Tuesday, October 8, 2013

More on the M. FRISIUS & CO / PURE HOLLAND GIN / SAN FRANCISCO bottle

Once in awhile a new discovery comes along that just gets the bottle collecting community excited! One such example came to my attention over the Jefferson State Antique Bottle and Insulator show weekend in Oregon. Steve Hubbell, an advanced western glass collector shared his new acquisition with a handful of western glass enthusiasts at a gathering at the Mlasko's home. This new find certainly peaked my interest and after seeing the posting on this site, I thought I would interject some addtional information on this product. It is likely that this bottle was manufactured and marketed during a relatively short time frame probably from the inception of a partnership created by M. Frisius and his cousin A. Frisius around March 1858, which resulted in the firm now known as M. Frisius & Co. Below is the copartnership notice.

The M. Frisius & Co imported many products during their tenure together, champagne and various liquors were all imported in bulk. On May 14th, 1858 an article showed that M. Frisius had received through the Customs House 15 pipes of Gin.

The partnership between M. Frisius and A. Frisius lasted three years before ending. It is likely that the bottle in the previous post is a result from this association. Although the company name remained the same, I have found no evidence to indicate the marketing of a gin product during the remaining time that M. Frisius & Co was in business from the date of the partnership dissolution to the end of business in 1862.
 

9 comments:

  1. This bottle is an amazing find. I know of one other shard of this bottle but it is not large enough to decipher the complete embossing. The mystery has now been solved! I would be curious to know if any other pieces have been found in the Gold Country or in SF. Dale M.

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  2. A small shard of this bottle was dug in the Grass Valley area by B.K. a couple of years ago along with some Jockey Clubhouse Gins and other gin and schnapps bottles. If memory serves all that we could make out was a few of the letters of San Francisco. Now I know what this shard was from.
    rs

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  4. The bottle that was dug in San Francisco is embossed Royal Palm Gin and was put out in 1873-1875 by Epstein & Co of IXL fame. According to reports it has a Renzs style top. Wonder if it is curved R ?

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  5. Andrew,
    The bottle you refer to is embossed ROYAL PALM GIN on one panel and L.G. & Co on the opposite panel. It stood for Louis Gross & Co. There are 3 examples of this bottle, and they do exhibit an applied tapered collar with lower ring style of mouth.

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  6. The ROYAL PALM GIN bottles do not exhibit the stylized letter R or curved legged R as some collectors refer to it.

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  7. I dug shards of one panel of this bottle about 30 yrs ago in NorCal. When shown a shard of the part saying "Frisius" at the Bottle Camp picnic a few yrs ago, Eric McGuire was the first person to identify that the bottle was Western, its age,and what the bottle possibly contained. He wrote a nice article on Frisius in the Santa Rosa Northwestern Bottle Club's newsletter.

    AP

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  8. For what it's worth, looks like M. Frisius & Co. continued after 1862 - the SF City directory for 1862 has Frederick A. Frisius listed at 224 California, and described as "Successor to M. Frisius and Co." And there's an ad in the February 09, 1850 Placer Times for a firm called Pajeken, Frisius & Co, listed on Pacific Street, San Francisco. "have constantly on hand a large assortment of wines, liquors, glass, hardware and dry goods" (sorry can't copy it from mobile device). According to the 1858 SF City director, M. Frisius is Martin - A. is most likely Anton (34 Front St.) and in 1859 they are together at S Market between Beale & Fremont.

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    1. I am happy to read your post, Librarian. J.H.Blote whose wife relation was a wine and liquor wholesaler in San Francisco. Have you heard of Blote's Bitters

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