............................. 72

Coming next issue or down the road: The Three Blue Bitters•Lady’s Star•The Saltsburg Glass Works•A Puce Eagle Tale•ACL #8 Land of Enhancement•Privy Digger’s Dream•What Do You Collect?•Reed & Carnrick New York Pharmacal Association•A Clinton Physician Dr. Carl Gruber•Dr. Guysott’s Extract of Yellow Dock and Sarsaparilla Update•M. A. Rue of Cranbury, New Jersey•Early Pittsburgh Glasshouses•Dr. Furber’s Cordial of Mountain Balm•Keystone Coffee Jar•Soda City’s Only Two Earliest Colored Sodas: H. Deming & Co. and C.C. Habenicht•Treachery at Hotel ZaZa•On the Witness Protection Program•Probst & Hilbs German Bitters Little Rock, Ark.•Pressed Stoneware Bottles•Fred Raschen, Sacramento Whiskey Dealer•Whites Prairie Flower and so much more!

November – December 2023

So you don’t miss an issue of Antique Bottle & Glass Collector, please check your labels for expiration information.

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Elizabeth Meyer FOHBC Business Manager P.O. Box 1825 Brookshire, Texas 77423 phone: 713.504.0628 email: fohbcmembers@gmail.com Fair use notice: Some material in Antique Bottle & Glass Collector has been submitted for publication in this magazine and/or was originally published by the authors and is copyrighted. We, as a non-profit organization, offer it here as an educational tool to increase further understanding and discussion of bottle collecting and related history. We believe this constitutes “fair use” of the copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this material for purposes of your own that go beyond “fair use,” you must obtain permission from the copyright owner(s).

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector © (ISSN 10505598) is published bi-monthly (6 issues per year) by the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors, Inc. (a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational organization) at 101 Crawford Street, Studio 1A, Houston, Texas 77002; phone: 713.504.0628; Website: FOHBC.org, Non-profit periodicals postage paid at Raymore, Missouri 64083 and additional mailing office, Pub. #005062.

Postmaster: Send address changes to Elizabeth Meyer, FOHBC Business Manager, P.O. Box 1825, Brookshire, Texas 77423; 713.504.0628, email: fohbcmembers@ gmail.com Annual subscription rate is: $40 for standard mail or $55 for First Class, $60 to Canada, $80 Other countries, $25 Digital Membership [in U.S. funds.] Life Membership: Level 1: $1,000, Level 2: $500. The Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors, Inc. (FOHBC) assumes no responsibility for products and services advertised in this publication. See page 72 for details.

The names Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors Inc. (FOHBC), and Antique Bottle & Glass Collector ©, are registered ® names of the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors Inc., and no use of either other than as references, is permitted without expressed written consent from the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors Inc. Certain material contained in this publication is copyrighted by, and remains the sole property of, the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors Inc. while others remain property of the submitting authors. Detailed information concerning a particular article may be obtained from the Editor.

Printed by Modern Litho, Jefferson City, Missouri 65101.

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FOHBC Board of Directors

Midwest Region Director: Henry Hecker, W298 S10655 Phantom Woods Road, Mukwonago, Wisconsin 53149, phone: 262.844.5751, email: phantomhah@gmail.com Southern Region Director: Tom Lines, 1647 Olivia Way, Auburn, Alabama 36830, phone: 205.410.2191, email: Bluecrab1949@hotmail.com Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors

The Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors is a non-profit organization for collectors of historical bottles, glass and related collectible items. Our primary goal is educational as it relates to the history and manufacture of historical bottles and related artifacts.

FOHBC Officers 2022–2024 President: Michael Seeliger, N8211 Smith Road, Brooklyn, Wisconsin 53521, phone: 608.575.2922, email: mwseeliger@gmail.com

Western Region Director: Eric McGuire, 1732 Inverness Drive, Petaluma, California 94954, phone: 707.481.9145, email: etmcguire@comcast.net Public Relations Director: Position Open Conventions Director: Craig Cassetta, 12 Marlin Court, Chico, California 95973, phone: 530.680.5226, email: craig.cassetta@gmail.com Historian: Brian Bingham, 4305 Arbor Cove Circle, Oceanside, California 92058, phone: 442.264.9945, email: brian.bingham@att.net Membership Director: Elizabeth Meyer, FOHBC, P.O. Box 1825, Brookshire, Texas 77423, phone: 713.504.0628, email: fohbcmembers@gmail.com

First Vice-President: Position Open

Merchandising Director: Position Open

Second Vice-President: Stephen R. Jackson, P.O. Box 3137, Suffolk, Virginia 23439, phone: 757.675.5642, email: sjackson@srjacksonlaw.com

FOHBC Virtual Museum

Secretary: Alice Seeliger, N8211 Smith Road, Brooklyn, Wisconsin 53521, phone: 608.575.1128, email: aliceajscreative@gmail.com Treasurer: Kathie Craig, 1037 Hazelwood Avenue, Campbell, California 95008, phone: 408.591.6511, email: kathiecraig@sbcglobal.net Business Manager: Elizabeth Meyer, FOHBC, P.O. Box 1825, Brookshire, Texas 77423, phone: 713.504.0628, email: fohbcmembers@gmail.com Director-at-Large: Ferdinand Meyer V, FMG Design, Inc., 101 Crawford Street, Studio 1A, Houston, Texas 77002 phone: 713.222.7979 x115, email: fmeyer@fmgdesign.com Director-at-Large: John O’Neill, 1805 Ralston Avenue, Belmont, California 94002, phone: 650.619.8209, email: Joneill@risk-strategies.com Director-at-Large: Richard Siri, PO Box 3818, Santa Rosa, California 95402, phone: 707.542.6438, email: rtsiri@sbcglobal.net Northeast Region Director: Charles Martin Jr., 5 John Hall Cartway, Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts 01985, phone: 781.248.8620, email: cemartinjr@comcast.net

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Alan DeMaison, 1605 Clipper Cove, Painesville, Ohio 44077, phone: 440.358.1223, email: a.demaison@sbcglobal.net Joe Gourd, 27W058 Fleming Drive, Winfield, Illinois 60190, phone: 630.653.7088, email: joegourd@aol.com Ferdinand Meyer V, FMG Design, Inc., 101 Crawford Street, Studio 1A, Houston, Texas 77002, phone: 713.222.7979 x115, email: fmeyer@fmgdesign.com Miguel Ruiz, FMG Design, Inc., 101 Crawford Street, Studio 1A, Houston, Texas 77002, phone: 713.222.7979, email: mruiz@fmgdesign.com Richard Siri, PO Box 3818, Santa Rosa, California 95402, phone: 707.542.6438, email: rtsiri@sbcglobal.net

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector Publisher: Peachridge Collections, LLC, Ferdinand Meyer V and Elizabeth Meyer, P.O. Box 1825, Brookshire, Texas 77423, phone: 713.222.7979 x115, email: fmeyer@fmgdesign.com Editor, Design and Production: Ferdinand Meyer V Proofreaders: Alice Seeliger and Bill Baab

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

President’s Message Michael Seeliger President Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors

N8211 Smith Road, Brooklyn, Wisconsin 53521 608.575.2922 mwseeliger@gmail.com

I was reminiscing with one of my boyhood friends about the collections we had as kids…rocks, butterflies and moths, coins, and stamps (and sand from some special vacation places). What are collections, and hobbies in general? Really, it’s a great way to enjoy our leisure time away from our jobs. Having a hobby such as bottle collecting helps to enrich our lives and make new friends who share the same interests. As kids, we were restricted in our searches until we could drive. Once we got wheels, lots more area became our hunting grounds. I was a digger, so many weekends were spent “down in the dumps.” The memory of finding bottles I still have in my collection is as vivid as the day I unearthed my treasures.

Today, bottle and glass collecting still ranks as one of the top collecting hobbies, with coins and stamps. Bottle collecting and the Federation have been advanced through many well-known collectors who came before us. It is always difficult to lose those we’ve gotten used to seeing at shows or during their involvement with the Federation.

I am sad to say that we recently lost two very influential members of our hobby, Tom Hicks and Sheldon Baugh. These men gave so much to make the Federation and the hobby in general enjoyable and entertaining. Tom and Mabel Hicks were always a delight to meet at shows whenever I was in the south or at National Conventions. I do hope Mabel will still join us at these events. Sheldon Baugh was a legend in the Federation. He attended every National Convention going back many, many years. Sheldon always stopped to see me whenever we met at bottle events and was always interested in anything I had to say about our hobby. Remembering all the time I’ve spent together with each of them brings me a smile…I’m sure you feel the same. Please look for the memorial tributes to both Tom and Sheldon on the Federation website. There you will find an overview of just how valuable these men were to our hobby.

Though impossible to fill their shoes and those of so many others who laid the foundation for the Federation, we are gaining new members almost daily to carry on the hobby and lend a hand in continuing to make the Federation a strong and viable organization. We still have a few board positions to fill so let me know if you have the interest and time to get involved in that capacity.

Also, the election committee would like to hear from anyone interested in running for any board position in 2024-2026 two-year term. Now is the time to let your voice be heard.

November – December 2023

The Federation’s latest educational opportunity—our Online Seminar program has now produced five one-hour sessions. The complete schedule is listed on our website where they are also available to see in case you missed the live presentations. Check them out! We are unearthing some great stories from our members (pun intended). If you attend the seminar, you have the opportunity to ask questions and contribute. There have been some real surprises.

The one on ACL sodas by Mike Dickman got me, and my wife Alice, surprisingly, to begin collecting those. (She’ll be looking for the ones featuring Cowgirls and horses!)

We are currently working on an overhaul of our website. Hopefully this will be finished in the coming year. This will allow us to present ourselves more professionally and to conduct business.

We failed to receive a proposal for a convention from the Northeast Region for 2025 so we have moved our convention choice to the Midwest and are actively looking for a Convention proposal from that Region. Check with Midwest Region director Henry Hecker for more information on submitting a proposal.

Now less than a year away, Houston 24 is on track to be a “once in a lifetime” event rivaling the 1976 Convention in St. Louis… no dancing on a riverboat, but there you can participate in a Texas Hold ‘em and have your dinner with dinosaurs! There’s so much to cover, I can’t do it justice here, so be sure to see information in the 32-page Expo supplement included with this issue and on our website. Make your reservations early!!! Your entrance to the Expo will give you full access to the fabulous Houston Museum of Natural Science displays of dinosaurs, magnificent gems and minerals, a life-size replica of King Tut’s tomb and a domed jungle where butterflies are free to land on your shoulder, large-screen theaters, a planetarium and so much more. Plan extra time to take this all in.

Two special exhibits of glass masterpieces promise to be a once-ina-lifetime, not-to-be-missed experience. Remember the three coveted cobalt figural bitters bottles? The Old Homestead Wild Cherry Bitters figural cabin, Sazerac Aromatic Bitters lady’s leg, and the Fish Bitters will be together again! William Taylor is lending us the Sazerac to make this special occasion possible as it joins the Fuss examples. And, to commemorate the event, a limited supply of hand-blown replicas of a cobalt blue Drake’s Plantation Bitters is being produced for sale at the Expo.

So, make it a family vacation—the kids will love the museum (and pool at Hotel ZaZa). The Houston Museum District has much to offer. For those who think Houston in August is too hot, remember to bring a sweater! Houston has the best air conditioning in the world, as just about everything is indoors, parking is included at the Museum, and shuttles will run between the Museum and the show and sale. Or, it’s a pleasant, short, scenic walk through a tree-shaded park. Houston, we have no problem here!

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Shards of Wisdom “Heard it Through the Grapevine”

Yellowware American Eagle Historical Flask

Hair-raising? That’s life Follies and Follicles, by Ralph Finch At 83, I still have most of my gray hair; it’s not the original color, but it’s still there (it’s the gray matter I am losing). And I’m a hairsbreath away from passing on assets to my—heirs. Most important, I still appreciate and enjoy the hobby of collecting.

From eBay, 02 September 2023: Here we have a very rare, finely detailed, American flask molded with an eagle perched, with wings outstretched, on two flags. On the back side are morning glories.

With this mold, the potter produced the same flask decorated with Rockingham glaze and as yellowware with only a clear glaze. This was molded in three pieces, front, back and bottom. These were pressed together while the clay was still soft and pliable, then air dried and fired in the kiln. Measuring 7 inches in height, this survives in its original mint condition with no damage or repairs. A photo and description of this flask can be found in Lisa McAllister’s Collector’s Guide to Yellow Ware Book III on page 53. The last photo shows this yellowware flask and the matching Rockingham glazed flask. There were very few of these flasks produced with only a few surviving today. This is the rarest and most desirable American yellowware flask produced and would be prized in any collection. Sold for $1,500. Not listed in American Bottles and Flasks and Their Ancestry by Helen McKearin and Kenneth M. Wilson - Submitted by Chris Hartz

I search the Internet and eBay, in particular, every day—hour after hour, and sometimes way too much more. I am always amazed by what I find. Often trash and, on a rare occasion, a treasure.

Sometimes it is hair-raising what I find. And I have always enjoyed the 1800s trade cards that display a strange and wonderful world that our forefathers enjoyed way before YouTube.

Recently I came across this Victorian Vaudeville/Circus Trade Card featuring Zeo the Hair Queen. It measured 2.5 by 4 inches and came with a buy-it-now price of $137.50 plus $4.50 shipping. I found it hair-raising, and the part I thought was truly interesting—I actually saw a similar act on TV’s Britain’s Got Talent. When someone says there is nothing new? They may be correct.

I didn’t buy it, but I did comb (don’t miss the bad pun) through a little research on Zeo, the performer. After a few hours, I’d found nothing—zilch, I believe, is the technical term. But I did come across...Zeo, a Mediterranean restaurant in downtown London. (If you find a hair in your soup there, I doubt it belongs to the original Zeo.) Other than that, zilch, except I did find one of the Zeo cards for sale in London. Cost me one pound and a few bucks for shipping.

A good lesson: If you find something you like on the Internet, do some comparative shopping...but don’t pull your hair out if you don’t.

FYI: The Finch antique library, while extensive, contains two books on old circus history/ephemera, but on Zeo? Zilch!

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Is the ring bone connected to the neck bone?

The hip bone?

Ralph Finch recently found Lot 89, offered by Glass Works Auctions, and described as: 89. “A. McECKRON’S / RING BONE / LINIMENT / N.Y., 1840-1860.” (edited) “pale aqua, oval form, 7 ¼’h, open pontil, label indicates that the company was from East Haddam, Conn.”

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

Shards of Wisdom “Heard it Through the Grapevine”

Drawing of a ringbone, advanced stage.

Hmmmmm. Was this another strange Victorian-era medicine for a non-existing problem? And for the 183,347th time in my long (and strange) life, I was wrong.

Again.

I’ve had cats in my life and one great dog—Spotty, 1946-52— and had I owned a horse as a pet, I might have known better.

A little bit of research shows the “Ringbone in horses refers to a painful condition characterized by new bone growth. It affects either the pastern joint (high ringbone) or the coffin joint (low ringbone).” Hmmm. I should have known that. I feel like such a... bonehead.

A little more research found a big ad (with small type) in the 1864 Meriden Recorder (Conn.), where McEckron products were touted for “individuals and horses” and “Horsemen, *Farriers and stags.”

Also. the liniment would cure rheumatism, ague in the breast and face, toothache, earache, bilious cholic, cholera, horbus, broken bones and dislocated joint cramps, quinsy, sore throat, crick in the back, cracked or chapped hands, corns and chilblains, and other ailments I couldn’t decipher. (I looked up what some of the illnesses above are...oh, yuck. Some of them, like...chilblains, gave me the chills.)

But for horses, there was a list of about 15 ailments that McEckron’s miracle product could fix. And the bottles came in 25 cents, 50 cents and a dollar size. *And, I’m a city boy. I had to look up the word “Farrier” (edited): “A specialist in equine hoof care, including trimming and balancing of horses’ hooves and the placing of shoes on their hooves … A farrier combines a blacksmith’s skills with a veterinarian’s skills.”

And a personal comment: I went into the Army a hundred years ago, and they were going to teach me a skill. Had they made me a blacksmith, if there are horse, I could have a job. Instead, the Army taught me Morse Code! No one in the entire world uses that!

What an issue with “Amethyst Sugar Bowl Atttributed to Amelung,” “A Study of Paneled Vases” by George S. McKearin, “Pattern Molds and Pattern-Mold Glass” by Harry Hall White, “An Antecedent of Three-Mold Glass” by Lura Woodside Watkins, “On Attributing American Blown Glass” by Gregor Norman-Wilcox, “Glass at World’s Fairs” by Helen McKearin, “Another Gallatin Glass” by Jerome Strauss, “Portraits in Late Glass” by Elizabeth Gunn and “Pressed-Glass Seals” by Stephen Decatur.

The Magazine ANTIQUES – August 1939 This issue of The Magazine Antiques, from August 1939, was devoted to American glass and bottles. The cover illustration is titled “A Window of Old Glass” by Liston M. Oak, Associate Editor. – Chris Hartz, Los Alamos, New Mexico November – December 2023

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FOHBC News From & For Our Members

Crawl Space Bottles Enclosed are a few photos of antique bottles I found in a crawl space of an old house in Hoboken, New Jersey. I found the bottles while working for my father’s roofing company. I did the right thing and asked the homeowner if I could have the bottles. I enjoy getting Antique Bottle & Glass Collector and reading about digging to find old bottles. You never know where a bottle might turn up. It has only been a couple of years since I started seriously collecting and my collection consists mainly of antique milk and cream bottles of various sizes and shapes from New Jersey, my state.

Last summer, I was helping my father along with his crew to replace an old roof on a three-story brownstone building. The building is located in Hoboken and dates back to the early 1890s. Hoboken is a very old seaport town with a lot of history. It was once the home of the Maxwell House coffee plant and Hostess Cupcake factory.

It was also the birthplace of Frank Sinatra.

To access the roof we had to climb through a crawl space. By chance, I spotted these two bottles lying there gathering dust for who knows how long? I photographed where they were found, the condition and how they looked when I cleaned them up.

One bottle is plain in design, amber in color, with a flat bottom and has slightly raised letters reading “CS.” Some kind of liquid is still sealed inside the bottle with a wax-like cork. The second bottle was slightly larger with a clear glass blue tint.

The front of the bottle has embossed lettering reading “Beadleston & Woerz Trade Mark Empire Brewery New York.” [Examples pictured] Needless to say, after getting permission from the homeowner to keep the bottles, I happily brought the old bottles home.

I know now and believe that you don’t always have to dig up a treasure. Although it is very rare, sometimes old bottles are left behind inside old buildings, out of sight and waiting to be found.

Currently, I am looking for milk bottles from Leonia, New Jersey.

Happy hunting!

Chris Hintze Hoboken, New Jersey 6

In Memory of R. J. Brown Long-time federation member Zang Wood sent us a letter he sent to the previous publisher of AB&GC on March 11, 2021. It said, “In hopes you all might do a story in memory of R.J. Brown and his “Flag” bottles. Like the bottlers who proudly displayed “Old Glory” on their bottles, R.J. was and most Americans I know are proud of their country and its symbol of freedom. R.J. Brown, Bob Harms and I were friends, collectors and competitors for Hutchinson bottles for more than 40 years. I miss both of them.

Enclosing a copy of R.J.’s obituary. Feel free to use any part of it.

Thanks for your consideration. Best with blessings for the road ahead.”

Zang Wood Farmington, New Mexico Editor Note: Please visit FOHBC.org, Editors’ Picks for captioned bottle pictures and the R.J. Brown obituary.

PEPSI–COLA World of Bottles – Caps, Cans & More Collectors Guide Vol. 3 – Over 1500 Items

By James C. Ayers In 1995 I published my first book, Pepsi-Cola Bottles Collectors Guide. That book set a fire under collecting Pepsi-Cola bottles like I never imagined. Until then, no one had centered on Pepsi bottles. My second book, published in 2001, was Pepsi-Cola Bottles and More and was a success too. I had not planned to do a third book but so many collectors kept asking when and if I would do another one.

Four years ago, I started on my third guide, which is now available. This book is the most different and inclusive of the three.

Like book two, I added all the older vintage bottles I knew of that had been found since the last publication but added a new section on “No deposit–No return,” which no one has done to date. In Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

FOHBC News From & For Our Members

HOUSTON 2024 NATIONAL ANTIQUE BOTTLE & GLASS EXPO

addition to that, all known seltzer bottles

by Pepsi are featured, all known drug store Bradham bottles, one additional back bar bottle that has been found, a section on error bottles, prototype and test market bottles, commemorative and special event, novelty, and a large section on foreign bottles from around the world. In fact, the guide’s name is Pepsi-Cola World of Bottles–Caps, Cans & More. There is a section on caps/crowns and cans, from the first cone top, flat top steel and aluminum in use today. There is a section on cartons with correct bottles inside, Pepsi ads, the first Pepsi recipe, bottle design drawings, and more info and pictures. I’ve tried to point out that Caleb Bradham could

have never imagined the future failures and successes of his “Brad’s Drink,” the original name of Pepsi.

In what is featured in the book, one can see the evolution from the old thick glass bottles with crimped caps to the thin machine no deposit/no return bottles with screw-on lids or caps and, of course, the advent of the plastic bottle and aluminum cans being sold in over 200 countries around the world. A very interesting history that no one could have made up. Bradham was quite a unique person with a desire to help people, at first by attempting to become a doctor, then as a druggist, and then by inventing a fountain drink that he took a lot of pride in when he saw how much friends and customers liked it. So, in the end, he probably accomplished more than he could ever have dreamed.

To order: I can accept checks or money orders mailed to my personal address. James Ayers, 5186 Claudville Hwy, Claudville, Virginia 24076. Books can also be ordered from my email mr.pepsipepsi@outlook.com or you can use my website pepsibottles.com.

Cost: $42.00 plus $11 shipping.

Dont Forget the FOHBC Monthly Online Seminar Series!

Since the last issue, the FOHBC conducted Seminar #3 “H. H. Warner’s Patent Medicine Empire,” Seminar #4 “Show and Tell,” Seminar #5 “Collecting ACL Sodas,” and by the time you receive this issue, Seminar #6 “Tri-State Digging– Part 2.” Seminars occur on Tuesday evenings during the first, second or third week of each month at 7:00 pm CST. Time is left at the presentation end for questions and answers. RSVP to get an invitation at FOHBCseminars@gmail.com. You will receive a Zoom email invitation with a link for each event prior to the date. Simply join at the noted time, sit back, relax and enjoy some great antique bottle and glass seminars and discussion. Attend them all or a-la-carte. If you missed the previous seminars they are available at FOHBC.org. A seminar schedule can also be found at FOHBC.org on the home page or ask any FOHBC board member.

November – December 2023

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FOHBC Regional News Please visit FOHBC.org for expanded coverage including many more pictures!

Northeast Region [Charlie Martin, Jr., Director] The Merrimac Valley Antique Bottle Club (MVABC) held its 48th Annual Antique Bottle Show and Sale on Sunday, September 17, at their new show location at Chelmsford Elks Lodge in North Chelmsford, Massachusetts. Forty-five dealers set up for this annual event. Twenty-two early buyers paid a premium of $20 to enter the show one hour before the general admission time at 9 AM. General admission numbers increased from last year, with more than 150 paid admissions.

“The feeling all day long was one of excitement for our club’s new location,” reported Kevin Cantrell, MVABC President and Show Chair. Club members, dealers, and volunteers enjoyed a terrific day with the weather and sales activity. What was especially nice about the show this year was the number of “new” bottle collectors who attended A smiling Jane Martin and Heather Whittington at and purchased their first the 48th MVABC Show and Sale. bottle. That bodes well for our hobby! Also new this year, the MVABC provided a free lunch to all dealers, dealer assistants and club volunteers working the show. Throughout the day, sales were brisk, with a busy exchange between dealers from set up through the very active early buyers hour and continuing into the general admission time.

All in all, it was one of the club’s most successful bottle shows.

Kevin sends a big thank you to all for such a great “bottle day!”

FYI: Full disclosure: I am a club member and was set up as a dealer at the event. Thus, I also share Kevin’s excitement for our club’s future!

William (Bill) Rose, the president of the Little Rhody Bottle Club, writes, “The Little Rhody Bottle Club sponsored its third and final bottle Swap Meet of the 2023 New England warm weather season on September 2, 2023. A free table set up and admission was provided at Leonard’s Antiques on Route #44 in Seekonk, Massachusetts. Non-club people were allowed to join the fun and set up tables to buy, sell and trade their bottles.

Selling went very well, with many drive-by people turning around to see what a bottle show was all about. There was plenty of free space for anyone who wanted to participate in setting up tables on the grass shaded by huge oak trees. January 7, 2024, is the club’s next event, our show, held at the hotel formerly known as the Holiday Inn, the Clarion Hotel, and now named the Taunton Inn. New members are always welcome. Everyone is invited to 8

attend our monthly meeting held on the second Tuesday of every month at the Pontiac Free Library in Warwick, Rhode Island.

Non-club members can attend the meetings to buy, sell, trade or obtain information about collections they may have inherited.

Tish Hewins provided photos of the Swap Meet.” You can visit the FOHBC.org website to see these photos.

As I prepared to submit my Northeast Region report in late September, I was reminded that many bottle shows are scheduled between now and the end of the year. No matter where you live in the Northeast, there will be a bottle show you can attend without having to drive for hundreds of miles. Hopefully, many of our readers will plan to attend and support a bottle club nearest them.

Even better, this would be a great time to join a club and connect with the FOHBC if you are not a club member. Most shows provide information about the benefits and value our organization can and does provide to the individual collector. Until next time, good bottle hunting!

Western Region [Eric McGuire., Director] The Biggest Little Show in the West, contributed by Tom Bostwick, Oregon Bottle Collectors Assoc.

Long, long ago, in a magical land called Ore-Ree-Gone, a bottle show was held. Rainbows filled the skies over the show hall, and enchanted customers traveled from far and wide to view the beautiful items for sale—all at discount prices. Okay, that’s the fairy tale version of this semi-annual event. Now let me give you the low-down on what really took place.

At 11:00 am, Friday, September 15, mass confusion ensued at the Aurora Legion Hall where the Oregon Bottle Collectors Assn. was hosting their 2023 Show & Sale. Everyone struggled to squeeze through the narrow door at the front of the building and the single door at the rear in a panicked rush to get their boxes of bottles, shelves, and merchandise into the show hall and under their sales tables before noon, when the event opened to early bird buyers. Once everything had been hauled in, the confusion gave way to nervous anticipation of what dealers may have brought to sell. While this is a smaller show compared to other club shows, some fantastic items always surface. Club member Will Meysing, from Texas, brought an “Oregon Unkweed” bottle, and Wayne Herring was the lucky dealer who acquired it. Club member Nate Weimer traveled from Alaska to attend the show. Seventeen dealers manned nineteen tables and offered an amazing display of bottles, pictures, postcards, coins and all manner of interesting items for sale.

The honor of “senior” dealer went to Vince Harbic, who, at 90, was accompanied by his lovely wife, Jackie, and son, Jim, who assisted with sales and transportation. Vince was OBCA’s past president in the 1970s as well as show chairman for a number of years. Other long-time club members with tables were Mike Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

Valent, Wayne Herring, Bill Bogynska, Randy Littlefield, and Dean Brannock. The youngest club member operating a sales table was Carson Ashley, who brought along pal Michael for transportation, and together, they added a refreshing air of excitement in their pursuit of Oregon drugstore bottles and western whiskeys. Dealer Derric Venice provided signage to direct folks to the event and also sported a “snazzy” hat, not unlike police or military officials, which frightened a few dealers (myself included), thinking some sort of sting operation was in progress. Dealer Jerry Kelly, who was probably the second most senior member (in age) to Vince, also sold a great collection of Owl Drug Co. related items to long-time member/dealer Pete Hendricks.

Club member Jeff Hooper kindly provided everyone with some much-needed comic relief, along with his pretty wife, who managed the sales table.

After the show, a potluck/club meeting was held in the lodge basement on Friday. It included a “show and tell” portion in which President Bill Bogynska shared a teal seltzer bottle and a small size cobalt blue “Powers & Estes, Portland” drugstore bottle. His wife, Sherrie, shared a “Snider Dairy & Produce, Portland,” milk bottle she had purchased earlier that day. Afterward, Mike Valent shared a clear “Rothenberg & Co., Game Cock, S.F.” whiskey flask he had dug years ago, along with an amber “Rothenberg & Co. (embossed Game Cock) San Francisco” cylinder fifth whiskey and a lady’s leg “Byrne & Castree, Salutaris Bitters, S.F.” (on base), which he had also dug. Carson Ashley shared information about a rare Eugene hutch-style soda he found recently for his collection.

On Saturday, as the show began winding down, Mike Valent, Wayne Herring, and I reflected on the club’s history through the years and recognized Harold Hooper, Mark Junker, and others for not only establishing pioneer clubs but also breathing life back into OBCA in 1992, when we re-formed. Early club shows were held in Salem, Sherwood and Portland, while club president Bill Bogynska confessed to joining in 1973 at 16 years old. Wayne Herring told us he had joined the club in 1966 at 17 and Mike Valent in 1969. Other old-time members not present were Pat Darnille, who moved to Twin Falls, Idaho, and Norm Newberry, a veteran milk bottle collector.

Naturally, many older members who have since passed away were recalled fondly, adding a degree of nostalgia to the mood.

Overall, the September 2023 Aurora OBCA Show & Sale, while convened during an uncomfortable spell of hot weather, was admittedly a whopping success. My biggest regret was forgetting my sweatband.

[Eric McGuire] I would be remiss in not mentioning the September 16th show and sale of the Northwestern Bottle Collectors Assoc. in Santa Rosa, California. The only slightly adverse comment I heard was that the show was lightly attended. Regardless, November – December 2023

most dealers I talked to claimed business was good. A special treat that seems to be quickly disappearing in shows nowadays were two displays. Ron and Gary Barnes displayed a good number of mostly fifth-size whiskey-type bottles and “lady’s leg” style (Boker’s type) bitters bottles. Nearly all were unembossed but shown for their great variety of colors. Also present was a large display of two separate bottle categories—Citrate of Magnesia bottles and mustard bottles. Rick Siri, the son of Richard Siri, constructed the well-lit and large displays. The citrate bottles were mostly from California druggists. This had to have been the “goto” medicine for a certain malady nearly everyone has during their lifetime.

What blockage? Rick also displayed so many mustard bottles that it is safe to note mustard was a mainstay in adding zest to many Euro-American meals.

Rick Siri’s display of California Citrate of Magnesia bottles at the Santa Rosa show.

Of special interest was the sale of the super rare medical bottle, embossed “Indian Tla-Quillaugh’s Balsam Dr. R. Parker S.F.” Jeff Wichmann initially auctioned it years ago with a hammer price of $20,000. Since that time, the bottle was discovered to have a replaced top. It was sold at the recent show from the Ted Siri estate, where it was purchased back by the once-auctioneer, Jeff Wichmann, for half the original auction price. Jeff was originally so impressed with the bottle that he plans to keep it for his collection.

Southern Region [Tom Lines, Director] Bottle Collecting in Texas, Jay Kasper Style I spent a very pleasant 40 minutes on the phone with Jay Kasper from Shiner, Texas, which is between Houston and San Antonio.

I was digging for information on collecting in Texas and Jay had the scoop. I met Jay six to eight years ago (maybe longer) at the Jackson, Mississippi Bottle Show, always held in January. He had a multi-table layout of bottles of all types with a focus on sodas… plus an assortment of miscellaneous collectibles.

Jay collects Texas bottles plus bitters, colored sodas, poisons and an assortment of other things, including sports cards—which he’s also big into. And Jay’s been at it for 55 years! In 1968, when he was 12 years old, he started scratching around for bottles in his hometown. By 1974, Jay attended his first bottle show. Buying [Continued on page 58] 9

Virtual Museum News

By Richard T. Siri, Santa Rosa, California

Note from Richard: I really like this picture below from the folks over at the National Bottle Museum in Ballston Spa, New York. We’ve been helping them out in small ways over the years with some of their advertising and marketing. We also give them a complimentary display ad (see page 70) in each issue of the magazine and in our annual national event Souvenir Program. This year, Federation president Michael Seeliger, donated a computer screen, desktop computer and keyboard so the museum could set up a workstation in a corner of the museum. From there we set up access to the FOHBC. org and Virtual Museum websites. We also provided FOHBC marketing material to accompany the set-up.

The FOHBC Virtual Museum has been established to display, inform, educate, and enhance the enjoyment of historical bottle and glass collecting by providing an online virtual museum experience for significant historical bottles and other items related to early glass.

Gina Pellegrini–Ott, our second West Coast photographer, has also been busy imaging and raising a family! We don’t see how she gets it done. Gina, like Eric is an expert photographer and has her own style. The challenge is to unite our imagers’ strengths to maintain a uniform level of excellence for each specimen. Gina, as some of you may know, is our official FOHBC national event photographer. You saw her great work at Reno 2022, and we look forward to her coming to Texas for the FOHBC Houston 2024 National Antique Bottle & Glass Exposition. Some of the exciting bottles Gina has imaged lately include an incredible “Draped Shoulder Cathedral Pickle,” an embossed “E.H.V.P. N.Y.” pickle, a “M.B. Espy Philada” pickle and a “Wendell & Espy Mince Meat 1523 So Philada.”

Alan DeMaison, our “Chief” imager, out of Ohio, has been busy too. He and Terry Crislip recently visited Doug Shutler again to image some of his “top shelf” bottles. The first have come through and include an outstanding batch of flavored beers including a “Fr. Goosmann & Co. Root Beer Cincinnati,” “H. Nash & Co. Root Beer Cincinnati,” a “Norris S. Beer,” and an “I. Sutton & Co. Covington KY.” These multi-sided cobalt blue bottles are killers!

A visitor to the National Bottle Museum is introduced to the FOHBC and instructed on how to access the FOHBC.org and Virtual Museum websites.

From the Imagers Much has happened since our last Virtual Museum report as far as imaging, developing new galleries and solidifying plans to visit collections. Eric McGuire continues to image bottles from his vast collection at a feverish pace. The learning curve associated with imaging bottles as they rotate versus photographing them alone has been mastered and Eric seems to have the lighting figured out for maximum specimen impact. Last issue we reported on the many Perfumes, Scent and Cologne bottles he imaged. Lately he started weaving in Medicines interspersed with examples of Food & Sauce bottles. These exciting bottles, among others, have been submitted for processing and historical writeup. They include a “Dr. Furber’s Cordial of Mountain Balm, Yreka Cal,” “W. H. Keith’s Glucolein San Francisco,” “Trout Oil Liniment Remedy No.2,” “Rowler’s Rheumatism Medicine Prepared by J.R. Boyce Sacramento,” “Dr. J. P. P. Vanden Bergh’s Worm Syrup,” “Cutting & Co. Worcestershire Sauce,” “Kentucky Mustard” and a “Moutarde de Mallie A Paris” bottle.

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Alan also visited Craig Lane in Ohio and imaged 31 top specimens from his ACL Soda collection. These will be the first to populate our newly created Soda Pop Gallery on the Third Level.

Alan tested his ingenuity and revised his lighting set-up to maximize the graphics impact of the colorful labels that for the most part occur on colorless glass. Some of the first examples have come in for processing and include an original “7-up” bottle, “Yosemite Beverages, San Francisco,” “Solon Spring Water Beverage, Solon Springs Co., Solon, O.,” “Unicorn, Thompson Beverage Co. Monongahela, Pa.,” “Eskimo Beverages, Montreal, Canada,” and a “Dumpy Wumpy, Dunbar, W Va.” As we write these notes, Alan and Terry are headed to Virginia in October to image the Joan Cabaniss Poison Bottle collection.

If that is not enough, we have interest from a knowledgeable collector and photographer from the East Coast who might be keen to the idea of becoming our newest imager. Hopefully we can continue growing. We’ll keep you posted on this exciting development.

Last but not least, we are making plans to image select pieces from the David P. Wilber and Anthony Gugliotti Barber Bottle collections after the Houston 24 Expo next August. These same pieces will be on display for FOHBC members and expo guests. Alan will be extending his stay to set up at the museum. So much is going on, please let us know if you would like to join our team!

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

Phase 3

30k Phase 1 Flask Filled Dec. 2018

25k

20k

Please help us fill our Phase 4 Wishart’s Pine Tree Tar Cordial bottle.

15k

Phase 2 Jar Filled Dec. 2021

10k

Donations to the Museum are always needed to ensure we continue. We are a 501(c)(3) educational club, so your donation is tax deductible.

5k

Phase 3 Barrel Filled Dec. 2022

Please help us in our Phase 4 fundraising capital campaign to continue development of the FOHBC Virtual Museum.

The FOHBC and the Virtual Museum team thank our many donors who have helped us raise over $99,569 to date. We have $26,847 in available funds to continue development to build our galleries, exhibition hall, research library and gift shop. Donations are tax deductible. All donors are listed on our Virtual Museum Recognition Wall.

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With one salaried website technician averaging $1,200 a month, we need help. Plus, we are now traveling to collections with the Pandemic hopefully behind us, so more costs will be incurred. All other time is donated by the Virtual Museum team out of our love and passion for the hobby and the FOHBC. Thank you!

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F O H B C V i r t ual Mus eum . o rg For gift information contact: Alan DeMaison, FOHBC Virtual Museum Treasurer, 1605 Clipper Cove, Painesville, Ohio 44077, a.demaison@sbcglobal.net

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NICHOLAS

LONGWORTH

and his

CATAWBA WINE BITTERS

By Ferdinand Meyer V

N

icholas Longworth [A], an influential figure in the early history of American winemaking, put out the wonderfully shaped and embossed Catawba Wine Bitters. The grapes were grown on his Ohio River Valley vineyard on hills north of Cincinnati.

The tactile bottle is an absolute favorite with antique bottle collectors.

When describing Catawba Wine Bitters, one first sees an embossed bunch of grapes prominently displayed on two opposite sides of the square bottle that has rounded shoulders and chamfered corners. A third side is embossed ‘CATAWBA WINE,’ while the fourth side is embossed ‘BITTERS.’ The mouth of the bottle has a long tapered collar with a ring.

You can find the bottles with either a smooth base or iron or metallic pontil. They are found in outstanding shades of green, puce, amber, and yellow amber glass. [C1-C5] Some examples in the west have been found without the mouth ring. [C1]

The new listing in Bitters Bottles Supplement 2: Information C 85 CATAWBA / WINE // motif bunch of grapes // BITTERS // motif bunch of grapes // 9 3/8 x 2 3/8 (6 ¾) ¼ Square, LTC & LTCR, Applied mouth, Green with and without iron and metallic pontil mark – Rare; Amber and Puce with and without pontil mark – Extremely rare Nicholas Longworth was an influential figure in the early history of American wine, producing sparkling Catawba wine from grapes grown in his Ohio River Valley vineyard on hills north of Cincinnati. In 1853, Nicholas Longworth partnered with Caspar Zimmermann (Longworth & Zimmermann) to sell the Longworth wines wholesale. They were located at 177 Sycamore in Cincinnati. Anthony, John, and Phillip Zimmermann were also part of the business, according to a listing in a Cincinnati directory that year. By 1858, the enterprise was called Zimmermann & Co. and was run by John, Phillip, and Anthony Zimmermann. Their chemical laboratory was located on the north side of 6th between Freeman and Canal.

See C 85 in Bitters Bottles and s2L 120.5

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Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

Robert S. Duncanson, Landscape with Rainbow, 1859, oil on canvas, 30 x 52 1⁄4 in. (76.3 x 132.7 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Leonard and Paula Granoff, 1983.95.160 Robert Seldon Duncanson was America’s best known African American painter in the years surrounding the Civil War. Based in Cincinnati, he was supported by abolitionists who bought his paintings and sponsored [A] Nicholas Longworth portrait. his trip to Europe to study from the Old Masters. In this pastoral landscape, a young couple strolls through fertile pastureland, toward a house at the end of a rainbow. The cattle head home toward the nearby cottage, reinforcing the sense that man lives in harmony with nature. Duncanson’s vision of rural America as Arcadia, a landscape akin to paradise, is a characteristic feature of his work, a late hope for peace before the onset of Civil War.

[C1] Catawba Wine Bitters in a wonderful and vibrant apricot glass color. The glass is full of character including many sizes of air bubbles.

Variant without collar ring. Meyer collection.

[B] Landscape with Rainbow, 1859, Robert S. Duncanson

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[D] Engraving Cincinnati landing on the Ohio River, circa 1850 [C3] Catawba Wine Bitters in yellow-amber glass color. Variant with collar ring. Glass Works Auctions, Sidney Genius collection.

[E] American Winemaker Nicholas Longworth, oil on canvas, Robert S. Duncanson, 1858, Cincinnati Museum of Art

[C2] Catawba Wine Bitters in a crisp rich emerald green glass color. Variant with collar ring. Meyer collection.

[C4] Catawba Wine Bitters in amber glass color. American Bottle Auctions, Jeff Wichmann.

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Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

Nicholas Longworth was the protagonist of the prominent Longworth family of Ohio and is called the first millionaire in Cincinnati. He was also known as the “Father of the American Grape Culture.” Among his many other attributes, Longworth was an attorney, banker, merchant, horticulturalist, abolitionist, author and art collector. [E] Longworth was born in Newark, New Jersey, on January 16, 1783. His mother was Apphia Davis Vanderpoel. His father, Thomas Longworth, was a Tory or Loyalist who were American colonists who stayed loyal to the British Crown during the American Revolutionary War. Their very existence was complicated as every British functionary who refused to betray the trust placed in him was considered a traitor by the Patriots.

By the time Nicholas was born, fines and property confiscations had depleted the family funds. This left young Nicholas with an early life of comparative poverty. Planning ahead, Thomas and Apphia decided to teach Nicholas a trade and give him an opportunity to work with either of his two elder brothers, Joseph and Archibald. One had gone north and the other south.

Nicholas chose to move to South Carolina for a brief period, where he was a clerk in his elder brother’s store.

It was said that a careful inventory of young Nicholas’ belongings when he set forth to cross the Alleghenies was, “Six coats, black and blue; one dozen plain and fancy waistcoats; four pairs of silk and eight woolen breeches, six dozen plain and ruffled shirts; and a like number of hose and handkerchiefs with cravats.”

“Father of the Ohio Constitution” and was an associate justice of the Ohio Supreme Court from 1821 until his resignation in 1828 to serve as the United States Senator.

Even without a formal education, Longworth studied hard, applied himself, and was admitted to the bar in Ohio. He practiced as an attorney until 1819 in Cincinnati while buying large tracts of land. He next ventured into real estate, flipping property as his dealings proved more lucrative than law. The property that he purchased for a song all those years ago was now worth millions, and Longworth joined John Jacob Astor as one of the two largest taxpayers in the United States.

Believing Cincinnati to be an ideal location for grape cultivation, Longworth established viticulture as a successful venture on the hills adjoining the city.

Along the main highway from east to west during the early settlement period, Ohio inevitably saw repeated viticulture trials, suggested by the combination of southward-facing slopes and broad waters. Longworth would finally make it work. [G] Planting hundreds of acres and building a large wine house, Longworth started his vineyards in 1813 and, by 1820, became more serious about producing wine that would be a commercial success. At first, he was using foreign vines exclusively.

Longworth was somewhat unsuccessful until 1828, when he introduced native vines or their seedlings and produced, from the Catawba and Isabella grape, a wine of high marketable value. [H] He was also well-known for his strawberry experiments and published Buchanan’s Treatise on the Grape, with an Appendix on Strawberry Culture, in 1856.

After a spell, Longworth would leave South [C5] Carolina, arriving in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1803. At this point, Cincinnati was a burgeoning town and soon to become an important city. [D] 1803 was also the same year Ohio was Besides being a pioneer and leading horticultural expert in his granted statehood. There, Longworth married Susanna Conner, section, Longworth was recognized as an authority in national née Howell, three years his junior, who was the daughter of Silas horticultural matters. Though individually short and now out and Hannah (Vaughan) Howell, on Christmas Eve, 1807. [I & J] of date, his writings greatly influenced his day. He might be compared to Isidor Bush, who put out Missouri IXL Bitters.

Longworth was a little man as far as stature and eccentric in dress, speech, and manner. He was also strong willed and Longworth planted a vineyard of Catawba on the Mount Adams successful, so he could afford to do as he wished. Even with all hillside and began making sparkling wine from the grapes his interests, Longworth was never a political candidate nor held using the traditional method used in the French wine region, any political office. He was also not a faithful member of any Champagne. From the 1830s through the 1850s, Longworth’s religious organization. Grape growing would soon dominate his sparkling Catawba was distributed from California to Europe, life. receiving numerous press accolades. He was now producing 100,000 bottles of sparkling Catawba a year and advertising Longworth first studied law under Judge Jacob Burnet, a wellnationally. In the 1850s, a journalist from The Illustrated London known lawyer of great standing. Burnet was a member of the News noted that the still white Catawba compared favorably Territorial Councils of Ohio from 1799 to 1802 and served in to the hock wines of the Rhine, and the sparkling Catawba the Ohio State House from 1814 to 1816. He was considered the “transcends the Champagnes of France.”

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[G] In the mid-1850s, Longworth sent a case of Catawba to the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, then living in New York City, who wrote a poem dedicated to Nicholas Longworth titled Ode to Catawba Wine. [F below]

This song of mine Is a song of the Vine To be sung by the glowing embers Of wayside inns, When the rain begins To darken the drear Novembers.

[H]

It is not a song Of the Scuppernong, From warm Carolinian valleys, Nor the Isabel And the Muscadel That bask in our garden alleys.

Nor the red Mustang, Whose clusters hang O’er the waves of the Colorado, And the fiery flood Of whose purple blood Has a dash of Spanish bravado.

[I]

For the richest and best Is the wine of the West, That grows by the Beautiful River, Whose sweet perfume Fills all the room With a benison on the giver.

And as hollow trees Are the haunts of bees, Forever going and coming; So this crystal hive Is all alive With a swarming and buzzing and humming.

Very good in its way Is the Verzenay, Or the Sillery soft and creamy; But Catawba wine has a taste more divine, More dulcet, delicious and dreamy.

There grows no vine By the haunted Rhine,

By Danube or Quadalquivir, Nor on island or cape, That bears such a grape As grows by the Beautiful River.

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Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

The growing tide of German immigrants coming down the Ohio Valley to Cincinnati liked his wine. Longworth had found a lucrative market, and the new German immigrants wanted an affordable, drinkable table wine to continue with the traditions of their homeland, so he enjoyed a virtual monopoly. By this time, Longworth became one of the wealthiest people in the United States.

A visit to one of Nicholas Longworth’s wine cellars in 1851 revealed 75,000 bottles of sparkling Catawba [J] and 40,000 or so gallons of wine in casks varying from 40 to 50 gallons each. The cellar was 120 feet long, 40 feet wide, and 40 feet deep. Longworth was preparing to double in size his capacity the following spring.

In 1853, Nicholas Longworth partnered with Caspar Zimmermann as Longworth & Zimmermann to sell the Longworth wines wholesale. They were located at 177 Sycamore in Cincinnati. Anthony, John, and Phillip Zimmermann were also part of the business, according to a listing in a Cincinnati directory that year. By 1858, the enterprise was called Zimmermann & Co. and was run by John, Phillip, and Anthony. Their “chemical laboratory” was located between Freeman and Canal on the north side of 6th. It is apparent that Longworth wanted to jump on the profitable bitters bandwagon, so he needed a partner and laboratory reference to call his product a medicine.

In 1859, the first advertisement for Cordial Catawba Bitters was found in a Buffalo, New York newspaper. The bitters were said to be for “Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Purposes and were being manufactured pure” by Zimmermann & Co., Manufacturing Chemists of Cincinnati, Ohio. They were noted as the successors of Longworth & Zimmermann. By this time, Longworth was fading due to health issues.

Longworth’s Catawba Bitters was said to be made from pure Catawba Brandy and warranted to cure the worst cases of Dysentery and Diarrhoea. The ads, many times, were directed to Civil War soldiers as a remedy for the change of climate and fatigue.

[K]

Another advertisement in 1859 states that J. C. Spalding was selling, from the cargo of the American ship Josiah Bradley, 100 cases of London Jockey Club House Gin and 50 cases of Catawba Wine Bitters in Hawaii. So, if you are a digger looking for pontiled examples of these bottles, might we suggest you head to Buffalo or Honolulu?

We see the last advertisements for Catawba Wine Bitters in 1865 in the Black Hawk Daily Mining Journal, where cases of the bitters were being sold by J. P. Henry.

The popularity of Longworth’s wine encouraged a flurry of plantings along the Ohio River Valley and up north to Lake Erie and the Finger Lakes region of New York.

Longworth would also encourage artists to paint scenes of the Ohio River Valley and the Ohio River Valley Wine Trail (formerly the Nicholas Longworth Wine Trail) in Southwest Ohio.

In Cincinnati, the Taft Museum of Art on Pike Street now occupies the former residence of Nicholas Longworth. It is the oldest domestic wooden structure, considered a National Historic Landmark, built around 1820 for prominent businessman Martin Baum. It is regarded as one of the finest examples of Federal architecture in the Palladian style in the country.

During his habitation of the mansion, Longworth hired African American painter Robert S. Duncanson [B & E] to paint landscape murals in the foyer, now considered one of the finest suites of domestic murals dating from before the Civil War. As a mentor, Longworth supported Duncanson, America’s first famous black artist, and financed his trip to Europe, where he sold paintings to the Queen of England and other dignitaries.

With his winemaking success, Longworth participated in charitable giving throughout Cincinnati, including a substantial donation to the land on which the Cincinnati Observatory was built. He was kind but eccentric and gave much money to what he called the “Devils Poor.”

Longworth was also the great-grandfather [K] The Placer Herald, April 7, 1860 Another Catawba Wine Bitters 1860 of U.S. Congressman Nicholas Longworth IV advertisement for Longworth & Grew, Cincinnati, Ohio, notes (a United States House of Representatives from Ohio) and the that George T. Grimes is the Sole Agent in San Francisco. [K] This grandfather of Civil War Union General Nicholas Longworth is puzzling with all the Zimmermann references as there is no Anderson. reference to a “Grew” in Cincinnati directories who might fit the bill. There is, however, a J. & B.L. “Crew” noted as grocers on Nicholas Longworth died on February 10, 1863, the southwest corner of 3rd and Elm (J. Crew and B. L. Crew) in at 80. His property was valued between $12 and $15 Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1860. This is more likely the reference in the million at his death. advertisement.

November – December 2023

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Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

F O H B C 2024 H O U S T O N National Antique Bottle & Glass Expo Event and Experience that will 01-04 August 2024 An be remembered for generations...

“When Bucky Meets Balto” Meet “Bucky” and “Balto.” Two of the many stars at the Houston 2024 Expo!

Step into the Morian Hall of Paleontology for a dynamic journey through prehistoric life. This isn’t your typical antique bottle & glass convention; here, ancient creatures are brought to life in action-packed scenes of survival. Embark on a “prehistoric safari” that spans from tree-climbing ancestors to mammoth-hunting humans. From there head to the Brown Gallery to see “American Antique Glass Masterpieces–A major, museum exhibition showcasing the Sandor P. Fuss Collection” on display for the first time ever!

You may never see and experience this level of history and antique glass together again!

Bucky

Morian Hall of Paleontology

Balto

GI-20 “Fells Point” and Washington Bust Monument And “Balto” Portrait Flask

INFORMATION

FOHBC.org November – December 2023

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ACL

[A]

CORNER #7 [Mike Dickman]

Politically Incorrect Some soda bottles produced during the applied color label (ACL) era, particularly those from the 1930s through 1950s, would not be made today.

I hesitate to call them “politically incorrect” since the term is loaded. Still, the ACLs on these bottles reflect an earlier time in the United States when minority feelings and sensibilities were simply not considered. These colorful bottles, however, provide a historical window to our recent past and are highly prized by today’s collectors.

[Fig. 1] Cotton Picker Beverages, Leland, Mississippi, 1949

[B]

[Fig. 2] Red Race Beverages, Valdosta, Georgia, 1946

[C]

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[Fig. 3] Lee Quality Beverages, Petersburg, Virginia, 1956

[D]

[Fig. 5] Heep Good Beverages, Wenatchee, Washington, 1939

[E]

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

One example is “Cotton Picker Beverages” from Leland, Mississippi. The scarce bottle was made in two variants, one in 1949 with a 12-ounce “squat” shape using a green-and-white label (Fig. 1) and the other in 1951 in a 10-ounce size using a standard shape and all-white ACL. The label (the same on both variants) depicts an African American woman picking cotton from neatly cultivated rows, with a sharecropper’s cabin in the distance, all within the outline of a cotton boll. Sharecropping is an economic system whereby landowners rent small plots of land to sharecroppers in return for a share of the crop (often one-half) to be paid after the harvest. Because landlords often leased seeds and equipment to the sharecroppers and owned local stores that extended credit, the system resulted in widespread indebtedness and poverty. It was the primary agricultural system in the American South for decades after the Civil War. Interestingly, the majority of Southern sharecroppers (about twothirds) were white. By the time “Cotton Picker Beverages” was bottled, however, the system was almost dead, doomed by the increasing mechanization of agriculture, which made the labor-intensive, hand-picked cotton of the sharecroppers uneconomical.

“Red Race Beverages” from the Red Race Bottling Company of Valdosta, Georgia, was made in 1946 and contained ten ounces of soda pop, which its neck label touted as being “King Size.” (Fig. 2).

Valdosta, nicknamed the Azalea City due to its profusion of azaleas, is located in the far southern part of Georgia near the Florida state line, and is entirely flat, geographically. The reason behind the company and brand name is not clear. Between 1830 and 1850, United States government troops forcibly removed the “Five Civilized Tribes” (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole) from their ancestral homelands in the Deep South, including Georgia and Florida, to Oklahoma Territory, pursuant to the Indian Removal Act. A century later, when “Red Race Beverages” was bottled, Valdosta had a population of just 0.2% [A] Crown cap from Chocolate Drop, unknown city, 1930s. A similar cap sold for $500 on eBay a few years ago.

[B] Sharecropper’s cabin, photograph by Dorothea Lange, 1937.

Courtesy of Library of Congress.

[C] Crown cap, Red Race Orange Soda, Valdosta, Georgia, 1946.

Orange seems to have been the only flavor produced by the company.

[Fig. 4] Brown Boy, Atlanta, Georgia, 1953.

Photo courtesy of Tim Miller, from his collection.

[Fig. 6] Big Giant (45), Corpus Christi, Texas, 1963. The bottle is one of the few ACL sodas with “Patent Pending” but, if a patent was granted, why do so few bottles exist? Photo courtesy of Dwayne Konvicka, from his collection.

[D] Union troops transporting their huge, deadly mortar (nicknamed “the Dictator”) to Petersburg, Virginia, 1864. Photo from the Library of Congress.

[E] Fan displaying Chief Wahoo, mascot of the Cleveland Indians until 2018 when the team eliminated him. Photo courtesy of Sports Illustrated.

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Native American. Whatever its meaning, the name evokes the recent and ongoing controversy over Native American names, logos and mascots used for American sports teams, most notably the Washington Redskins NFL team. The Washington Redskins, as everybody knows, became the Washington Commanders in 2022.

Perhaps “Red Race Beverages” would be renamed Commander Beverages if the brand still existed today, but the company became defunct in the early 1950s. Its ACL soda bottles (in three variants) are scarce and desirable, and clean examples typically sell as soon as they are offered.

“Lee Quality Beverages” was put up in 1956 by the Lee Beverage Company of Petersburg, Virginia, and contained ten fluid ounces.

The ACL depicts Confederate battle flags flying above the name with little stars throughout. (Fig. 3) Petersburg is the home of U.S. Army Fort Lee, named after Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The label evokes a contemporary controversy: the removal of Confederate statues, flags and other symbols from public spaces. Recently, on April 27, 2023, Fort Lee itself was renamed Fort Gregg-Adams in honor of two renowned black Army officers.

Petersburg was the object of a siege during the Civil War, which lasted more than nine months and resulted in an astoundingly sad number of casualties, approximately 42,000 men on the Union side and 28,000 on the Confederate side. The siege is said to be the first battle to have involved trench warfare. In addition to the U.S. Army garrison, Petersburg is the site of a National Battlefield memorializing both sides’ patriotism, bravery, and sacrifice during the Civil War. “Lee Quality Beverages” is fairly available to collectors but always in demand.

Confederate soldiers and officers mustered in their trench, Petersburg, Virginia, 1864.

Courtesy of the Historic Petersburg Foundation

It is unlikely that a manufacturer of soft drinks today would use a name and logo like those found on “Heep Good Beverages” of Wenatchee, Washington State. Bottled in 1939, the product name and caricature of a grinning Indian brave would be viewed as demeaning and insensitive by many potential consumers. (Fig. 5) Indeed, the logo is similar to several of the sports team mascots that have been abandoned in recent years. Wenatchee (the Apple Capital of the World) lies in the foothills of the Cascades in the north-central part of the state and was the ancestral home to the Wanatchi Tribe of indigenous Native Americans. Multiple bottle crates (with 24 bottles each) were discovered in a warehouse many years ago, making the bottle relatively inexpensive today, typically less than $50 for a mint example. The ACL uses unusual orange-on-black colors that make a dramatic statement on the bottle shelf. The same company put out many other ACL soda bottles, including some rare ones utilizing detailed, realistic and respectful scenes of Indian life.

With the current controversies surrounding mass shootings, 22

gun violence and the protection of Second Amendment rights, it is doubtful that any modern company seeking a market for a new product would court controversy by using the type of ACL found on the “Big Giant” soda bottle. Put up by the Ideal Bottle Company of Corpus Christi, Texas in 1963, the fifteen-ounce ACL soda bottle sports a detailed, realistic rendering of a .45 caliber revolver, with the “45” displayed on the handle. The name (“Big Giant”) is not shown on the applied color label but instead is embossed on the neck glass. (Fig. 6) The bottle is extremely rare, with approximately half a dozen examples known, and many collectors, including the author, covet it.

Some of these bottles are not what they appear to be. “Brown Boy” (Fig. 7 & Fig. 8) is one. The brown-and-yellow ACL depicts the right-facing profile of an African-American youngster, with “Brown Boy” in script and the slogans “Every Bottle Sterilized” and “Flavors That Satisfy” above and below the portrait. Unusually, the bottle does not include the name of any manufacturer, distributor, city or state, but the date “1953” is embossed on the bottom. Although the product name and picture come across as racially demeaning in today’s world, my research has shown that an African-American-owned soft drink company actually produced the soda. The Brown Boy Bottling Co. of Atlanta, Georgia, was incorporated in 1939 by Jesse B. Blayton, a CPA and finance professor who also owned a bank, radio station, night club and other businesses along Auburn Avenue, which was the center of African American business and financial activity in Atlanta from 1910 through the 1960s. The soda apparently was a non-carbonated, chocolate-flavored drink. An earlier, embossed-only version of the bottle exists, and the ACL version comes in two varieties, a 10-ounce clear glass, and a 7-ounce green glass. Although the company produced its soda pop for many years, all versions of the bottles today are extremely rare and highly desirable.

The bottles discussed in this article are products of the bygone times in which they were made, but they also reflect the intensely local nature of the soda market during the ACL era. Today, national brands like Coke, Pepsi, Dr. Pepper and 7-Up dominate the market and typically avoid controversial names, logos and themes. In those days, however, distribution often was limited to several square miles or a few thousand consumers and thus could focus on strictly local themes. Truly, these bottles represent glass from the past!

The author welcomes comments, questions and suggestions at mikedickman@yahoo.com BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sweeney, Rick, Collecting Applied Color Label Soda Bottles, 3d edition 2002, PSBCA. Tim A.C.L.-Miller, a FaceBook page showing hundreds of rare ACL sodas from Tim’s collection.

VintageSodaCollector.com by FOHBC member Tom Petitt, a great resource containing hundreds of color photographs as well as interesting, useful articles about all things ACL. Walker, Juliet E. K., Encyclopedia of African American Business History, Greenwood Press, 1999.

Weide’s Soda Page (ca-yd.com), by Chris and Catherine Weide, another great resource.

Wikipedia entries for Chief Wahoo, cotton, sharecroppers, Siege of Petersburg, Trail of Tears, Wenatchee.

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

November – December 2023

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EXHIBITION

Select highlights from the

David P. Wilber and

Anthony Gugliotti Barber Bottle Collections

HOUSTON 2024

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Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

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C. A. Klinkner and his sales wagon that advertised his Red Rubber Stamps. He used pink painted and adorned donkeys that had antlers and green monkeys to accompany the effort.

Klinkner is also known by collectors for his law enforcement badges.

[Left] A “trademark” was filed for the C. A. Klinkner & Co. Red Rubber Stamps label on February 23, 1884.

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Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

The Fabulously Odd Mr. C. A. Klinkner and his Red Rubber Stamps And Pink Donkeys and Green Monkeys!

Charles Alexander Klinkner (June 25, 1852 – March 17, 1893) was a German immigrant who established the town of Klinknerville in what is now the Golden Gate neighborhood of North Oakland, California. He was a real estate agent, as well as an insurance agent, and was considered a progressive and influential citizen. He was also a showman when it came to promoting all his business interests.

By Mike McKillop

Born to John and Katherine Klinkner in Surbruechen on the Rhine, Klinkner was the second of fourteen children. The family emigrated to the United States when he was a child and settled in the southeastern part of Iowa.

Klinkner only attended school until the age of 11, after which he had to work. His father died in 1884.

Moving to California in 1872, Klinkner settled first in San Francisco, where he worked in the general merchandise and novelty store of Van Schaack & Co. For a time, Klinkner worked with a threshing machine in the interior, then later was employed as a traveling salesman to a peddler whom he bought out for $142 after only six weeks of employment. Within three months, Klinkner earned $960 and returned to San Francisco, where he sold novelties. The next business he began in 1876 was the sale of Red Rubber Stamps at 320 Sansome Street, which was extremely profitable.

[Below] Rectangular aquamarine bottle embossed “C. A. Klinkner & Co. Mnfrs of Red Rubber Stamps 320 Sansome St. S.F.”

[Left Page] One of his more controversial measures was to hang a large banner across San Pablo Avenue to advertise his available real estate. The sign, more than five feet tall, had “Klinknerville” in large capital letters, with a picture of a finger pointing left advising passersby to “Stop Here, This Is The Place.”

[Left Page] This token is an advertising piece for C. A. Klinkner & Co. There are altogether several different varieties issued by the company and this one was likely intended for advertising the business among a Chinese community based on the Cantonese inscription on the reverse.

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On November 3, 1875, Klinkner married Katherine Virginia Parke, who was born in what was then the town of Clinton.

Charles and Katherine had seven children: Charles Alexander, Jr., Frederick Schneider, Herman Parke, Harriet Katherine (Hattie), Cora Virginia, Harry Davey, and Elma Irene.

In 1878 Klinkner moved from San Francisco to the suburban location between the prosperous cities of Oakland and Berkeley where, for $100, he purchased a large residential lot. Klinkner borrowed additional funds for the construction of 52 buildings, homes, and businesses. He owned 2,000 feet directly on San Pablo Avenue, which at the time was one of the main roads connecting Oakland and Berkeley.

Oakland at that time only extended to 20th Street, but the city was growing because it had become the Western terminus of the transcontinental railroad in 1869. San Pablo Avenue had already been established as a key regional thoroughfare in the 1850s, and by the 1860s, stagecoaches took passengers from Oakland to Martinez. The area was prime for development, and Klinkner bought a 14-acre tract of dairy farms and began building homes.

He also established a horsecar line that ran from Park Avenue to what today is 62nd Street.

Klinkner’s Block, with a frontage of 120 feet, was a two-story building. The first floor was a post office, a drug store and a general dry goods store. Upstairs was the public hall and 42 offices.

Klinkner was very generous in contributing to the community.

He donated money to local churches and educational institutions.

Klinkner donated $500 and raised an additional $2,000 for the railroad company to extend the horsecar line to Klinknerville from Emery Station. The value of his property dramatically increased with the advent of the electric and cable roads between Oakland and Berkeley, passing through the Klinknerville neighborhood.

Klinkner was a staunch Democrat who took an active interest in local politics. He also was a member of the Rising Star Lodge, No 152, Knights of Pythias, and was involved with the Harbor View Council and the Chosen Friends.

Still, Klinkner is remembered now more for his unusual behavior than as a founder of what later became a part of Oakland. After all, he often traveled around town accompanied by his dog, who wore a blanket that advertised Klinkner’s real estate properties and had a monkey riding on its back. The distinguishing char-

[Below] C. A. Klinkner & Co. Red Rubber Stamps label.

[Right] Postal advertising cover for C. A. Klinkner & Co. Red Rubber Stamps, 320 Sansome St. San Francisco. Postmarked January 20, 1892, San Francisco.

The building of his town — Klinknerville Over a seven-year period in the 1880s, Klinkner furiously built up his town, adding a large Gothic-style community center and a commercial building called “Klinkner Hall,” as well as a baseball field, hotel, and 75 houses. The houses were sold for between $3,000 and $5,000 or sometimes could be won in a raffle off a $2 ticket.

His first addition was Klinkner Hall, built at 5832 San Pablo Avenue, which until recently was the site of “Your Black Muslim Bakery.” The building was central to the town and included a clock tower. On the other side of the street, Klinkner built the Del Monte Hotel, which included a sign that read: “This house has no connection with any of the cheap dives in the neighborhood.”

He also built a baseball field, which was later the home of the Oakland Oaks, the city’s professional baseball team in the early 1900s.

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acteristic of Charles Klinkner as an entrepreneur was not his financial shrewdness or enterprises but his passion for advertising and publicity.

Charles Klinkner was known as an eccentric character. That tends to happen to a man who is arrested for counterfeiting after distributing nickel-sized coins carrying the name of his rubber stamp company, who wears a suit with 40 or 50 pockets in order to carry goods he could sell to a customer at any time, or who drives a team of red, white and blue painted mules through the streets of Oakland on the Fourth of July.

One of his more controversial measures was to hang a large banner across San Pablo Avenue to advertise his available real estate.

The sign, more than five feet tall, had “Klinknerville” in large capital letters, with a picture of a finger pointing left advising passersby to “Stop Here, This Is The Place.”

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

According to a history of Klinknerville compiled by Phil Stahlman for the Emeryville Historical Society, the sign started a dispute between Klinkner and the new residents of Klinknerville. “This added to the jackasses and Klinkner’s ceaseless self-promotion was too much for some of the prosperous citizens of Klinkner’s Eden, so they took him to court to have the sign removed,” Stahlman writes. “Justice of the Peace Reed decided that the sign was legal.” Jubilantly, Klinkner had the posts on each side of the banner painted white and lettered “Long May She Wave” and “Hurrah for Reed.”

Charles A. Klinkner and the town bearing his name did not last long. In 1888, Klinkner applied for the area post office to bear the “Klinknerville” name, much to the disgust of the old families in the area, who preferred the name “Golden Gate.” A back and forth ensued, with Klinkner even making a trip to Washington, D.C. to make a personal appeal to then-President Grover Cleveland.

The “Golden Gate” side won out, though, and the town’s name was changed shortly before Klinkner’s death in 1893.

According to Stahlman, he caught a cold he “apparently neglected” and died of complications at age 41. Golden Gate was annexed to Oakland in 1897.

As soon as the town was annexed, the “Klinkner” name began to vanish from the area. What was once called Klinkner Avenue was changed to 59th Street. The Klinkner home was demolished in 1929 to make way for a brick building, which housed a drugstore owned by Klinkner’s son, Fred, for decades before closing in 1968, taking with it the last remnants of the Klinkner name in the neighborhood.

Charles Alexander Klinkner

After her home was destroyed, Katherine moved into an apartment in Klinkner Hall, where she lived until selling the building in 1941 and moving next door. Klinkner Hall was demolished and replaced with a grocery store. Katherine Klinkner was unsentimental about the building’s demise, telling The Oakland Tribune that she had “taken care of the place long enough.”

When Katherine Klinkner died in 1945, the Tribune reported that she was “perhaps the oldest native of Oakland” and that she died “a few steps from the crossroads once known as Klinknerville where she lived almost her entire life.”

Charles Klinkner was not forgotten, though. About six decades after his death, when Charles Klinkner’s son—also named Charles—died, his obituary mentioned his father in its first line, referring to the “fabulous antics of a Barnum-like figure.”

Charles A. Klinkner sitting on his house porch with his children.

[Right] In 1876 Klinkner started his red rubber stamp business on 1204 Broadway in San Francisco. He then moved to 137 Montgomery Street and finally to 320 Sansome Street in 1880 which is embossed on his 6-inch-tall C. A. Klinkner & Co. stationary or specialty blotting ink bottle. Sometime around 1884, a small bottle order must have been placed. There are only two known Klinkner bottles in collections resulting in it being considered extremely rare.

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visit

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Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

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Probably the first “pint” size bottle used by Moxie when it started production in 1885. This is a common Hutchinson-style bottle with a simple embossed “Moxie” without the customary “Nerve Food” slug plate embossing used later and is now highly prized by collectors.

The iconic Moxie Boy with the white lab coat and intense forward stare became the primary image for the Moxie Company in 1911. Admonishing potential customers to “Drink Moxie,” a version of this image appears on cans and bottles today.

Soda Fountains Rule! – The early drug store soda fountain was a natural extension of the

pharmacist’s medicine and remedy trade. Many patent medicines of the 1800s were formulated specifically for single-dose applications as either general pain relievers or to attack specific maladies such as dyspepsia and stomach discomfort, coughs and respiratory afflictions, tiredness due to blood deficiencies, or the dreaded “loss of manhood.” Who better to respond than the local druggist-chemist with their ability to quickly access a vast inventory of compounds and administer a needed on-the-spot remedy? Eager patrons willingly pushed their coins across the pharmacy’s countertop as the welcomed relief-in-a-glass concoction was delivered in their direction by an obliging attendant wearing a crisp white jacket.

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Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

Moxie was certainly not the first business enterprise to realize the value of advertising and promotion, but it absorbed lessons from competitors and then went a step beyond. For a time in the early part of the 20th century it outsold rival Coca-Cola.

Boy, Have You Got Moxie!

Carbonated Soft Beverages: from the American Drug Store to the Convenient Bottle

By Dennis Sasseville and Merrill Lewis The public of the early 1800s already understood that the earth’s mineral waters could have health benefits, and the ones containing natural carbonation imparted an extra experience—pleasantly so. The bubbles of carbonation have a decidedly refreshing taste and mouth sensation appealing to the human palette. Around the time of the American Revolution here in the Colonies, English scientist Joseph Priestly and Swedish chemistry professor Torbern Bergman invented methods for infusing water with carbon dioxide. Priestley had discovered what he termed “fixed air” by going to a brewery and collecting carbon dioxide coming off the fermenting beer. When he then bubbled the collected gas through a vessel of water, some of the gas dissolved giving the water a slight “tang,” not unlike many natural spa waters. Priestley had, in fact, created a carbonated beverage in 1772, not really dissimilar to our modern-day club soda.

Capitalizing on these inventions and moving them out of the research laboratories, J.J. Schweppe founded his famous Schweppes Company in Geneva in 1783, and the commercial fizzy water market was launched. Within the next decade, Schweppe moved his operations to London with the aim of serving an even larger base of public consumers. Interestingly, the British government considered Schweppe’s fizzy water a medicine, not a refreshment beverage, and accordingly slapped a medical tax on it.

Others improved on the early carbonation techniques, and in November – December 2023

1807 British inventor Henry Thompson was granted a patent for making “soda water.” (Even though there was no soda involved, sparkling waters quickly assumed this identifier.) But it was Yale chemistry professor Benjamin Silliman who is credited with bringing European equipment to New Haven, Connecticut, in 1806 to start a soda water business. Unlike Schweppe’s, Silliman was purposely selling a medicinal product, and his advertising claimed his soda water would cure sour stomachs, heartburn, poor appetites and headaches. His early success and subsequent expansion to New York City and Baltimore demonstrated the potential of the American market and others followed suit.

The change from offering plain mineral waters to an effervescent drink that was flavored and sweetened was well underway by the 1830s. Fruit juices were understandably the early flavor additions of choice. The 1833 Dispensatory of the United States of America presents recipes for making syrups from mulberries, strawberries, raspberries and pineapples “…to flavor drinks and are much used as grateful additions to carbonic acid waters.” In the days before refrigeration, keeping fruit juice flavoring fresh was a challenge, and spoilage was common.

Pharmacists experimented widely and wildly to create something unique enough to attract loyal paying patrons. Blood orange, crabapple, Kola Champaigne and Walnut Cream were but a fraction of the offerings that could be enjoyed by the post-Civil War public. One source indicates that by 1877 New York City residents

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Soda fountains began in Europe but found their greatest success in the United States in pharmacies, ice cream parlors, candy shops, fiveand-dime stores and train stations. This photo depicts the Collins Pharmacy on Long Island in 1915. Courtesy The Library of Congress

were quenching their thirst by consuming some 200,000 glasses of flavored soda water a day, individually prepared by their friendly druggists. Proprietors were indeed doing quite well with their bubbly liquid offerings and some went even further with experimental blends that included milk and eventually, of course, ice cream. With made-on-the-spot refreshing beverages gaining rapidly in popularity, the soda fountain equipment became more and more elaborate, both technically and stylistically. Many of the available models even resembled ornate temples to refreshment that helped entice the paying public.

It was Gustavus D. Dows in Lowell, Massachusetts who can be considered the father of the American soda fountain as we know it. In the 1850s, Dows experimented with carbonation equipment for his Lowell pharmacy and introduced his soda fountain in 1858, patenting it in 1861. Made of polished marble with ornate handles and faucets, Dows’ soda fountain1 ushered in an era of design elegance for the humble corner drug store. The self-contained fountain for creating “ice cream sodas” included cooling coils, containers for holding flavored syrups and cream, and an ice shaver, all for the tidy sum of $225 (over $8,000 in 2023 currency). The soda fountain as a central fixture and work of art was launched in Lowell to be widely copied as its popularity continued to grow rapidly in the second half of the 1800s.

The Standard Manual also offered druggists and other proprietors sage advice on how to advertise their products and services to the public. “The soda fountain offers opportunities for successful advertising not presented by any other department of a drug store,” the guide encouraged. It also assured, “Soda water is now as nearly an article of common consumption as anything not classed as one of the staffs of life.” The advertising chapter proceeded to 1

A homage to Dows’ contribution to the world can be experienced firsthand at Dows Soda Fountain, an operating establishment among the many shops in the restored historic Mill No.5 complex in downtown Lowell, Massachusetts.

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coach the proprietor concerning the use of window signs, circulars, newspaper ads, Grand Opening events, and sign boards.

The soda fountain and its associated offerings had become a substantial American business by the last decade of the century with at least 50,000 such establishments documented by 1895.

Many of the more ornate fountain devices that ruled court in the larger, urban establishments were modeled after elaborate showcases exhibited at various World’s Fairs. But as the new century dawned, these garish monuments to refreshment gave way to smaller, sleeker counters with equipment tucked underneath and out of the customer’s sight. Improvements in fountain equipment meant that store proprietors no longer needed to be a combination chemist-engineer to operate a soda fountain. Even the necessary carbon dioxide gas could be delivered in pressurized bottles instead of having to be generated in the store’s basement “machine works.”

Bottled Beverages Come of Age – As popular as drug

store fountains were, they could not satisfy every need, everywhere, every time. Most were located in cities or town centers and could be quite removed from the rural populations. Even if you did live down the street from a neighborhood fountain, how could you quench your thirst for a strawberry soda during the late evenings or on Sundays when the druggist might be closed? Why, bottled beverages were the answer, naturally!

The bottling of beverages was nothing new—mineral waters and beers were first bottled and sold commercially in vessels such as earthenware jugs. The containing of still waters was no more challenging than bottling liquid patent medicines...a hand-blown glass bottle with a simple cork was all that was required. But when mineral waters were artificially carbonated and when early ginger ales and root beers were attempted, the bottling results were often problematic. Carbonation chemist Benjamin Silliman faced this issue in the early 1800s with exploding crockery Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

procured from a New Haven, Connecticut pottery factory. The container problem would not be fully solved on a mass-commercial basis until nearly 100 years later.

The term “soda pop” appears to have been coined in about 1861, “pop” being the sound of a cork or stopper releasing CO2 from a pressurized bottle upon opening. But keeping that precious CO2 in a bottle until the desired consumption was akin to wrestling with the proverbial genie. Not surprisingly, the issues came down to basics: the bottles themselves and the closure mechanisms. Reportedly, 1800s bottlers and inventors tried to patent over 1,500 types of stoppers and closures for hundreds of different types of beverage bottles.

[Left] Several examples of this early double-funnel style top are known to collectors and all likely employed cork closures. This bottle may possibly be another Lyndeborough Glass Works example based on its blue tint and the layout format of the embossing.

Throughout virtually all of the 19th century, the process of making glass bottles was simple but labor-consuming. Bottles were blown by a skilled individual into a wooden mold (or sometimes iron). Plates with a company or individual proprietor’s name and even address could be inserted into the molds before the addition of the molten glass. Thus “branded” bottles with specific identifiers could be created fairly easily. Not so easy was the subsequent step to add and shape the bottle’s neck and lip by hand-forming a separate piece of molten glass. A reasonable amount of skill was required to get bottle after bottle with finished openings of reasonably uniform size. Bottles created with a wide variance in opening diameters were certainly not welcomed by the bottling works that had to insert corks to seal their vessels once filled. It has been estimated that an experienced glassblower working with four assistants might be able to produce about 200 good-quality bottles in a fourteen-hour day.

The other issue was the strength of the glass itself. Still, beverages or uncarbonated patent medicines did not demand a particularly strong bottle. In the 19th century, Northeast bottles for commercial products came from far and wide, with manufacturers drawing from differing qualities of source materials, typically quartz-rich sands or rock formations. The relatively easily-made square or rectangular glass bottles used for most patent medicines, food flavorings, shoe polish, and other household products of the day were quite suitable. However, for bottles intended to retain a pressurized liquid, the physics of material science dictates they be round.2 Soda fountain entrepreneur Gustavus Dows was reportedly the first to import bottled ginger ale to the United States in 1861.

Typically, the early imports of carbonated mineral waters and then flavored sodas such as ginger ale from across the Atlantic Ocean arrived in America in thick-walled, round-bottom bottles.

Some products, especially ginger ales, were often contained in “torpedo-shaped” glass bottles. Storing the merchandise on their sides helped prevent the corks from drying out and losing all the product’s fizz. Bottlers in this country adopted these strange ovoid bottles that were considered awkward to store and use but represented the best that early and mid-1800s technology had to offer.

Finding suitable closures for bottles with pressurized liquids was another matter. The age-old standby was, of course, natural cork shaped into a plug. Good-quality corks were relatively inexpensive, especially to use on a low-cost item like water or soda.

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[Above] Tapered lip blob top with the Moxie logo embossed in a rare circular pattern.

[Above] An early hand-blown, donut-style, blob-top “quart” bottle that was likely cork-sealed, most probably with a string or wire bail to hold it in place.

[Left] Likely this is one of the earliest embossed “quart” bottles used by the Moxie Nerve Food Company. It was created by the Lyndeborough Glass Works with their characteristic blueish tint imparted by the silica-rich source rock. Courtesy of the New Hampshire Historical Society

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Also, as with bottling Champagne, carbonated spring and mineral waters, as well as flavored sodas, required a string or wire attachment to hold the cork in place, sometimes with the additional aid of a wax seal. In a simple, low-volume bottling situation, the operator would place a pre-soaked cork on each filled bottle and force the cork in place with some well-positioned whacks from a wooden mallet, then affix a wire closure on top. Production rates were severely limited by these methods.

In a more mechanized set-up for a flavored soda product, an operator of a bottling machine dispensed syrup and carbonated water directly into each new bottle on a line by controlling a foot pedal. The syrup gauge could be set to dispense the exact amount of syrup called for in the beverage recipe. The operator inserted a soaked cork into the machine’s cylinder and then his instructions might read: After the passage of the 1906 federal Food and Drug Act, like most of the health-claim elixirs and remedies of the times, Moxie morphed into more of a refreshment beverage than a proprietary cure-all.

Release the foot pedal sufficiently allowing the bottling cylinder to rise, meanwhile holding down the cork with your hand, put the wire bail securely over the cork.

Remove your foot from the pedal and you can remove your filled bottle from the filling machine.

Like the glassblower, the bottling operator had to possess training as well as skill to be successful. Production rates for such operations still left a lot to be desired.

By the 1870s, bottlers had several other closure choices other than cork: the Codd ball stopper with an internal marble holding back the content’s pressure and the more versatile and popular “Swing “stoppers with a metal cap and gasket or the Hutchinson style internal stopper on a bail. Each had some advantages and disadvantages. The Swing stopper (also called a Lightning stopper) facilitated reuse as cleaning was fairly straightforward and many breweries of the era preferred this type of bottle and closure.

Bottles were another matter the carbonated beverage industry struggled with throughout the 19th century. Hand-blown bottles varied in wall thickness and therefore could be unpredictable regarding the pressures they could withstand. In the summer months, when filled bottles of carbonated beverages are exposed to direct sunlight or warehouse heat, the internal pressures could easily reach 100 pounds. This does not present a problem for modern glass soda bottles but was definitely a hazard with the hand-blown bottles of the earlier era.

To make matters worse, new glass bottles straight from the factory had a tendency to be brittle. This led to excess breakage during the washing, filling, capping, labeling and packaging stages, or simply led to the bottles’ inability to contain the carbonation pressures required of them. Aged bottles could greatly improve in strength, but maintaining a large inventory of glass just sitting in storage “aging” was not appealing to any food or beverage manufacturer.

The decade of the 1890s in America is considered a golden age 2 Deep-sea submersible vehicles such as the U.S. Navy’s 1960s Trieste bathyscaphe and the

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Alvin have perfectly spherical passenger compartments, allowing them to withstand great depths and safely return to the surface.

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Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

for many diverse reasons. Commonly referred to as The Gay Nineties or The Gilded Age, it was a period of changes in fashion, culture, and economics that were complemented by the creative proliferation of inventions and advancements in automobiles, aircraft and medicine. The 1890s were truly a watershed decade for the soft drink bottling industry as well, with technological advancements and improved handling processes that carry on up to today’s modern beverage operations.

A prolific Baltimore inventor, Irish-born American William Painter, had a better idea for a bottle closure. In 1892 he patented a “crown cork” that he first created three years earlier and the Crown Cork & Seal Company (now called Crown Holdings) was off and running. However, Painter’s small metal crimped cap with its thin cork inner liner was not an instant success in the marketplace for at least two reasons.

At first, there was skepticism in the soft drink and beer bottling sector that a thin piece of metal and cork could serve the intended purpose of retaining high pressures. In the 1890s, existing bottlers had invested in inventories of certain bottle types, most commonly those using Hutchinson or Swing/Lightning stoppers. All of their production equipment was specific to the cleaning, filling, capping and labeling of these bottle types. Scrapping perfectly good equipment and replacing them with crown cork-compatible machinery was a costly endeavor for any type of business, especially for the small neighborhood bottlers. Second, just as Painter’s “better mouse trap” entered the market, the country was struck with the economic panic of 1893 and muddled through a three-year recession, considerably slowing the industry’s adoption of the crown bottle cap.

Unrelated to the development of the crown cork but also totally aligned with similar American ingenuity, Toledo (Ohio) Glass Company employee Michael Owens was tackling the bottle problem. His company responsibilities taught him firsthand the difficulties of making quality beverage bottles with manufactured consistency. In 1895 he patented a semi-automatic machine for making blow-molded glass bottles, and by 1903 he founded the Owens Bottle Machine Company. His fully automated bottle machine worked on a circular rotating framework and could produce four bottles per second at an 80 percent labor savings.

A marriage had been made in heaven. Owen’s equipment turned out inexpensive, consistently strong beverage bottles in great quantities while Painter’s crown corks provided an equally advantageous and universal closure. The By the turn of the century, bottling companies could choose from a wealth of equipment manufacturers. This ad was run in the February 12, 1912 issue of The American Bottler journal.

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combination of technologies took the industry by storm and as bottling works adapted, the commercial potential of the spring water and soft drink industries became enormous.

The United States had a total of 123 bottling plants in 1860 at the start of the Civil War. By 1870 there were 387 bottling plants. By 1880 that had climbed to 512, and by 1890 the country counted 1,377 individual plants with an estimated annual production of over $14 million. The number of plants doubled by the end of the century to 2,763, with over $23 million in production revenues.

The start of the 20th century was primed for the explosive growth of bottled waters and sodas of all types. Some would find success and their brands are well-known to us today. Many more, though, had a local or regional customer base and succumbed to the difficulties inherent to any consumer-oriented business: market recognition, production efficiency, distribution logistics, sharp competition and other factors.

When all is said and done, it’s all about the customer. Both soda fountain operators and bottlers of carbonated drinks, like any good merchants even in the 19th century, keenly understood this truism: If the customer isn’t satisfied, if your product is only “average” or deemed not a particularly good value for the money, or you have quality issues, you likely don’t have a business with any serious longevity.

One factor of quality and economics that flavored soda producers came to understand: no value is obtained from over-carbonating during the bottling operation. Excess CO2 quickly escapes after bottles are opened and the liquid content rapidly equilibrates.

As early as 1882, carbonated beverage advisor Thomas Chester coached that for most sodas, the optimal finished bottling pressure was in the range of 30 to 50 pounds (per square inch).

This range is not far off from typical guidance used by the soda bottling industry some sixty years later—a recommended 20 to 40 pounds. Different types of beverages or different flavors might have different optimal pressures, accounting for the stated range rather than a single fixed target.

As competition for the public’s business grew, the list of possible flavors for carbonated soft drinks, either dispensed at the soda fountain or in a bottle, became nearly endless. In his History of the American Soft Drink Industry, John Riley lists at least seventy varieties—not company brands but actual flavors or branded specialty flavors (“Goldenade” anyone? It’s a combination of lemon and egg flavorings.) Most every soda fountain proprietor or soft drink bottler also had their own flavored concoctions popular with their local clientele (and more profitable than purchasing branded syrups from the likes of Coca-Cola or Moxie). Lemon soda, sarsaparilla, root beer and ginger ale were the most popular flavors in the last third of the 19th century. In 1871 Lemon’s Superior Sparkling Ginger Ale was this country’s first recorded trademark registration for a soft drink.

Delightfully, the public had a downright dizzying choice for fizzy soft drinks. As equipment costs dropped and the bottle and closure problems were solved, the country saw an explosion of mom-and-pop operations. Without very much capital investment, an enterprising individual could set up a hometown bottling operation in their garage, shed, or leased warehouse space. Their 37

typical customers were the small neighborhood grocers, the local eateries, and often the walk-ins from the surrounding residential blocks. Of the perhaps 30,000 bottlers that plied their trade in the United States, the vast majority are relegated to history. In the “where are they now” category, how many have heard of: Grapine

Orange Whistle

Celery Cola

Kola Ade

Bluebird

Smile-O

TruAde

O-So Grape

Wiseola

Circle A Ginger Ale

Zing Zoda

Tangerette

Or any of the over a thousand other soda brands that have come and gone from the scene? Why did some brands thrive and others fade out of existence? Who were the early innovators that are still around today? Ahhh that brings us (finally) to the story of Moxie!

Moxie!

While American druggists and pharmacists were turning their laboratory skills into creating new beverages for the soda fountain or home brew market, a genuine physician believed he had a better way. Dr. Augustin Thompson was born in the tiny agricultural town of Union, Maine and served with decorated honors in the Civil War. Graduating from Philadelphia’s Hahnemann Homeopathia College in 1867, Thompson established a thriving medical practice in the bustling manufacturing community of Lowell, Massachusetts. He may well have been drawn to the Mill City in part because it was a known center for remedies and patent medicines. Lowell was home to the wildly successful J. C. Ayer & Company as well as the C. I. Hood & Company, both with extensive lines of nationally known products pitched as useful health aides and cures.

A Civil War veteran and trained homeopathic physician, Augustin Thompson developed a thriving medical practice in Lowell, Massachusetts, home to proprietary remedy makers like J.C. Ayer Co. and the C.I. Hood Co.

As a well-established physician and proponent of homeopathic medicines, Thompson may well have concocted various syrups or cordials and provided them to his patients to treat their ailments. Many physicians did just that. What is known for certain is that in March 1885, Moxie Nerve Food was made available to the general public by the bottle. An often-unsubstantiated claim is that Thompson first created his extract in 1876, a “fact” repeated by dozens of authors and sources since the 1980s. This date could possibly be true, but there is zero hard evidence to support it.3

As a physician, Thompson proposed to develop a beverage that was devoid of the harmful substances contained in many remedies of his day, including the ever-popular bitters which 38

Like other physicians of his time, Thompson may have originally developed the basis of Moxie Nerve Food for the private use of his patients. What we do know for certain is that commercial sales of bottled Moxie started in March 1885 in Lowell, Massachusetts. could contain in excess of 40 percent alcohol. The patent application of the same year stated, “Has not a drop of Medicine, Poison, Stimulant, or Alcohol in its composition.” All true, actually.

In fact, the ingredients of Moxie Nerve Food were quite similar to those in a number of root beers of the day, but with one secret ingredient. This mysterious ingredient was initially part of the mystique that Thompson quite purposely created at the launching of his proprietary beverage. It was presented as part of a wild tale of a former Army comrade, one “Lt. Moxie,” who brought to Thompson his discovery of a strange South American plant with wonderful, health-infused properties. Secret ingredients have always been beneficial to boosting product sales, but the constituent which gave Moxie Nerve Food its unique and somewhat bitter or medicine-like flavor was the quite well-known gentian root. Gentian leaves and roots are harvested in several locales.

The most commercially available, even in Thompson’s day, are imported from parts of France and Spain. Gentian extract remains in Moxie soda to this day, but many will have consumed the herb as one of the key ingredients of the popular flavoring, Angostura Bitters, available in virtually any U.S. grocery store. In herbal medicine applications, gentian is used as a remedy for digestion problems, fever, hypertension and loss of appetite. Thompson discovered that to minimize some of the bitter flavor of his beverage it was best served ice cold and highly charged with CO2, much higher than were most carbonated beverages of that time.

Thompson mistrusted the neighborhood soda fountain proprietors to take proper care in preparing his drink at their counter services.

He did sell syrup directly to these establishments but strongly preferred to sell Moxie Nerve Food bottled and then have trained attendants dispense glassfuls directly from the bottles. As a consequence, unlike its competitors, Moxie focused on producing and selling a bottled beverage from its very start.

3 The authors have personally reviewed Journal No. 1, the accounting ledgers of the Moxie Nerve

Food Company archived at the Matthews Museum in Union, Maine. The first two ledger entries on page one are dated March 7, 1885 for the sale of seven pint bottles and then six pint bottles at $.25 a bottle to two establishments in Lowell. At some point in the early 20th century Moxie would add to the date confusion by inexplicably stating “Since 1884” in its advertising, a practice that continues today. Such is the sometimes-strange lore of these venerable soda brands that founded a new consumer product sector over 130 years ago.

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

In Boston’s Post Office Square a uniformed attendant of the 1890s dispenses ice-cold Moxie Nerve Food from the rear of one of the company’s many bottle wagons.

Concerned about controlling quality and delivering a consistent product to the consumer, Thompson strongly preferred to bottle Moxie Nerve Food for distribution rather than rely on the druggists and soda fountain clerks to properly prepare the drink on site from his syrup base.

The desired high CO2 pressures of Moxie Nerve Food presented a distinct challenge for 1885 technology. As discussed earlier, hand-blown bottles of that era were often weak or just strong enough to contain lightly carbonated beverages with acceptable levels of breakage. Thompson solved his problem by contracting with the Lyndeborough Glass Company in southern New Hampshire. Lyndeborough was already supplying high-quality glass bottles for Lowell’s Hood’s Sarsaparilla and the Lydia E. Pinkham Vegetable Compound, among others. The New Hampshire glassworks’ “secret” material was a local deposit of quartzite, a dense metamorphic rock derived from pure sandstone, recrystallized to interlock its grains and form incredible strength.

Problem solved. The pure quartzite source rock also imparted an attractive blueish tint to the finished glass bottles (that would be much admired by serious bottle collectors a century later).

The bottle wagon concept was the creation of Francis E. Thompson, eldest son of the founder, just one year after the start of the beverage company. A patent was applied for in 1889.

In addition to plying the city streets, the bottle wagons were widely dispatched to parades, agricultural fairs and similar community events throughout the Northeast.

In addition to being an accomplished physician, Augustin Thompson was also a published playwright and put his literary skills to good use in marketing his new beverage. At first, the campaigns relied heavily on newspaper advertising, but before the end of the century, Thompson pioneered a wealth of attention-getting novelties. One such item was a giant wooden replica Moxie bottle pulled by a horse-drawn carriage from which a uniformed attendant could pour customers an ice-cold glass of carbonated refreshment.

Sales of Moxie Nerve Food skyrocketed in its home territory of November – December 2023

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[Left] Moxie captured a huge market share in the Northeast spawning many attempts at imitation – all of which led to persistent legal battles in the courts.

One particularly aggressive competitor was Modox out of Rhode Island, but Noxie, Hoxie, Bo-La and others tried in vain to ride the coattails of Moxie’s success.

Clear quart.

The Moxie Nerve Food Company contracted with the Lyndeborough Glass Co. of southern New Hampshire for a source of strong round embossed bottles. The glass company also made bottles for Hood’s Sarsaparilla and Lydia Pinkham Vegetable Compound among many others.

The source of Lyndeborough’s strong glass containers was a local vein of quartzite which imparted a distinct blueish tint to its raw glass products.

Credit D. Sasseville New England, and by the close of its first year, 1885, the brand was virtually a household name. The following year, company literature stated that five million bottles had been sold within the first fourteen months of operation. This claim is quite doubtful, but it is a fact that Moxie’s early success was unparalleled in the fledgling beverage industry and sales continued their steep climb for the rest of the century and into the next.

Sometime in the early 20th century, the term “moxie” entered our everyday vocabulary and became associated with vitality, vigor and perhaps a bit of spunk or verve. This bitter-sweet tasting concoction continues to have a loyal following today and remains the oldest continually bottled carbonated soft drink in America.4 4 Hires Root Beer was originally sold as dried and liquid extracts for home brewing, and

commercial bottling did not occur until 1893. Dr Pepper was created as a soda fountain drink and not bottled until 1888 (or possibly 1891). Likewise, Coca-Cola was developed and sold as a soda fountain beverage with bottling commencing only in 1894. It is a similar story for Detroit’s Vernor’s Ginger Ale (which may well be America’s oldest surviving brand of soda) – not bottled until 1896.

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[Above] This full “quart” bottle of Moxie Nerve Food was discovered in a New Hampshire barn in the 1970s. The hand-blown top has prominent stretch marks on the neck and shoulders and a lightning-style spring closure.

Credit D. Sasseville [Left] Puroxia was started in Massachusetts in 1899 producing distilled water for daily consumption while emphasizing good health and sanitation. The company also produced a high-quality ginger ale along with other flavors. This ten-pin bottle (ca. 1905) held club soda formulated with distilled water with a very high level of carbonation. The Puroxia brand became part of the Moxie family in 1931 but always struggled and production ceased in the early 1950s.

Credit D. Sasseville Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

[Left] Moxie’s high-shouldered “quart” bottles remained the flagship container into the 20th century but the version shown here has embossing limited to the shoulders, leaving plenty of space for its characteristic orange labels with the iconic pointing “Moxie Boy” logo.

[Below] Many of these 7-oz ACLs displayed the name and city of the bottler in white on the reverse side.

[Right] Two decades after its first reformulation failure, the owners of the Moxie brand tried to appeal to the 1960s hip generation and once again tinkered with the original formula, making it sweeter and milder. Results were disastrous and sales plummeted – a hard lesson that giant Coca-Cola would also stumble into with its ill-fated launch of New Coke in 1983.

[Below] In the late 1940s this 7-oz lopsided red paper label bottle was also produced as an ACL. Both contained a reformulated Moxie designed for broader consumer appeal. The promotion failed miserably and 80,000 cases of New Moxie were left to sit unsold in Boston warehouses.

Credit D. Sasseville

[Above] One bright spot for Moxie sales unexpectedly popped up in the late 1950s. Without any contact or collaboration from the Moxie owners, the satirical MAD Magazine began to insert the word “Moxie” randomly in their pages.

Sales of Moxie soda rose 10% and the company initiated a Mad About Moxie ad campaign to take advantage of the free publicity.

[Above] Another bright spot occurred when Boston Red Sox great Ted Williams became a Moxie spokesperson in 1958. In addition to advertising his likeness on the brand product, the company also created Ted’s Root Beer, even painting a wall in storied Fenway Park that survives today (with Merrill Lewis in “uniform”).

November – December 2023

[Right] Not so successful in the 1950 era, the Moxie Company granted a license to a New York bottler who produced “Foxy Moxie” in attractive 7-oz aqua bottles. The marketing effort was quickly discontinued, leading to the bottles being highly prized by today’s collectors.

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In 2009 Manchester’s Pine Island Moxie Bottle was fully restored and placed in the Moxie Wing of the Matthews Museum of Maine Heritage in Union, Maine, the birthplace of Moxie founder Augustin Thompson.

Through the New England Moxie Congress, a “Friends of the Bottle House” group was eventually established to restore the bottle stand to its original condition. Here, Merrill Lewis explains the group’s ten year fundraising and restoration efforts.

Members and guests of the New England Moxie Congress gather in front of a Moxie decorated trailer used by Coca-Cola Beverages Northeast, Londonderry, New Hampshire, Credit the Aviation Museum of New Hampshire

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Bottle wagons weren’t enough for the marketing-driven Moxie Company. They commissioned two giant wooden bottles to serve as refreshment stands. The 32foot stand in this photo was first displayed in 1907 at the Boston Food Fair and subsequently in Coney Island, New York in 1908 or 1909.

Bottle stand #2 was larger than Moxie’s first stand and displayed at the 1911 Domestic Science and Pure Food Exhibition at Madison Square Garden. It is pictured here at the Savin Rock amusement park in West Haven, Connecticut in 1915.

Its final disposition is unknown.

Since December 2018, the Moxie brand has been owned (ironically) by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta. It is bottled under contract by Coca-Cola Beverages Northeast in their modern Londonderry, New Hampshire facility.

Glass-bottled, cane sugar Moxie is bottled under contract by Orca Beverages of Mukileto, Washington (left), Catawissa Bottling of Catawissa, Pennsylvania (center), and until recently by Shipyard Brewing Co. of Portland, Maine (right).

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

Once the mechanized era captured the public’s attention, the horse-drawn wagons were replaced with the flashier Horsemobile—a horse mounted on a car chassis—often a Lasalle, Essex or even a Rolls-Royce.

After its service in Pine Island Park, bottle stand #1 was sold or given to a private party who disassembled the structure and reassembled it on a building lot as part of a summer cottage. The “Moxie Bottle House” was fitted with three bedroom levels and used for eighty years by vacationing families. Pictured here in the 1950s or 1960s, the bottle is cloaked in unattractive asphalt shingles.

In 1910 this bottle stand (#1) was set up in the Pine Island amusement park in Manchester, New Hampshire where it remained in service until 1919.

November – December 2023

Purchased by individuals in the antique business, the Manchester bottle house was carefully disassembled in 1998 for intended restoration as part of an antique shop in southern Maine.

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Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

November – December 2023

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A Story I Like to Tell

My real-life story takes place in 1978. I had been collecting

antique bottles since 1966 when I found some old cork medicine bottles at the Levittsville, Ohio, township dump. The crudeness and embossing in the glass was unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was that day at the dump when the bottle bug bit me, and I have been scratching it for 57 years. I was proud of the old bottles and showed them to anyone who was interested. To be honest, most folks were kind but looked at me like a calf at a new gate. They probably were thinking... “this looks like junk.”

Like any endeavor, we either throw it aside or progress in it. I eventually progressed from collecting old bottles in general to specializing. I have collected medicines, schnapps, gins, beers, sodas and mineral waters. Finally, my plane landed on the bitters runway, which will certainly be my last category. I just love bitters bottles!

My story takes place during my soda and mineral water period of bottle collecting. One day I was making a pastoral visit to a church member who was at a hospital in Columbus, Ohio. I was on the 270 Bypass and thought about the Ohio Bottle Club meeting the night before. I had purchased a dug soda at the meeting with “P. Conway, Philadelphia Pa.” embossed on it. I thought how great it would be if I found a soda or mineral water with my family name, “Beatty,” embossed on it. Suddenly, words danced in my head that inspired me to write a poem with my name on it.

I pulled over to the side of the road as words were coming to me as fast as machine gun bullets. I looked for some paper to write on and found nothing but the McDonald’s sack that my breakfast came in. I ripped it open and began to write. You can read the poem at the end of my story.

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By Gary Beatty

Over the years, I have written many stories and magazine articles for Antique Bottle World and Bottles and Extras and the Ohio Swirl newsletter. In particular, there were two articles and a poem that I got the most feedback on. My story titled Camp Town Races was about Flora Temple, the greatest racehorse ever, I believe.

And a story about a special Christmas I experienced as a boy of 11. But it was the poem that received the most comments and the reason for this story.

At the time of the poem’s writing, my good friend Alan DeMaison, an often Ohio Bottle Club officer, and now serving as the Virtual Museum chief imager, did something very special for me.

Alan is a very talented man and was into making stained glass objects such as lamps. He made me one with a cross on it. Alan then made me a stained-glass window with the heart of the poem inscribed within. It is beautiful, done in milk glass, cobalt blue, and ruby red. You will see a picture of it in my story.

If that wasn’t enough to smoke my socks, this happened. I received a letter from California from a man named Jim Craig.

He said he had read my poem and was struck by the romantic simplicity of it. He stated he was sick and not sure how long he would live. He said he was an artist and had painted a picture of my poem. He said he had some old bottles but no soda waters and would give me the painting if I gave him some bottles in return. I did just that and sent him some nice soda water bottles.

The painting arrived, and I was blown away. To this day, Alan’s stained glass window, the lamp, and Jim Craig’s painting hang in my mancave bottle room.

I am now 82 years old and have a trunk full of memories and Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

friends that have blessed my collecting life these past 57 years.

Our lives given to us by God are not unlike Jim Craig’s painting.

With each stroke of the artist’s brush, something special is added to his work, and each day of our life is like the artist’s brush stroke—something special and beautiful is added. When the artist finally completes his work, the real beauty of it all comes together. Our life is a painting of hardship, blessings, peaks and valleys.

When we finally reach the end, I believe it will reveal a beautiful work we could not have dreamed of.

Many good people like Alan DeMaison and Jim Craig have made me realize my greatest treasures have not been in my beautiful bottles, nor any material possessions, but in the people that the old bottles brought into my life.

I dedicate this story to my dear friends Sheldon and Brenda Baugh. Sheldon has been the consummate gentleman in every aspect of his life. The fellowship I have had with him over the years has been a joy for sure, and for that, I love him dearly.

God bless you all; your friend in the hobby, Gary.

Advice From The Garden

by Gary Beatty

While spading my garden one early morn, I dug up a bottle that was old and worn.

It was short and stubby and also round, I couldn’t help but wonder how it got in the ground.

The neck of the bottle had a glob on the end, And I wondered what job or purpose it did rend.

The color of the glass had a wonderful hue.

When I held it up to the light, The green turned into blue.

The next thing I noticed was some wording to be read, And when I had done so could have dropped dead!

For the name on the bottle was identical to mine, Followed by three little dots at the end of the line.

Dr. G. L. Beatty’s Mineral Waters did describe, Also, 1858 the year that he died.

For He was my Great Grandfather, you see, And it was after him that my mother named me.

As for the bottle, so crude and so old, Its worth to me is more precious than gold.

For it ’s a lesson from Grandpa out of the past, That if you want your name to last, Start selling Mineral Water and put your name in the glass.

To this day, I have never found a bottle with my Beatty family name embossed on it.

November – December 2023

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Spirits Found Suddenly L

By John Savastio

At 82 degrees and partly cloudy, Saturday, July 16, 2022, was a good day for digging. I was in my permission spot, about 15 feet in from the landowner’s lawn, having chosen a virgin location that butted up against the last hole I had dug a few weeks earlier.

As I’ve described in earlier digging stories, every hole I dig is carefully filled in accordance with the landowner’s requirements and my own credo to minimize my impact on the environment.

In this turn of the century ash dump, I gave myself two full days (about six-eight hours each day) to dig a hole at least six-by-six feet wide and eight to nine feet deep (to the very bottom) and then to fill in and cleanly cap off the excavation. This principle, imprinted upon me by my bottle digger and archaeologist friend, the late Ross Becker, also dictates that every square inch of ash is dug so that no bottles are left behind. This means hard work, as it’s rather challenging to toss out shovelfuls of ash when I’m at the bottom of an eight or nine-footdeep trench.

Furthermore, it’s time-consuming and laborious to diligently chip away every bit of undug ash between holes.

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However, I have often been rewarded with this through my OCD approach, finding some of my oldest and most valuable bottles in the clay on the very bottom of the hole or stuck in an ash pocket in between holes.

On this particular day, I was a few hours into the dig and two to three feet deep when the fun started with discovering a 5-inch tall medicinal-style bottle embossed “Violet Marshmallow.” [See Fig. 1] [Fig.1] “Violet Marshmallow” in a bottle. Who knew there was such a thing!

[Left] William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan: Assorted Whiskey Flasks. (1) 5.5” half-pint glass flask with blue and silver paper label featuring portraits of Bryan & Sewall, a rooster, and the Capitol, titled “A Sure Winner.” Some light soiling, but generally intact and way above average for the genre. (2) 6.75” McKinley & Hobart mate to #1, pint size, in similar condition. (3) 4.5” glass flask with portraits of McKinley & Hobart on either side, titled “Distilled Protection For Sound Money Only.” Lacks lid. (4) Bryan & Sewall mate to #3, lacking cork. (5) 7.5” glass quart bottle for “Silver Dollar Pure Rye Whiskey” with embossed silver dollar design, lacking lid. - Heritage Auctions, Lot #43557, June 12, 2022.

Last Summer I’ve seen some odd phrasing embossed on bottles before, but this was one of the more peculiar ones. I later discovered there is a marshmallow flower (Althaea Officinalis) that comes in many colors, including violet and is indigenous to Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. It is used in herbalism, a folk and traditional medicinal practice based on using plants and plant extracts.

To my surprise, violet marshmallow is also a modern perfume oil fragrance. However, based on the shape of the bottle, I suspect my bottle contained herbal medicine.

Soon after this find, two Hutchinson bottles that are the same, yet not the same, popped out of the ground within a few minutes of each other. They’re alike in that they’re both embossed “J. H. Stock Schenectady, N.Y.” with an interlocking “J H S” monogram on the reverse. And yet they’re different, with the first being a typical aquamarine color, while the other is a remarkable (for a Hutch) deep icy blue. [See Fig. 2] The latter is also slightly shorter in stature and has “172” stamped on the bottom. It was only 11 a.m. and I was already very pleased with my day!

The next find, just a few minutes after the pair of Hutchinsons,

[Fig.2] Two “J. H. Stock Schenectady, N.Y.” Hutchinsons, with the interlocking “J H S” monogram on the reverse. The same but different, dug minutes apart.

was notable for several reasons. Typically, when I dig a bottle, I hear the distinctive glass chink sound when it comes in contact with my spade. Sometimes, a piece is revealed to me as I chip it out the side of the hole, or I simply pry it up with my shovel. This enigmatic bottle, however, had managed to circumvent all these means of detection and was just lying in the bottom of the hole after I had tossed out a shovelful of ash. I was not thrilled as it appeared to be a typical 6-inch, oval, colorless whiskey flask. I have unearthed hundreds of these over the decades, and they’re almost always blank. If there is any wording, it might be something sparse such as “8 Fluid Ozs.” Despite my dreadfully low expectations, the fact that there was an infinitesimal chance there might be some embossing on this small, humble container compelled me to wipe off the ash. Upon examining the now discernible face of the flask, I was astonished to see the embossed portrait of a man in an oval slug plate and that the bottle was, in fact, heavily embossed! The copy read “Pure White Metal Spirits,” with a portrait and “Bryan For Free Silver Only 16 To 1.” On the back was another embossed portrait with copy reading “Sewall.” The base was embossed “Trade Mark Recd Pat Ap For.” [Fig.3] Scarce William Jennings Bryan 1896 presidential campaign flask sees the light of day for the first time in 120-plus years.

Face-embossed “Pure White Metal Spirits For Free Silver Only 16 to 1.”

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bottle room that day: • 7 ½-inch deep aqua blob top squat soda (or beer) embossed “This Bottle” in a slug plate and “J. H. Heffernan Church & Clinton St. Saratoga N.Y.” and “Belongs To Registered.”

• 9-inch deep aqua green “Belfast Ginger Ale” with a tapered collar and rounded bottom. It was thick, super clean glass. [See Fig. 5]

Hey, this bottle is scarce!

[Fig.4] Broadside depicting Democratic nominees for president William J. Bryan of Nebraska and Arthur Sewall of Maine for vice president. Nominated at Chicago, Illinois, Friday, July 10th 1896.

I was gobsmacked (borrowing from our British digging brethren).

Adding to its unusual appearance was an intact, heavy, rust-encrusted, lead pewter (or perhaps bronze?) screw cap, in relatively good condition, that readily twisted off. I immediately photographed the bottle [See Fig. 3] and texted the picture to my nephew, friend and digging companion, Michael. He looked it up and informed me that the “Bryan” name on the bottle was none other than William Jennings Bryan and the “Sewall” on the reverse was Arthur Sewall. They were running mates in the 1896 presidential campaign against William McKinley and Garret A. Hobart. [See Fig. 4] Wow, I had just dug a political campaign flask! I was now even more blown away. Only pausing briefly to celebrate, I carefully wrapped the bottle and packed it securely in my backpack.

I continued digging and uncovered a few more keepers for my [Fig.5] Broadside depicting Democratic nominees for president William J. Bryan of Nebraska and Arthur Sewall of Maine for vice president. Nominated at Chicago, Illinois, Friday, July 10th 1896.

A pleasant after effect of digging all day is the state of relaxation that ensues. It starts with changing out of the filthy clothes before getting into the car and driving home while meditating over the treasures I found. A good meal follows the ritual of showering off the layers of ash and mud while the freshly dug bottles are soaking in a bucket. It’s a gratifying step-by-step wind-down routine after hours of exhaustive digging.

I was in this state of mind and body when I went into the bottle room that evening hoping to find the 1896 William Jennings Bryan campaign flask in Helen McKearin and Kenneth M. Wilson’s American Bottles and Flasks and Their Ancestry. To my dismay, my bottle was not illustrated and listed within, but there was a different 1896 Bryan – Sewall campaign flask listed as GI-126 and embossed on one side with the Bryan bust and “In Silver We Trust Bryan 1896 Sewall.”

The opposite side depicts an American eagle and is embossed “United Democratic Ticket We Shall Vote 16 To 1.” Descriptive support copy reads “Portrait Flask, America, circa 1896. In the form of a coin, tooled double collared mouth - smooth base, ht. 5 1/8 inches. The bottle is available in both amber and colorless.” An amber version of this bottle, from the Timothy and Christine Hill collection, appeared as Lot 15 in Heckler Auction 184 in November 2019, and was estimated to sell for between $1,000 to 2,000. [See Fig. 6]

[Fig.6] The wellknown coin-shaped Bryan 1896 campaign flask.

GI-126.

Looking to leverage the wide antique bottle collecting audience online, on September 8, 2022, I created a post on the Facebook forum American Historical Flasks, telling the story of the dig, my bottle’s absence from McKearin’s book, and I provided pictures.

To my disappointment, while I got a handful of likes, none of the 1,400 members of the site responded with any revelations. It was, apparently, a mystery to all of them as well.

I followed that up with a letter to Antique Bottle & Glass Collector, published in the January–February 2023 issue, appealing to readers with the same information I had posted on Facebook. It took several weeks, but this time there was one response. Chris Woods emailed me to say he had no information to offer but did have an interest in bottle-related patents. As noted earlier, the flask is embossed “Trade Mark Recd Pat Ap For” on the base.

Chris has been building a database of bottle patents for years and hopes to someday soon get them all out on the Internet. He was hoping that I had already found the patent for the bottle and would share it with him. When I informed him I had not, he said he would try looking and commented, “Searching patent records is tough going, as there is no way to search by keywords. Without the actual patent number, it will take some time. I have identified about 500-600 and keep stumbling across new items like your flask.” Stay tuned for updates.

The Great Orator and Free Silver Shortly after the bottle had seen the light of day for the first time in roughly 120 years, and as soon as my nephew informed me that the Bryan on the bottle was William Jennings Bryan, I recalled that Bryan was known as a great orator, but little else. The following is an abridged Wikipedia summary of how Mr. Bryan came to be prominently displayed on an 1896 presidential campaign flask: William Jennings Bryan was born in rural Salem, Illinois, in 1860. His father, Silas Bryan, was a Jacksonian Democrat, judge, lawyer, and local party activist. As a judge’s son, the younger Bryan had ample opportunity to observe the art of speech-making in courtrooms, political rallies, and at church and revival meetings. In post-Civil War America, oratory was highly prized, and Bryan showed aptitude for it from a young age. Attending Illinois College beginning in 1877, Bryan won the prize for speaking in his junior year, and secured the affection of Mary Baird, a student at a nearby women’s academy.

She became his wife and was his principal assistant throughout his career.

In 1887, Bryan moved to Nebraska, where he practiced law and entered politics. He won election to the House of Representatives in 1890 and was re-elected in 1892, before mounting an unsuccessful U.S. Senate run. He set his sights on higher office, believing he could be elected president in 1896 even though he remained a relatively minor figure in the Democratic Party.

The economic Panic of 1893 had left the nation in a deep recession, which persisted in early 1896. Bryan and many other Democrats believed the economic malaise could be remedied through a return to bimetallism, or free silver—a policy they November – December 2023

believed would inflate the currency and make it easier for debtors to repay loans. Bryan went to the Democratic convention in Chicago as an undeclared candidate, whom the press had given only a small chance of becoming the Democratic nominee. His ‘Cross of Gold’ speech, given to conclude the debate on the party platform, immediately transformed him into a favorite for the nomination, and he won it the next day. The Democrats nominated Arthur Sewall, a wealthy Maine banker and shipbuilder, for vice president.

Bryan undertook an extensive tour by rail to bring his campaign to the people. He spoke some 600 times to an estimated 5,000,000 listeners. His campaign focused on silver, an issue that failed to appeal to the urban voter, and he and Sewall were defeated in the 1896 general election by the Republican candidate, former Ohio governor William McKinley, and his V.P. running mate, Garret A. Hobart.

Although defeated in the election, Bryan’s campaign made him a national figure. He ran unsuccessfully for president twice more, in 1900 and 1908, and was Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson (1913-1915). He deplored the consumption of alcoholic beverages and led the ‘dry’ forces in making Prohibition part of the U.S. Constitution. His final cause célèbre was the 1925 Scopes Trial where he appeared as a Bible expert for the prosecution. Scopes, a biology teacher, had defied the Tennessee law banning the teaching of evolution. Scopes was convicted and fined, and Bryan died just five days later, on July 6, 1925. He was 65.

The Bryan 1896 Presidential Campaign Flasks at Auction By a remarkable coincidence, as I was in the middle of writing this story, I found an almost identical bottle featured in the American Glass Gallery Auction 34, conducted on March 21-29, 2023.

Lot 64 was described as follows, “Pure White Metal Spirits” (Bust of Bryan) “Bryan - For Free Silver Only 6 To 1” (Bust of Sewall) “Sewall.” Political Flask, 1896. Colorless, oval, tooled ring collar – “Trade Mark Reg’s Pat Ap For”’ (on smooth base), ¼ Pt, perfect. An extremely rare flask, unlisted by McKearin. We cannot recall seeing another example and can find no record of this flask at auction. Provenance: Fred Swiechowicz collection.

Addition lot description included “Blown for the 1896 Presidential campaign of Democratic candidate William Jennings Byron and his running mate, Arthur Sewall. They campaigned to fix the economy, which at the time was going through a depression, based on an ‘easy money’ policy for unlimited coinage of silver at a ratio to gold of 16 to 1. This little ¼ pt. flask was likely blown as a campaign ‘give-away’ during the election. An extremely rare and historical political flask. McKearin does list a ‘Bryan – Sewall’ – ‘In Silver We Trust’ Flask (GI-126), but it is a completely different mold and embossing. Note: a small early rectangular sticker remains on the shoulder of the reverse marked 2.00 – A.”

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The bottle in the auction was a little different from mine. While the embossing on the front and the back is the same, Lot 64, at 4-½ inches, was about an inch shorter than my bottle (5-9/16 inches). It was also a corker, whereas mine has a ground screw top with a heavy lead pewter or bronze cap. Also, the base of Lot 64 was embossed “Trade Mark Reg’s Pat Ap For,” and my example reads “Trade Mark Recd Pat Ap For.” I assume that a “Trade Mark Received” would follow a “Trade Mark Registered,” so my larger screw cap version is a slightly later variant. I was pleased to see that Lot 64 brought a $750 hammer price and around $900 with the buyer’s premium and shipping.

The auction finally states that “We cannot recall seeing another example and can find no record of this flask at auction.” However, I was able to find one other online auction that sold the same 4-½ inch corker variant just like this one sold in the American Glass Gallery auction. This new lot description read: “USAmericana” (auction date unknown),“Pure White Metal Spirits For Free Silver Only 16 To 1 Bryan–Sewall.” Terrific little clear glass whiskey flask promoting William Jennings Bryan for president and Arthur Sewall for vice president, 1896. 4 1/2” tall, in excellent condition, with an image of Bryan on the front and Sewall on the back.” The flask sold for $375. [See Fig. 7] I also found an auction that sold an 1896 Bryan presidential campaign flask just like mine. That is, the same height (holds five oz.) and with the same ground screw top. Though, to my amazement, this one was paired with an “1896 McKinley – Hobart” flask of the same design and size!

Both have perfect, shiny, never-been-buried pewter– bronze caps.

Heritage Auctions: June 2-3, 2018. “The David and Janice Frent Collection of Presidential & Political Americana, Part 3 #6189 Lot 43532. Description: “William McKinley and [Fig.7] 4½” corker version of the 1896 William Jennings Bryan: Bryan campaign flask sold in a USAmericana Half-Pint Whiskey Flasks. Auction. A similar one just sold in American Nice pair of 5.5” clear glass Glass Gallery Auction 34, March 21-29, 2023, flasks. 1) Portraits of Bryan Lot 64. & Sewall on either side, inscribed ‘Pure White Metal Spirits For Free Silver Only 16 to 1’. 2) Portraits of McKinley & Hobart on either side, inscribed ‘Genuine Distilled Protection For Sound Money Only.’ Each with the original cap. Excellent.” Sold (Total: 2 Items) on June 3, 2018, for $687.50. [See Fig. 8] Lastly, I was able to find an online auction sale for a 7” half-pint (8 oz.) ground screw top variant: Heritage Auctions: June 22-23, 2019. “The David and Janice 52

[Fig.8] William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan 1896 presidential campaign flasks. Each a half-pint, 5.5” ground screw top and with original caps. Heritage Auctions, June 2-3, 2018.

Frent Collection of Presidential & Political Americana, Part V - Dallas #6199 / Lot #36479. Description: ‘Bryan & Sewall: Clear Glass Pint Whiskey Flask. 7” flask with raised portrait of Bryan on one side and Sewall on the other, inscribed ‘Pure White Metal Spirits For Free Silver Only 16 To 1’. Some internal straw marks, air bubbles, and residue, but displaying no significant defects. Retains the original cap and cork. Displays well.” Sold on June 23, 2019, for $400. [See Fig. 9]

Comments, Conclusions & Questions: David and Janice Frent, married in 1968, shared a fascination with American history and political artifacts. Their collection of over 50,000 items, which included every category from buttons to bottles, spans all presidential candidates in American history and was sold by Heritage Auctions.

Heritage sells many collectibles such as coins, baseball cards, rock ‘n roll memorabilia, and comic books including my very own 1960s-70s Marvel comic book collection.

Through this discovery, four presidential flasks have newly come to light:

[Fig.9] William Jennings Bryan 1896 presidential campaign flask, 7” with ground screw top and original cap.

Heritage Auctions, June 22-23, 2019.

• The 4.5 inch cork top “1896 Bryan White Metal Spirits” campaign flask.

• The 5.5 inch ground screw top “1896 Bryan White Metal Spirits” campaign flask. The one I dug.

• The 5.5 inch ground screw top “1896 McKinley Genuine Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

Distilled Protection” campaign flask.

• The 7 inch ground screw top “1896 Bryan White Metal Spirits” campaign flask.

It would be interesting to see how these other 1896 campaign flasks would fare in an auction targeted to bottle collectors. I’m sure they would have sold for more. These flasks beg for the following questions to be answered: • Does the 1896 McKinley & Hobart campaign flask, featured in the June 2-3, 2018, Heritage Auction, with their “Genuine Distilled Protection For Sound Money Only” slogan embossed on the front, also come in 4.5 and 7 inch sizes like the Bryan flasks?

• What is the origin of these flasks, which are clearly made by the same vendor and glasshouse? Were these flasks ordered by the Bryan and McKinley campaigns or made by a third-party entrepreneur seeking to make a profit off the 1896 election?

• Might there be full pint or quart versions of these Bryan and McKinley 1896 campaign flasks?

• Do any AB&GC readers know what these caps are made of?

They’re very heavy, so I was speculating lead pewter. But after seeing these untarnished examples, I think they might be bronze or [Fig.10] “Christ silver.

Casino New York” I could find no • Does the fact that Bryan “deinformation on this plored the consumption of alcoblob-top beer now holic beverages and led the ‘dry’ sunning on my back forces in making Prohibition part deck. Any info on of the U.S. Constitution,” yet this one readers? apparently sanctioned whiskey flasks blown to support his campaign, make him a hypocrite?

A Good Year for Digging Embossed Spirits Bottles A couple of months later, I had a busy weekend planned and wanted to finish off the hole I had started the previous Saturday. I took the day off on Friday, September 9, 2022, to dig. The weather was in the high 70s and cloudy, just right for me.

On day one in this hole, I dug two embossed cylinder whiskies that, while not scarce or worth a lot, are a

sort I do not often unearth. Like the colorless oval flasks mentioned earlier, cylinder whiskies are very common to Northeast diggers, and the vast majority are “slicks.” The two dug six days earlier were...

• An amber, 11-inch cylinder embossed “Trade Mark Registered” (3 Indian heads in slug plate) and on the back “Bottle Remains the Property of H. B. Kirk & C.O. N.Y.” • A 12 inch colorless “Harvard Rye,” with a slug-plate logo and fancifully adorned shoulders.

While nice to excavate two embossed cylinder whiskies, they did not pass the appeal test for me to keep and enhance my bottle room shelves. I admit to being a little bitter about this. It’s just not fair that we Northeast diggers don’t have any exceptional embossed whiskies to excavate like those wonderful and fabulously embossed San Francisco area cylinders the northern California collectors have in their dumps and privies, or the gorgeous cobalt blue “Casper’s Whiskey Made By Honest North Carolina People” dug by our southern friends.

Despite my angst, I was having a decent day, having found what appears to be a scarce colorless New York City blob-top beer embossed “Registered” over a slug plate “Christ Casino 26 New Bowery New York” and “This Bottle Not to be Sold” [See Fig. 10] that I would keep. I had also dug Hutches and assorted medicine bottles that would be good to sell. Towards the bottom of this eight-foot-deep pit, as the tip of my shovel was revealing the clay bottom, I pried up another amber cylinder whiskey, much like the hundreds of blank ones I’ve dug over the years. However, with two embossed whiskies already coming out of this pit, I was slightly more hopeful there just might be some interesting embossing on this bottle. After wiping off the ash, my low expectations were blown out of the water upon seeing that this bottle was loaded, top to bottom, with 11 horizontal rows of embossed copy, in arch and larger font, “Peychaud’s American Aromatic Bitter Cordial” (in a larger font) and “L. E. Jung Sole Proprietor 317 and 319 Maga- [Fig.11] Freshly dug root-beer colored “Peyzine St. New Orleans La.” [See chaud’s American Aromatic Bitter Cordial.” An appealing bottle that was very exciting to dig.

Fig. 11] I was thrilled and astounded by my good fortune. Standing deep in my hole and craning my neck back 45 degrees to look through the bottle’s rich root-beer-hued glass against the early afternoon sky and sliding my fingers over the base and lip, I detected no damage.

[continued...]

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I could now add a sigh of relief to the excitement and elation I was already feeling. Getting on my tiptoes with arms outstretched, I gently placed the bottle on the level ground just on the hole’s edge. I then finished my dig, thoroughly scouring the bottom to make sure I did not miss anything. With the hole filled, I left a very respectable-looking site that would make both the landowner and me happy.

Upon arriving home and cleaning up, I had a moment to reflect on my considerable find. I had never seen nor heard of Peychaud’s, so I was hopeful that it might be rather scarce. While this bottle looks like a whiskey cylinder, it was embossed “Cordial.”

Also known as liqueurs, cordials are made by mixing brandy, rum or other spirits with fruit, herbs, and cream and consumed as-is or added to cocktails. Moreover, it occurred to me that the bottle’s appeal and value would be enhanced if the proprietor (L. E. Jung) had flipped the fourth and fifth lines and added an “s” to the end of “Bitter” so that it would read “Cordial Bitters.” With all this in mind, I conducted my online research later that evening, and my expectations were not disappointed.

My first hit was an eBay sale of a bit newer ABM Peychaud’s with an intact label that reads as follows, “Peychaud’s American Aromatic Bitter Cordial. Diploma of Honor Awarded at The Grand Exposition of Altona-Germany 1869. About 33% Alcohol.

Contents about 21 Oz. Peychaud Bitters have no equal. L. E. Jung Sole Proprietor New Orleans, La.” The neck label depicted the L. E. Jung Distillery building. My wish had come true! The Peychaud’s was, in fact, a bitters bottle.

To confirm this, I immediately referenced For Bitters Only by Carlyn Ring and found, on pages 374 and 375, two listings for Peychaud’s Bitters: P 80: seal PEYCHAUD’S / AMERICAN / BITTERS / N.O. Exceptional. Believed to be the older of the Peychaud’s.

11 x 3 (5 3/4) Round, Amber, ARM, Applied Mouth, Very Rare Seal 1 5/8 P 81 L (Label)...Peychaud’s American Aromatic Cocktail Bitters. Circa 1888 – 1905 11 x 3 (5 3/4) Round, Amber, LTC Original formula by L.E. Jung & Wulff & Company Ring’s book then lists six different variations of the P 81 embossing, with five different New Orleans addresses, including the “317 and 319 Magazine St.” found on my bottle. Looking at pictures posted online, I was able to find just one with the

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same mold as mine, another with “319 Magazine St.” (the 317 removed) address and three with the street address removed entirely.

I found an example of the earlier embossed seal bitters in Heckler’s Auction #174 in May 2019.

Lot 27 was described as “Peychaud’s AmericanBitters N.O. Ring & Ham #P-80, Applied Seal Bitters Bottle, three-piece mold construction, America, 1860-1880. Price Realized: $1,638.” [See Fig. 12] I didn’t see any mention of L. E. Jung associated with this earlier Peychaud’s American Bitters bottle, so I’m speculating that Jung bought out Peychaud sometime between 1880 and 1883 or bought the rights from his family in 1883 after his death. In either case, Jung had the bottle redesigned to the Ring and Ham P 81 version that I dug on that fateful day in September 2022.

The most attractive Peychaud’s bottles I found online were a light honey amber BIM pair, the variant sans the street address, on a July 2012 Peachridge [Fig.13] “Peychaud’s Glass website article Peychaud’s American Aromatic Cocktail Bitters – L. E. Jung and Bitter Cordial,” honey amber his Gators, the website run by the (P81) from the Meyer editor of Antique Bottle and Glass Collection.

Collector, Ferdinand Meyer V [See Fig. 13]. Ferdinand graciously permitted me to quote from Peachridge for more intriguing information about Peychaud’s Bitters.

Antoine Amédée Peychaud was born in 1803 into a wealthy family of coffee planters. Originally from Bordeaux, France, the Peychaud’s owned large and lucrative plantations in what was then the French colony of Saint-Dominique, now Haiti.

Their estate was destroyed during the Haitian Revolution of 1804, but they and the infant Antoine fled to New Orleans and made a new life in the city’s French Quarter. After training as an apothecary, Peychaud opened a Creole pharmacy at 123 Royal Street in 1834, where he began to make and sell his own proprietary brand of bitters, flavored with gentian, com[Fig.12] “Peychaud’s Bitters” Heckler Auction 174,” Lot 27, sold for $1,638.

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

Amazingly, Peychaud’s Aromatic Cocktail Bitters are still for sale today and are an essential ingredient in the Sazerac cocktail. They can also be used in Manhattans, Old-Fashioneds, and many other classic cocktails. Per their ads, Peychaud’s is one of the best-selling bitters in the U.S. market.

Conclusion

[Fig.14] 1904 advertising card for L. E. Jung, Sole Proprietor of Peychaud Cocktail Bitters. parable to Angostura bitters, but with a lighter body, sweeter taste, and more floral aroma. By the 1840s, Peychaud was marketing his bitters both as a digestive and as a general tonic, and by the time of his death in 1883, they had supplemented Stoughton’s as the American bitters of choice. The Peychaud family continues to be well-established in New Orleans.

The Peachridge site also posted this amusing advertising card of L. E. Jung, “announcing the visit of a salesman, R.L. Purnell, who was planning to stop by sometime in 1904. L.E. Jung, the sole proprietor of Peychaud Bitters, was also a big New Orleans absinthe (an anise-flavored spirit derived from several plants) distiller. Photo, presumably of Mr. Jung, posed with pair of taxidermy alligators.” [See Fig. 14] [Fig.15] Bryan 1896 presidential campaign flask, 5.5” ground screw top variant dug by the author and professionally cleaned by author’s nephew, Michael Savastio.

The William Jennings Bryan 1896 White Metal Spirits campaign flask [See Figs. 15-17] and the Peychaud’s American Aromatic Bitter Cordial [See Fig. 18] are two bottles that I would never consider buying from an auction or at a bottle show. But, as fate arbitrarily presented these extraordinary and historically fascinating treasures to me, I’ve lovingly embraced them. I will cherish them for the rest of my life, fondly recalling the memories of excavating them and discovering their notable stories. These two spirits bottles dug in short succession in the summer of 2022 also share the quality of having very common forms that are typically “slick” or unembellished, and yet, to my great and delighted surprise, were gorgeously adorned with the most unexpected and intriguing embossing. It is this, the wonderfully surprising and random nature of digging antique American bottles, that has forever and irrevocably bonded me to this hobby.

[Fig.18] The beauty of the Peychaud’s American Aromatic Bitter Cordial bottle accentuated by the setting sun.

[Fig.16] Bryan 1896 presidential campaign flask close-up of ground screw top.

[Fig.17] Bryan 1896 presidential campaign flask, 5.5”, embossed “Trade Mark Recd Pat Ap For” 55

K 73.6 KOOPMAN’S // BITTERS // 10 x 2 5/8 Square, Amber, LTC, Applied mouth, 2 sp, Smooth base. Misssing second “N” in “Koopmann’s.”

Extremely rare Example dug in Charleston, S.C. in 2023.

See K 73.5 in BBs

Unlisted Variant Koopmann’s Bitters dug in Charleston

By FERDINAND MEYER V

K 73.5 KOOPMANN’S // BITTERS 8 1/8 x 3 3/8 Rectangular, Aqua, Applied mouth, 4 sp, The “S” in Koopmann’s is backwards.

Lettering starts at base and reads upward.

Extremely rare Example dug in Iowa in the 1970s.

See K 73.6 in BBs3

I received a private Facebook message recently from Mathew Lomas who is a new FOHBC member.

Mat lives in Charleston, South Carolina, and digs privies and dumps in the area. He said he created a small group called South Carolina History Rescue with a passion for

saving history. Other members are Shelby Dennis, Christopher Jenkins, Chris Stewart and Stephen Harris. Mat relayed that he recently dug an amber Koopman’s Bitters (sic), and that is exciting, as I am a Bitters collector, first and foremost. This newly cataloged K 73.6 variant is unlisted and related to the K 73.5 Koopmann’s Bitters.

Mat researched the name and saw that I once posted an article called “Koopmann’s Bitters, for use in Marshy and Swampy Districts” on PeachridgeGlass.com. He wondered if it was related to the same proprietor in Charlotte, North Carolina. He sent me some nice pictures and a video of the bottle being dug and included a few “before and after” shots once the bottle had a gentle sink washing. Apparently, the bottle was found on the site of Charleston’s Liberty Tree, the meeting place for the city’s sect of the Sons of Liberty. This organization advocated for the American Revolution. The oak tree was utilized from the late 1760s until 1780 when British troops burned it down following the Siege of Charleston. The tree was also where news of the United States Declaration of Independence was announced to Charleston citizens in 1776.

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Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

I came across an 1871 advertisement for Koopmann’s Bitters put out by B. Koopmann in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Koopmann reported that his bitters had stood the test of a hundred years! He also said the recipe had been used in Germany and in the possession of his father’s family for the last 60 years. Another ad passage said, “In the past fifteen years, these Bitters have cured thousands of cases in Western North Carolina and Northwestern South Carolina.” I suppose those are the marshy and swampy districts.

‘‘ In marshy and swampy

districts, where the malarial influences are so deadly poisonous, this Bitters is the only sure remedy known which will prevent its attack and insure a freedom from its poisonous effects.’’

The Southern Home (Charlotte, North Carolina) December 19, 1871

Bernard Koopmann (sometimes spelled Koopman) was born in Oldenburg, Germany, around 1824. His wife was named Johanna. Koopmann appears in Statesville, North Carolina records as a Jewish merchant around 1856 before moving to Charlotte in the late 1850s as a retail merchant at Koopmann & Phelps. In Statesville, Wallace & Elias advertised his Koopmann’s Celebrated Bitters. Koopmann moved to a new store in October 1858 at The Old Stand, which I believe to be in the downtown Charlotte Trade and Tryon Street area, as just about everything of importance was at that time in Charlotte (and still is). Koopmann’s Anti-Dysenteric and Anti-Dyspeptic Bitters make an appearance in advertising at the same time. Based on the mentioned advertising statement, the bitters were probably first sold in 1856 in Statesville.

After the Battle of Bentonville, the southern Civil War wounded were moved to Koopmann & Phelps, along with many other locations in Charlotte. Bentonville produced 2,500 or so Confederate casualties. Koopmann’s Bitters were reduced in price to $1 a bottle in 1868, indicating either an abundance or less popularity of the product. Koopmann seems to be alone in 1868 as Phelps drops from the name.

Around 1870, there were listings for Koopmann & Rothschild with Bernard Koopmann and Jacob Rothschild as partners. They start a new mercantile company selling the bitters, millinery, white goods and notions on Trade Street between Tryon and Church. Sales continued through the early to mid-1870s, with Elias Koopmann helping with the bitters marketing. Koopmann & Rothschild dissolved in 1875, though the bitters continued to be sold by Wilson & November – December 2023

Front and back art from a small folding promotional piece for South Carolina History Rescue.

Burwell in Charlotte up until 1877. Surprisingly, there are no more examples of this extremely rare bottle.

Bernard Koopmann died in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on December 1, 1895, where he was the proprietor of a hotel. He was buried in Philadelphia.

As a side note, I believe Bernard Koopmann may have been the father of the famous artist Augustus B. Koopman (1869-1914).

Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, Augustus Koopman was a painter and etcher of subjects that included the American West.

He lived only 45 years and Le petit bateau à la voile, 1904 spent most of his short life in Paris, where he was a member of an extensive expatriate community in Montparnasse. He also did many paintings of marine and figurative subjects at Etaples, along the coast near Belgium. Koopman studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and in Paris between 1887 and 1892 at the Academie Julian.

Elias Bernard Koopman (1860-1929) was a founder of both the American Mutoscope and Biograph Co. and the Magic Introduction Co. He later headed the Runsyne Corporation, a maker of electrical signs. I believe that E. B. Koopman, who was born in Charlotte, was also the son of Bernard and Johanna Koopmann.

Interestingly enough, an embossed bottle was made for the Magic Introduction Co. E. B. Koopman committed suicide by stabbing himself in the abdomen in 1929 in the Hotel Cumberland.

He was taken to the hospital while still alive but died a few hours later.

He left a note for his brother, Harry Koopman, telling him his intentions. In the message, he asked that his family not mourn for him. He also requested that his body be donated to science.

He was 69 years old.

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[Continued from page 9] and selling was fun, and so was digging. After a few years of digging, he found a rare amber Houston Coca-Cola, but he ended up selling it—we’ll get back to this later.

His wife Mary travels with him to all the shows…which begs the question, does she collect too? She does, but not bottles. Her specialty is vintage Christmas items. So, together, they set up bottle shows, antique shows, and even at the famous US 127 “Longest Yard Sale.” Jay told me that Mary was originally from Ohio and wanted to buy a place there one day. Well, it just so happened that while perusing the Longest Yard Sale, they found a house right on the route, so for the past seven years, they have participated in the sale from their front yard!

I asked Jay how the hobby was doing in Texas. He said there are three shows in the state and over the past few years a fair number of new collectors have joined the hobby, actively buying and selling, too. That’s the key to sustaining the hobby…younger collectors. The same phenomenon has also occurred here in Alabama, with the younger collectors joining the fun. He also told me about several veteran collectors who passed away or sold out. Amazingly, their respective collections got absorbed into the hobby without a hitch. This is another sign of how vibrant collectors are in the area. He added that folks look forward to the Houston 2024 National Antique Bottle & Glass Exposition.

So okay, back to the amber Houston Coke he had dug in Shiner. Jay had a severe case of seller’s remorse, so he went back through his stacks of old bottle magazines, looking for an ad wanting an amber Houston Coke. After finding the ad and the collector’s name, he tracked him down in Georgia and actually found a phone number. He called and asked where the bottle went, but the collector still had it on his shelf…it being the best amber Coke in his collection. They worked out a price, but the collector didn’t want to ship it, so Jay and Mary drove to Georgia, bought the bottle, and then drove back home. Seventeen hours of driving just to reacquire the same bottle he had dug 35 years earlier! Some may call that crazy…but that’s bottle-collecting Jay Kasper style!

Thanks again for the interview, Jay! Hey Southern Region clubs and collectors, send me your stories so I can get them in the magazine and on our website! Please email me at Bluecrab1949@ Hotmail.com or call me at 205.410.2191. Good Luck and God Bless!

Midwest Region [Henry Hecker, Director] While some clubs in the Midwest Region go dormant in the summer with members pursuing vacations and other family activities, there are still plenty of bottle-related activities that continue and produce some wonderful finds via privy digs, lake diving, auctions and flea markets. One recent auction here in Wisconsin yielded a citron midget Mason, Warner’s Tippecanoe, a J. A. Lomax Chicago cider, and a clear Warner’s Safe Remedy. Not bad for a few hours in the heat.

On September 16, the Heckers hosted the annual picnic for the Milwaukee Antique Bottle and Advertising Club. To complement the great food, there was a club meeting, auction with 58

Picnic “Welcome” arrangement. The Heckers hosted the annual picnic for the Milwaukee Antique Bottle and Advertising Club.

spirited bidding, and a presentation on the Comanche Indian Medicine Company that operated for a few months in Mukwonago in 1893. It was operated by two Wild West performers of the time that had run afoul of the law and were hiding out in the little village of Mukwonago.

Martin van Zant reports on the recent Indianapolis Circle City Show in Lebanon, Indiana: “We had 63 tables and had a steady flow of people through the door, but because it’s free after nine we don’t track the numbers. This year we had 12 early admissions; this varies from year to year. We had an auction for the club the night before with 10% of the proceeds going to the club. The club made over $600, a great sale with many great breweriana items changing hands. We had dealers from five states set up with us. This was our 11th year and every year we get bigger. It was a great show and a fantastic time. I feel like we are the hidden gem of the Midwest shows. If you like bottles, you’ll like the Indy show, we have such a diverse group of dealers.” Bill Mitchell, whose health is much improved, was reported to have helped one dealer unpack, relieving the Martin van Zant and Carisa Kimmon dealer of some high-end inventory and Bill Taylor added another green hue to his color run (or should I say school) of Fish Bitters.

Three other shows coming up are the Findlay Antique Bottle Club’s show in Ohio on October 15, the Metropolitan Detroit Show in Royal Oak, Michigan on November 4, and the 1st Chicago Bottle Club’s 54th Annual event on November 5 in Orland Park, Illinois. Speaking of shows, the Federation has offered the Midwest Region the opportunity to host the 2025 National Convention. Get your proposals into our conventions director, Craig Cassetta, or yours truly ASAP. Note, you just might get some stiff competition from Milwaukee!

The Covid pandemic hastened a trend to conduct Zoom club meetings. The Ohio club is utilizing this technology to increase participation for members from afar. While nothing beats a meeting in person to exchange bottles and fellowship, an online meeting is the next best thing to being there and can increase membership for collectors that have too far to drive. You might want to check your bylaws and make sure that such remote participation is sanctioned, especially as it comes to voting on various issues. I am in another organization where we specifically added electronic participation so that there were no questions later about the legitimacy of voting.

[Please see more Regional News coverage with many more photographs at FOHBC.org]

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

November – December 2023

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[Left] Talk about incorrect. See ACL #7 article this issue. This cast iron figure of a woman is marked “Wurfflein/Philad./Patent.” She is a rare, life-size shooting gallery target that is more than 100 years old. Skinner Auctions sold her in March 2015 in Boston for $43,050, eight times the high estimated price. – Skinner Auctions [Right] Back in 2016 I received an email reading, “My name is Jimmy. My Dad lives in Bellville, Tx. He has an amber, square, bottle. It is 8 ¾“ tall by 2 ½ x 2 ½.” It’s a Dansby’s Cotton-Patch Bitters.” I drove about a hour or so north of my house, met the man, who pulled the bottle from his kitchen window. We quickly struck a deal and the bottle was added to my very small collection of Texas bitters. The Bitters was put out by R. C. Dansby and the Cotton Patch Bitters Company in Terrell (Kaufman County), Texas circa 1879. – Ferdinand Meyer V

[Above] A Norwegian man had barely unwrapped his new metal detector

when he discovered what experts have described as the “gold find of the century.” He stumbled across the unique treasure trove which is more than 1,500 years old when he was using his new gadget on Rennesoey, a picturesque island to the north of the Norwegian city of Stavanger. Experts at the university’s archaeological museum later determined he had come across nine gold pendants, three gold rings and 10 gold pearls that someone might have worn as showy jewelry centuries ago, all lying barely five inches below the ground. – ScienceNorway [Left] Attached is an “as found” and

“cleaned” image of a “Congress Hall, Fleischmann Co’s Maryland Rye” flask.

It will be included in my next magazine digging story. – John Savastio

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[Below] Came across these powdered bitters in their

original packaging in an eBay auction today. Here seems to be another type of Pendleton’s Restorative Jaundice Bitters. Unfortunately, I can’t see any indication of where the product was manufactured or Pendleton’s complete name. – Joe Gourd

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

Lost & Found Houston 24 Expo

Read and see more in the FOHBC Virtual Museum.

[Left] June 2023. Archaeologists have found an octagonal sword dating from more than 3,000 years ago at a burial site in the state of Bavaria, southern Germany. The sword is so well preserved that it still gleams, according to a statement from the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments. It was discovered last week at a site in Donau-Ries, and researchers believe it was left in the grave as a burial gift. The sword is thought to date to the end of the 14th century BCE, the Middle Bronze Age. A sword like this, with an octagonal handle made entirely from bronze, is a rare find, according to the statement. – University of Sheffield

[Below] Base shard of a Keyhole Sauce

bottle in a not-seen-before shade of bluegreen glass. Extremely rare. Bob Kaiser dug it near Downieville, California many years ago. – Lou Pellegrini collection

[Right] Browsing a New Hampshire thrift shop for old frames to restore, a local woman, who has chosen to remain anonymous to the press, bought a white frame with an old painting inside for $4.

She had no idea that the painting was actually a rare work by renowned American artist N.C. Wyeth. “It’s everybody’s dream,” says Maine conservator Lauren Lewis, who helped determine the painting was an original Wyeth. – NPR Houston Public Media

[Left] After seeing the comments about

the “huge” pile of insulators in the old bathtub, I couldn’t help but laugh... this is a HUGE pile of insulators! It’s at a private museum of sorts in New Mexico.

– Mark Greaves

[Below] The unbroken seal on King Tutankhamun’s tomb, 1922. This

seal was actually a seal to King Tut’s fifth shrine. The king was buried in a series of four sarcophagi, which were in turn kept inside a series of five shrines. This unbroken seal stayed 3,245 years untouched. The late discovery of Tut’s tomb resulted from the fact that it was covered by debris from that of Ramesses IV which was located directly above its entrance. – Rare Photograph [Right] “Bartlett’s Excelsior Bitters,” base

embossed “Bartlett Brothers New York.”

Supposedly found in the attic of an old Texas stagecoach stop. Very odd shape with interesting debossed label area. Last I heard unique, but who knows?

Ex Feldmann. Thinking about a display of Texas bottles for Houston 24.

– Ferdinand Meyer V

November – December 2023

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62

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

November – December 2023

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Member Photos

Read and see more in the FOHBC Virtual Museum.

A collection of spectacular and inspiring photographs from around the world and around the web. Please feel free to submit your images for consideration.

Houston 24 Expo

Texas druggist bottle – Nicholas Alucema

Anti-Witch bottle and contents – Andrew Rapoza

Only known example – Ferdinand Meyer V

Colognes – Barry Hogan

Display of California Citrate of Magnesia bottles – Rick Siri

My newest Texas ACL – Mike Dickman 64 64

Sandwich Museum visit – Brian Bingham Antique Antique Bottle Bottle & & Glass Glass Collector Collector

Member Photos

Summer to Fall in California – Scott Horner

Bitters collection – Aaron Biesbrock

Cassin’s Grape Brandy Bitters at a recent “Show & Tell” event. – Jerry Forbes

– Mandy Possin

My strapsided flask addiction – Drew Zambella

Sunshine Sunday – Larry Faucheux

Barber bottles.

Bitters – Rick Ciralli November –– December December 2023 2023 November

Coleman California Claret – Dave Deto 65 65

Classified Ads

ADVERTISE FOR FREE: Free advertising in each issue of Antique Bottle & Glass Collector (AB&GC). One free “WANTED” or “FOR SALE” ad in AB&GC per year each renewal. See page 72 for more info. DEALERS: Sell your bottles in the Antique Bottle & Glass Collector. Change the bottles each issue. Include your website in your ad to increase traffic to your site. Send all advertisement info to FOHBC Business Manager, Elizabeth Meyer, P.O. Box 1825, Brookshire, Texas 77423 or best, email to: fohbcmembers@gmail.com

FOR SALE FOR SALE: Mint: 1) Warner’s Safe Nervine half pt. slugplate. Light amber, $300 2) Warners’s Safe Cure London, half pint, green, $300 3) Warner’s Safe Kidney & Liver Cure.

Pint, slugplate, A & D.H.C. on bottom, $250 4) Warner’s Diabetes Cure, pint. Melbourne, $150 5) Dr. Von Hopfs Curacoa Bitters, Chamberlain & Co., Des Moines, Iowa, yellow, $175. I have a lot more Warner’s for sale. Will trade for mini whiskey jugs. Stencil or scratch with maker and town and city on them. Jack Brower, 319.330.1237, DadJLBrow@gmail.com 01/24 FOR SALE: Book: A History of the Des Moines Potteries, with additional information on Boonesboro, Carlisle, Hartford, and Palmyra. 214 pages, 65 color. Cost $23 plus shipping, media mail add $4.50, priority add $6. Mail to Mark C. Wiseman, 3505 Sheridan Ave., Des Moines, Iowa 50310, 515.344.8333 01/24 FOR SALE: Quality bottles largely from the US, meticulously described and well-priced.

Listings with images available on my High Desert Historic Bottle website at historicbottles.com. My email for contact noted on the website. Bill Lindsey, Chiloquin, Oregon. 11/26 FOR SALE: Western State jug collection for sale. 50 jugs. North Idaho, Eastern Washington, Montana, Chris, 208.437.0245 11/23 FOR SALE: By author. New book © 2023.

Bottles & Jugs of Central Montana. ISBN# 978-0-692-03800-0 includes Great Falls, Arlington, Belt, Bynum, Choteau, Conrad, Cut Bank, Monarch, Sand Coulee, Stanford, Shelby and Vaughn. Spiral Bound, 234 pages includes rarity ratings and index. 194 photos and stories on every bottle and jug. Published

by Advanced Litho., Great Falls. $90 plus $10 postage. If purchased concurrently with Marvin Michelotti’s book Montana Milk Bottles © 2,000, price is $100 plus $10 postage. If you

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only desire Marvin’s book it is $17 plus $10 postage for a total of $27. Send check to Henry Thies, PO Box 1363, Cut Bank, Montana 59427, email bottlerx@gmail.com, phone 406.873.2811. 03/24

American Liniment, C.R. Keach stoneware beer. Pharmacy: C F Boyton, Geo. Haskell, G.A. Storer, a porcelain Dr. A.C. Daniels veterinary sign example. Dennis, dracden60@ gmail.com, 802.748.2274. Thanks! 11/23

WANTED

WANTED: Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Blue decorated crocks from Sipe, Moore, Nichols, Hobart, etc. Pay top dollar for the best examples. Squats and Hutches from Williamsport and surrounding area Lock Haven, Jersey Shore, Lewisburg, Bloomsburg, Berwick, Danville, etc. Pay top dollar for rare or colored examples. All bottles from Dr. Porter Drug Store in Towanda, Pa. Call Bob Kane at 570.220.5982. 11/23

WANTED: BLACK HAWK, COLORADO Th. Crook Sky Light whiskey flask. I will pay $10,000 for a half-pint coffin or a pint coffin or a pint shoofly. Flask must be in mint condition and delivered to Colorado.

Other Black Hawk bottles might be of interest if not already owned. Contact: David D. Spellman at spellmand@centurylink.net 01/24 WANTED: Harley bottles of West Chester, Pa. and Philadelphia, Pa. The West Chester bottles (3) display either J. Harley, James Harley or E.M. Harley. The Phila. Bottles (4) display Edwd. Harley, Schul (Schuylkill) 4th & Market St., Philada or E. Harley, 802 Market St. or E. Harley, West Market St. or Edw. Harley, 1838 Market St., Phila. Bob Harley, email: rwh220@yahoo.com, Phone: 215.721.1107 12/23 WANTED: Colored Figural Bitters. Also other bitters that are unusually shaped or unusually colored, for their grouping! Mint specimens only please! Randolph Haumann, 10410 Gold Arrow Drive, Reno, Nevada 89521-5190 or cell 415.518.4124 (leave message) or email: hawkeye751@ outlook.com, Call Now! So you are not sorry...Later! 11/24 WANTED: Hobble skirt embossed Coca-Cola bottles: 1915s, 1923s, D-Patent’s 6 oz and 6 1/2 oz. Collector will buy or trade.

Jim Georges, georges77@twcny.rr.com or 315.662.7729. 07/24 WANTED: OWL DRUG bottles, tins, boxes, paper, anything from the Owl Drug Company. Marc Lutsko, letsgo@montanasky.net, 406.291.0861, Box 97, Libby, Montana 59923 TOP DOLLAR paid. 01/24 WANTED: St. Johnsbury, Vermont! Week Magic Compound (on side panels) Front/ rear unembossed. Weeks Magic (side panel) Compound (side panel) 5 ¼” snap cased, Weeks Magic Renovator, Dr. Keach’s

WANTED: Milk glass pig with blue and red spots on it. Also, amber glass pig embossed “New York.” Please call Gary Beatty at 941.276.1546 or email bocatropicalbreezes@ gmail.com. 11/23

WELCOME TO THE FOHBC We welcome the following new members to the FOHBC: Tony Bryant, Daniel Curnow, Jane Dawson, Mark Gabel, Dan George, Frank & Kris Higginson, Ralph Hollibaugh, Donald Cleve King, Jeff Kinsell, Josh Kirkland, Matthew Koehler, Ed Kuskie, Nancy Lahti, Ray Lewis, Dan Lloyd, Mathew Lomas, Mark Long, Michael Martin, Preston McDaniel, Mike McGrew, Brett McPherson, Thomas Meehan, Tony Moller, Jan Moore, James Morgan, Socrates Necklas, Walter Nevers, Katharine Perkins, Roger M. Peters, Eric Peirce, Raymond Pineau Jr., Bruce Silva, Bob Skibbe, Mike Southworth, John Spurney, Todd Suttles, Anthony Sylvester, John Taylor, Susan Taylor, Bart Tucker, Thomas Tyshko, Brent VanDeman, Bill Wade and David Blake Werts.

VOLUNTEERS The FOHBC is looking for help and volunteer work for the many projects and initiatives of the organization. This includes a mid-atlantic imager for the Virtual Museum, a Merchandise Director, researchers for the Virtual Museum, Houston 24 volunteers, local and regional show reporters, help with advertising and sales, online Zoom Seminar presenters and AB&GC writers.

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

WANTED: Anything to do with Dr. E. R. Clarke from Sharon, Mass.

All bottle sizes and variants, labeled or unlabeled, pontiled or unpontiled plus any related ephemera such as advertising, billheads and historical information.

Charlie Martin Jr. 781.248.8620 cemartinjr@comcast.net

Make plans to participate in or attend an exciting antique bottle and glass judged competition at Houston 24!

This year at Houston 24, we will entertain three categories in our competition including (1) best Texas Embossed or Applied Color Label Soda Bottle, (2) best Texas Medicine (Includes bitters, cures and remedies, but does not include drug store) and (3) best Glass Insulator.

Let’s see if you have a contender that can pass muster with our paneled judges! First, second and third place awards will be given.

As with all FOHBC National events, security will be provided. For additional information please contact Ferdinand Meyer V at fmeyer@ fmgdesign.com. See FOHBC.org Info Packet Competition Application for more information. Entrant registration will be at 6:00 pm in the adjacent Room with a View.

Walk-in contestants encouraged and allowed!

(1) Best Texas Soda Bottle.

Embossed or Applied Color Label.

(2) Best Texas Medicine (Includes bitters, cures and remedies, but does not include drug store) (3) Best Glass Insulator.

The event will be catered with Hors d’oeuvres. Cash bar. Parking at Hotel ZaZa is $12 for Event.

Info: FOHBC.org

Thursday 01 August 2024 [7:00 to 9:00 pm] Hotel ZaZa Grapevine Hotel ZaZa Museum District, 5701 Main St, Houston, Texas 77005, 713.526.1991

November – December 2023

67

Sho-Biz Calendar of Shows FOHBC Sho - Biz is published in the interest of the hobby. Federation-affiliated clubs are indicated in red. Information on upcoming collecting events is welcome, but space is limited. Please send at least three months in advance, including telephone number to: FOHBC Sho-Biz, c/o Business Manager: Elizabeth Meyer, P.O. Box 1825, Brookshire, Texas 77423; phone: 713.504.0628; email: fohbcmembers@gmail.com Show schedules are subject to change. Please call before traveling long distances. All listings published here will also be published on the FOHBC.org website.

20 & 21 October 2023 – Jacksonville, Florida 53rd Annual Antique Bottle Collectors of North Florida Show & Sale, Saturday 8:00 am to 2:00 pm, Fraternal Order of Police Building, 5530 Beach Boulevard, Jacksonville, Florida 32207.

Free Admission. For more information, contact Mike Skie, Show Chair, 3047 Julington Creek Road, Jacksonville, Florida 32223 at 904.710.0422. Early Admission Friday, 2:00 to 5:00 pm $30, 5:00 to 7:00 pm $20, jaxbottleshow@yahoo.com 21 October 2023 – Macungie, Pennsylvania Forks of the Delaware Bottle Collectors Association 49th Annual Bottle and Antique Show & Sale, Saturday, Oct. 21, 2023, 9:00 am to 2:00 pm, $3 Admission, Macungie Memorial Park Hall, 50 Poplar St., Macungie, PA 18062. Early Shopper Admission at 7:30 am ($20 admission fee for early shoppers) For info: Bill Hegedus 610.264.3130, forksofthedelawarebottles@hotmail.com For updates see our Facebook Page–Forks of the Delaware Bottle Collectors, FOHBC Member Club 27 & 28 October 2023 – Nashville, Tennessee Area Tennessee Bottle Collectors Presents their Nashville Area Antique Bottle & Advertising Show, Wilson County Fairgrounds, 945 E. Baddour Pkwy, Lebanon, Tennessee 37087, Behind Expo Center, I-40 Exit 239B, Friday 2:00 to 7:00 pm Early Buyer $15 Admission, Saturday 8:00 am to 2:00 pm Free Admission. Dealer Set-up: Friday: 1:00 pm, Saturday: 7:00 am. For Show Info or Vendor Contract, Contact Show Chairmen Greg Eaton: at 865.548.3176 or Stanley Word at 615.708.6634, FOHBC Member Club 04 November 2023 – Royal Oak, Michigan The Metropolitan Detroit Antique Bottle Club’s 40th Annual Antique Bottle Show & Sale, 9:30 am to 2:30 pm, Admission $3, Early Admission 8:00 to 9:30 am $25. Free Appraisals! Royal Oak Elks Lodge #1523, 2401 E. Fourth Street, Royal Oak, Michigan 48067, Contact: Mike Brodzik, Club President and Show Chairman, 586.219.9980, bottlemike@outlook.com, FOHBC Member Club 04 November 2023 – South Boston, Virginia 3rd Annual Southside Virginia Bottle & Collectibles Show, Factory Street Brewing Company, 301 Factory Street, South Boston, Virginia. 24592, Saturday, 10:00 am to 3:00 pm, Setup: November 3, 2023, Admission $5, Early admission $10 on Friday, 3:00 to 7:00 pm during set-up. South Boston-Halifax Co. Museum, Contact: Paul Smith, Museum Coordinator, P.O. Box 383, South Boston Va. 24592, 724.986.6416, info@sbhcmuseum.org 05 November 2023 – Elton, Maryland The Tri-State Bottle Collectors and Diggers Club 50th Annual Show & Sale, Singerly Fire Hall, Routes 279 & 213 (I-95 exit 109A), 300 Newark Avenue, Elkton, Maryland 21922, 9:00 am to 2:00 pm, No Early Admission, Dealers only entry at 7:30 am for Set-up, Admission: $3 per person, Children under age 12 free, Contact: Dave Porter, President, 100 Jarmon Road, Elton, Maryland, 21921, 717.779-8324, daveelle@msn.com, FOHBC Member Club 05 November 2023 – Orland Park, Illinois 54th Annual 1st Chicago Bottle Club Show & Sale, 9:00 am to 2:00 pm, $5 admission at the ‘NEW LOCATION’ Orland Park Civic

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Center, 14750 S. Ravinia Avenue, Orland Park, Illinois 60462, Show Chairpersons are Jen and Mario Pisterzi, 219.306-5702, mariopisterzi@yahoo.com, FOHBC Member Club 10 & 11 November 2023 – Auburn, California ’49er Historical Bottle Association Best in the West 45th Antique Bottle & Collectibles Show, Gold Country Fairgrounds & Event Center, 1273 High Street, Auburn, California 95603, Friday Early Admission Noon to 5:00 pm – $15, Public Saturday 9:00 am to 3:00 pm. Set-up Friday Noon to 5:00 pm. For show info contact: Mike Lake, PO Box 799, Foresthill, California 95631, 530.333.5696, m.lake.foresthill@gmail.com, FOHBC Member Club 12 November 2023 – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania The Pittsburgh Antique Bottle Club’s 53rd Annual Show & Sale, 9:00 am to 2:00 pm, early buyers 7:00 am, $25. Admission is $3. PittsburghAntiqueBottleClub.org, Elizabeth VFD Event Center, 107 Market Street, Elizabeth, Pennsylvania 15037, Contact Info: Bob DeCroo, 724.326.8741 or Jay Hawkins, 724.872.6013, FOHBC Member Club 19 November 2023 – Greensboro, North Carolina Greensboro Antique Bottle & Collectibles Show at the Farmer’s Curb Market, 501 Yanceyville Street, Greensboro, North Carolina 27405, Sunday 8:00 am to 2:00 pm, No Early admission, Set up: Sunday 6:00 am to 9:00 am. Cost of admission $1, Contact: David Erickson, 257 Palomino Trail, Lexington, North Carolina 27295, 336.247.1928, dave.erickson111@gmail.com 19 November 2023 – Pompton Lakes, New Jersey North Jersey 53rd Annual Antique Bottle Show and Sale, 9:00 am to 2:00 pm, Pompton Lakes Elks Lodge #1895, 1 Perrin Ave., Pompton Lakes, New Jersey 07442, just off I-287 Exit 57 or Rt. 202., $3 admission, Children Free, $15 early admission (8:00 am), Featuring all types of antique bottles, glassware, stoneware, advertising, postcards, small antiques, etc., Sponsored by North Jersey Antique Bottle Collectors Ass’n, Vendor info: Call Ed 201.493.7172 or email metropetro222@gmail.com, All welcome!

FOHBC Member Club 07 January 2024 – Taunton, Massachusetts Little Rhody Bottle Club Show, Taunton Inn, formerly Clarion Hotel. Exit#25 off Route #495, 700 Myles Standish Blvd., Early Admission $15 at 8 am. General Admission $4 at 9 am. Times 8 am to 2:00 pm. Contact Bill or Linda Rose, sierramadre@comcast.net or 508.880.4929, FOHBC Member Club 18–20 January 2024 – Muncie, Indiana Midwest Antique Fruit Jar & Bottle Club presents the 2024 Convention! Located at Courtyard by Marriott & Horizons Convention Center (401 S. High St., Muncie, Indiana) 52nd Annual Rendezvous Non-Stop 3-Day Event, Dealers & Collectors Get Together at Hotel. Swapping Jars. Swapping Stories. Culminating at the Show With Over 80 Tables, Thursday, Jan 18. Room-to-Room Sales, Hospitality Suite, Seminars/Tours, Friday, Jan 19, Club Meetings, Show & Tell, Auction, Saturday, Jan 20, 9:00 am to 2:00 pm, Free Appraisals, $2 Admission, Details at fruitjar.org. Special Hotel Rate is $119 per night. 765.287.8550, $40/First Table & $35 for Additional Table montyfoust@comcast.net 765.635.4626

20 January 2024 – Jackson, Mississippi 39th Annual Mississippi Antique Bottle, Advertising & Collectible Show, Free admission. Saturday 9:00 am to 4:00 pm; Mississippi Fairgrounds Trade Mart Building, 1207 Mississippi St., Jackson, Mississippi, Contact Cheryl Comans, 1211 S. Fifth Ave., Cleveland, Mississippi 38732, 601.218.3505, cherylcomans@gmail. com, FOHBC Member Club 04 February 2024 – Waukesha, Wisconsin 51st Annual Milwaukee Antique Bottle and Advertising Show, Sunday, February 4, 2024, 9:00 am to 2:00 pm, $6 admission. Early admission at 8:00 a.m. is $20. 140 sales tables of bottles, breweriana, and advertising. Door prizes. Waukesha County Expo Center, 1000 Northview Road, Waukesha, Wisconsin 53188.

Directions: I-94 exit 294 (Hwy J), then south to Northview Road. For further information: mabacshow@yahoo.com, FOHBC Member Club 18 February 2024 – Columbus, Ohio The Central Ohio Antique Bottle Club’s 53rd Annual Show & Sale, Sunday, 9:00 am to 2:00 pm; early buyers 7:00 to 9:00 am, $20. Admission is $5, Doubletree Inn, 175 Hutchinson Avenue, Columbus, Ohio (I-270 & Rt. 23); Contact Rojer Moody, 740.703.4913, rtmoody@juno.com, or Brad Funk, 614.264.7846, bradfunk@yahoo.com, FOHBC Member Club 10 March 2024 – West Friendship, Maryland The Baltimore Antique Bottle Club Show & Sale, 9:00 am to 3:00 pm, baltimorebottleclub.org, Howard County Fairgrounds, Main Exhibition Hall, 2210 Fairgrounds Road, West Friendship, Maryland 21794, Contact Info: Shawn Peters, Show Director, 240.508.1032, BaltoMd_stoneware@outlook.com. For Contracts: Micah Dolina, mdolina@hotmail.com, FOHBC Member Club 23 March 2024 – Daphne, Alabama The Mobile Bottle Collectors Club’s 51st Annual Antique Bottle & Collectibles Show & Sale will be held on Saturday, March 23, 2024, from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm at the Daphne Civic Center, 2603 US Hwy 98, Daphne, Alabama 36526. Free Admission and Bottle Appraisals. Dealer Setup is Friday, March 22, 2024, from 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm and Saturday from 7:00 am to 9:00 am.

For more information, contact Rod Vining at 251.957.6725, Email: vinewood@mchsi.com or Facebook: “Mobile Bottle Collector’s Club Show & Sale.” See Sales Table Application and Contract on website, FOHBC Member Club 05 & 06 April 2024 – Reddick, Florida The Deland Antique Bottle Show at Turkey Creek, Saturday, 06 April, 8:00 am to 3:00 pm, Friday, 05 April, Early Buyers $20 and Dealer Set-up 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm. FREE admission Saturday, Turkey Creek Auctions Building, 15323 NW Gainesville Road, Reddick, Florida 32686; Contact Ronnie McCormick, 352.262.8672, oldflabottles@ gmail.com or Louise O’Quinn, 386.943.2766, edlouise210@gmail. com, FOHBC Member Club 07 April 2024 – Hutchinson, Kansas The 17th Annual Kansas Territory Bottle & Post Card Show & Sale, General Admission: 9:00 am to 3:00 pm. Kansas

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

Sho-Biz Calendar of Shows

State Fairgrounds, Pride of Kansas Building, 2000 N. Poplar Street, Hutchinson, Kansas, Info: Mike McJunkin, 620.728.8304, scarleits@ cox.net or Mark Law, 785.224.4836, kansasbottles@gmail.com, FOHBC Member Club 14 April 2024 – Bloomington, Minnesota North Star Historical Bottle Association Presents its 52nd Annual Antique Bottle, Advertising, and Stoneware Show and Sale, 9:30 am to 2:30 pm at the Knights of Columbus Event Center, 1114 American Blvd. West, Bloomington, Minnesota 55420.

Info: 651.271-3423, AKonitzer1@gmail.com or 952.221.0915, steve@antiquebottledepot.com, FOHBC Member Club

31 July 2024 – Brookshire, Texas Houston 24 Peachridge Glass “Glass in the Grass” Sell antique bottles and glass and related antiques from the back of your vehicle or from under a self-provided tent at “Glass in the Grass.”

Open to all antique bottle and glass dealers even if you are not setting up at the Museum (see below). $25 gate fee. Relax, mingle and wander under the many large pecan trees surrounding the hay field. First come-first choice in dealer location. The temperature on the lower Brazos River plains is typically pleasant during summer hours of the event. Please contact Ferdinand Meyer V, fmeyer@fmgdesign.com for information. FOHBC National Event

01 August to 04 August 2024 – Houston, Texas FOHBC 2024 Houston National Antique Bottle & Glass Exposition hosted by the Houston Museum of Natural Science and the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors.

Brought to you by Peachridge Collections LLC. Host Hotel: Hotel Zaza Museum District. Featuring American Antique Glass Masterpieces – A major, museum exhibition showcasing the Sandor P. Fuss Collection and selected highlights from the David P. Wilber and Anthony Gugliotti Collections. Please contact Ferdinand Meyer V, fmeyer@fmgdesign.com for information. FOHBC National Event

20 April 2024 – Columbia, South Carolina The South Carolina Bottle Club’s 51st Annual Show & Sale, 206 Jamil Road, Columbia, South Carolina 29210, 172 tables last year with room to grow! Saturday 9:00 am to 4:00 pm, Donation at the door suggested, Dealer Only Set-Up 7:00 am to 9:00 am, Jamil Shrine Temple, Contact: Marty Vollmer 803.629.8553, martyvollmer@aol.com or Art Gose 803.840.1539, scbottlehunters@ gmail.com, FOHBC Member Club 04 May 2024 – Gray, Tennessee State of Franklin Antique Bottles & Collectible Assoc.

26th Annual Show & Sale, Saturday, May 4th, 9:00 am to 3:00 pm, Appalachian Fairground, 100 Lakeview Street, Gray, Tennessee 37615, Exit 13 on I-216, No Early Admission. Contact Kenneth Depew, President, 4017 Rick Slaughter Ct., Kingsport, Tennessee 37660, 423.817.3298, kenshell@chartertn.net, sfabca.com, FOHBC Member Club 11 May 2024 – Gardendale, Alabama 4th Annual Alabama Bottle & Antique Show, Saturday, May 11, 9:00 am to 3:30 pm; Free Admission and Appraisals. Gardendale Civic Center, 857 Main Street, Gardendale, Alabama 35071 (10 minutes north of Birmingham). Info: Keith Quinn: 205.365.1983, klq1812@gmail.com or Steve Holland, 205.492.6864. Visit our Facebook page Alabama Bottle Collectors’ Society.

FOHBC Member Club

01 - 04 August 2024

SOUVENIR PROGRAM

17 & 18 May 2024 – Bellville, Ohio The National Association of Milk Bottle Collectors (NAMBC) will hold its annual convention for milk bottle enthusiasts from throughout the United States who will gather to buy, sell, and trade bottles and other dairy memorabilia while socializing with fellow collectors. The 2-day event includes exhibits, an auction, an awards banquet, an ice cream social, and several educational seminars. The event has a 40-year history which is testimony to its continuing popularity. This year’s convention will take place on May 17 & 18, 2024 at the Quality Inn & Suites in Bellville, Ohio.

19 May 2024 – Washington, Pennsylvania Washington County Antique Bottle Club 50th Annual Show and Sale, Alpine Star Lodge, 735 Jefferson Avenue, Washington, Pennsylvania 15301, Admission $3, 9:00 am to 2:00 pm, Early admission $25 at 7:30 am. Info: Ed Kuskie, 412.405.9061, 352 Pineview Drive, Elizabeth, Pennsylvania 15037, bottlewizard@ comcasat.net, FOHBC Member Club

November – December 2023

Support the FOHBC by advertising in the FOHBC Houston 2024 National Antique Bottle & Glass Exposition Souvenir Program. Contact Ferdinand at fmeyer@fmgdesign.com 69

THE AUSTRALIAN

BOTTLE & COLLECTABLES REVIEW

For all the latest THE AUSTRALIAN BOTTLE & Australian news! COLLECTABLES REVIEW

Quarterly publication of 36 pages.

Many of the consumable goods in 19th century Australia were supplied by both England and the United States, resulting in some nice bottles of U. S. origin having been found in Australia.

January-March, 2023

$65 per year.

PayPal: abcr@bigpond.com

Email: travisdunn@bigpond.com

ABCR Auctions often offers items of U. S. interest, such as these upcoming items to the left. Also operated by Travis Dunn, this auction can be found at: Untitled-1 1

9/01/2023 9:28:54 PM

www.abcrauctions.com

Auctions run every three months.

Email: info@abcrauctions.com Free to register.

Low commissions.

Reliable condition assessments.

70

FOHBC Advert.indd 1

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

23/03/2023 4:49:55 PM

Membership Benefits & Display Advertising Rates The Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors (FOHBC) is a non-profit organization supporting antique bottle and glass collecting. The goal of the FOHBC is to promote the collection, study, preservation and display of historical bottles and related artifacts and to share this information with other collectors and individuals.

Membership is open to any individual, club or institution interested in the enjoyment and study of antique bottles and glass. Membership benefits include: –Antique Bottle & Glass Collector (AB&GC), the official publication of FOHBC and the leading publication for those interested in antique bottle and glass collecting and all associated ephemera. Annual subscription includes 6 issues (bi-monthly) of this all-color, 72-page plus covers publication. (Digital memberships also available.)

–Free classified advertising in AB&GC. Ads may be up to 100 words for items of $25 or greater value; and one free ad of 60 words each year For Sale, Wanted, or For Trade. (Restrictions apply and free ads are limited to the first received for available space.) Ads appear on the FOHBC website also. See page 72.

–FOHBC.org, a comprehensive website dedicated to the organization and hobby, providing access through the Members Portal to the latest news in the collecting world, Membership Directory, archived magazine issues, indexed articles, Federation meeting minutes and announcements, and a vast assortment of research material.

–Virtual Museum of Historical Bottles and Glass, the most comprehensive antique bottle and glass experience on the Internet. Spinning images of museum-quality examples of antique bottles and glass, including well-researched history of the manufacture, distribution, and use of each item.

–Auction Price Report, an online resource which includes the sale price and description of anything auctioned by the top antique bottle and glass auction houses in the past decade. Easy to use. Updated annually. (Password protected.)

–National Shows and Conventions, featuring displays, educational seminars, membership meetings, social events, and banquet with interesting speakers, all centered around a first-class sale event. Members are eligible for discounts on “Early Admission” or table rental.

–Newsletter, digital presentation of periodic postings to keep FOHBC members up to date on current issues affecting the hobby.

Affiliated Bottle Club Membership brings these additional benefits to your group: –Federation-sponsored Insurance Program for your show and any other club-sponsored activities. (Application required for each event.) Value of this is many times more than the cost of club membership.

–Club Display Ad in AB&GC at discount of 50%.

–Free Club Show Ad on the Federation website to increase your show’s exposure.

Where there’s a will there’s a way to leave Donations to the FOHBC

–Free Links to Club Website; Social Media (Facebook) exposure.

Did you know the FOHBC is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization?

–Free Federation Ribbons for Best in Show and Most Educational display at your show.

How does that affect you? It allows tax deductions for any and all donations to the FOHBC. You might also consider a bequest in your will to the FOHBC. This could be a certain amount of money or part or all of your bottle collection. The appraised value of your collection would be able to be deducted from your taxes. (This is not legal advice, please consult an attorney.) The same-type wording could be used for bequeathing your collection or part of it; however, before donating your collection (or part of it), you would need the collection appraised by a professional appraiser with knowledge of bottles and their market values. This is the amount that would be tax deductible.

Thank you for considering the FOHBC in your donation plans.

For more information, questions, or to join the FOHBC, please contact: Elizabeth Meyer, FOHBC Business Manager, P.O. Box 1825, Brookshire, Texas 77423; phone: 713.504.0628 or email: fohbcmembers@gmail.com.

Visit us at FOHBC.org November – December 2023

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Membership Application, Classified Advertising & Article Submission

FOHBC Individual Membership Application For Membership, complete the following application or sign up at FOHBC.org (Please Print)

Name_________________________________ Address________________________________ City __________ State___________________ Zip ___________ Country _________________ Telephone_______________________________ Email Address_____________________________ Collecting Interests ________________________ ____________________________________

Do you wish to be listed in the online membership directory?(name, address, phone number, email address and what you collect) { } Yes { } No Would you be interested in serving as an officer? { } Yes { } No

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector Free Ads Category: “WANTED” Maximum - 60 words Limit - One free ad per current membership year.

OR Category: “FOR SALE” Maximum - 100 words Limit - 1 ad per issue.

(Use extra paper if necessary.)

Would you be interested in contributing your bottle knowledge by writing articles for our magazine? { } Yes { } No Would you be interested in volunteering

Additional Comments _______________________ to help on any FOHBC projects? { } Yes ____________________________________ { } No Membership/Subscription rates for one year (6 issues) (Circle One) (All First Class sent in a protected mailer)

United States

- Standard Mail - Standard Mail w/Associate* - Standard Mail 3 years - Standard Mail 3 years w/Associate* Digital Membership (electronic files only)

$40 $45 $110 $125 $25

1st Class $55 1st Class w/Associate $60 1st Class 3 years $125 1st Class 3 yrs w/Assoc. $140

Canada – First Class $60 Other countries – First Class $80

- Life Membership: Level 1: $1,000, includes all benefits of a Standard 1st

Class membership. No promise of a printed magazine for life.

- Level 2: $500, includes all benefits of a regular membership but you will not receive a printed magazine, but rather a digital subscription.

Add an Associate Membership* to any of the above at $5 for each Associate for each year.

Associate Member Name(s) __________________________________

*Associate Membership is available to members of the immediate family of any adult holding an Individual Membership. Children age 21 or older must have their own individual membership.

Associate Members enjoy all of the rights and privileges of an Individual Membership.

Signature ______________________________ Date _______________ Please make checks or money orders payable to FOHBC and mail to: FOHBC Membership, Elizabeth Meyer, P.O. Box 1825, Brookshire, Texas 77423, Phone: 713.504.0628 Email: fohbcmembers@gmail.com

Affiliated Club Membership for only $75 with liability insurance for all club-sponsored events, 50% discount on advertising in Antique Bottle & Glass Collector, plus so much more, Contact: FOHBC Business Manager: Elizabeth Meyer, PO Box 1825, Brookshire, Texas 77423, 713.504.0628, fohbcmembers@ gmail.com 72

Clearly Print or Type Your Ad Send to: FOHBC Business Manager: Elizabeth Meyer, P.O. Box 1825, Brookshire, Texas 77423; phone: 713.504.0628; or better yet, email Elizabeth at: fohbcmembers@gmail.com

Magazine Submission Requirements: We welcome the submission of articles and related pictures pertaining to antique bottle and early glass collecting, our hobby, digging, diving, and finding, as well as other interesting stories.

SUBMISSION POLICY—Articles: All Antique Bottle & Glass Collector articles or material needs to be submitted via an FTP site, email or hard copy.

Electronic text files should be in Microsoft Word.

Electronic photo files should be in JPEG, TIFF or EPS format.

Resolution of 300 dpi at actual publication size is preferred but as low as 150 dpi (at double publication size) is acceptable.

SUBMISSION POLICY—Classified ads: All ad copy should be typewritten, clearly & legibly printed, or sent via e-mail.

The FOHBC will not be responsible for errors in an ad due to poor quality, illegible copy.

The FOHBC reserves the right to refuse any advertising.

Please send articles/images to fmeyer@fmgdesign.com or mail to business manager noted on bottom of previous column.

Antique Bottle & Glass Collector

$575 August 2017 Heckler Auction #154 84: “General Washington” And Bust – “E Pluribus Unum / T.W.D.” And Eagle Portrait Flask, Kensington Glass Works, Philadelphia Pennsylvania, 1820-1830. “Firecracker” Blue aquamarine with a strong olive tone, sheared mouth – pontil scar, pint; GI-14 (light exterior high point wear). Bill and Betty Wilson collection.

$8,960 May 2012 American Glass Gallery #8 26: “General Washington” And Bust – “E Pluribus Unum T.W.D.” And Eagle Portrait Flask, Kensington Glass Works, Philadelphia Pennsylvania, 1820-1830. “Firecracker” Medium red amber with a strong olive tone, sheared mouth – pontil scar, pint; (light exterior high point wear). GI-14.

Dr. Timoth Shuttle collection.

251: “General Washington” And Bust – “E Pluribus Unum / T.W.D.” And Eagle Portrait Flask, Kensington Glass Works, Philadelphia Pennsylvania, 1820-1830.

“Firecracker” Medium amber with a strong olive tone, sheared mouth – pontil scar, pint; (light exterior high point wear). GI-14.

Tremont Labeth collection.

$65,520 February 2019 Heckler #180

$15,690 September 2020 Glass Works Auctions #121

215: “General Washington” And Bust - “E. Pluribus Unum / T.W.D” And Eagle Portrait Flask, Kensington Glass Works, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1826-1840.

Medium cobalt blue, sheared mouth - pontil scar, pint; (light exterior high point wear). GI-14 Known as the “Firecracker Flask”, this iconic piece is both beautiful and historically important. Fine condition with bold embossing. Ex Edmund and Jayne Blaske collection, Dr. Charles and Jane Aprill collection.

251: “General Washington” And Bust – “E Pluribus Unum / T.W.D.” And Eagle Portrait Flask, Kensington Glass Works, Philadelphia Pennsylvania, 1820-1830. “Firecracker” Medium amber with a strong olive tone, sheared mouth – pontil scar, pint; (light exterior high point wear). GI-14. Dr. Gary and Arlette Johnson collection.

Firecracker GI-14

Available only to FOHBC Members!

Online Auction Price Report. Search on your smartphone, tablet or desktop computer. Includes 10 years of results from American Bottle Auctions, American Glass Gallery, Glass Works Auctions and Heckler in Phase 1. The Auction Price Report will only be available to FOHBC members. Joining the FOHBC will give the new member 24/7/365 access. What a great tool this will be for the collectors, diggers, pickers, researchers and the generally curious!

Visit FOHBC.org Members Portal

$15,690 September 2020 Glass Works Auctions #121

FOHBC c/o Elizabeth Meyer, FOHBC Business Manager P.O. Box 1825 Brookshire, Texas 77423

FOHBC Member. Please check your mailing address and subscription status above and notify us of any corrections.

Don’t miss one issue of AB&GC. Keep your FOHBC membership up to date!

Visit us at FOHBC.org