Sunday, May 8, 2016

Dr. Vincent



It's a kind of magic~

Dale stated in his post about Dr. Vincent; "While all are rare, I have never seen this version of the Magic".


The search for Dr. Vincent proved to be a tough one. 

The bottle looked ca. 70's to maybe early eighties to me. No listing for a Dr. Vincent, and or a D. B. Vincent popped up in any of the S. F. periodicals or directories during my initial target search. Just when I began to doubt the supposed western attribution, I  stumbled across a paper that I'd never heard of called the "Marin Journal".


Big as life, as if by magic, appeared an ad for Dr. Vincent's Magic Cough Cure. What really caught me by surprise was the date of the first advertisement; would you believe January 2, 1869.



Back tracking a bit, I pulled up the S. F. directories starting in 1869. Sure enough, 

I found this in the '68 directory;
 


1867 revealed the following;

No 1866 directory, but 1865 disclosed yet another address;


1864 marked his appearance on the scene in San Francisco. Plus,1864 reveals a bit more about the Doc. (first name Dresser) practicing as a "Botanic Physician", and yet another address (man did he move around!);;

The advertising was short lived though. The forth and final appearance of any sort of advertising for the product appeared roughly a month after it's introduction, (all in the same newspaper), and after Feb. 3, 1869, both the product and Dr. D. (Dresser) B. Vincent magically disappeared into oblivion.





No wonder it's a rare bottle!


3 comments:

  1. Actually you can see D.B. Vincent's advertisements for his Angel of Life as well as his Magic Cough Cure in the photograph of the Pacific Glass Works display at the 1869 San Francico Mechanics' Institute fair in my Early Glassworks book.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow ! What a killer example in western-blown green !!
    I have dug 2 of the Dr Vincent Magic Cough Cure bottles; 1 Western blown and the other Eastern blown. Have found 2 or 3 other broken examples. I was surprised to read that he folded in 1869, as all of the examples and pcs I've dug have come from mid to late 1870's context. Maybe another company picked up the brand ??
    AP

    ReplyDelete
  3. That is a possibility Tom. The embossing font is identical to the Dr. Wonser's Bitters, the McBride King of Pain, and Pratt's Abolition Oil. I would place this Magic in the 1872-4 range. The eastern blown variant has the double roll top, and look of a late 60's bottle.

    ReplyDelete