Friday, December 23, 2016

From Charles Festersen

Hi - Rick:
At the 49er show you told me you were collecting western"R" bottles now so I thought I would send you a photo of one, I have, that I think is unusual. It is a gravitating stopper "Amador County / Soda Works". According to Tod von Mechow it is from Jackson, Calif. circa 1875 -1880. I am not aware of any other gravitating stopper bottles with western "R"s. Are you? Just for fun I will mention that the best deal on western "R"s is the C.A. Reiners & Co soda as you get 8 curved "R"s on one bottle! - Charles
 


 

13 comments:

  1. The Livingston's Blackberry brandy bottle has 7 western R's in its embossing, a close second.

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  2. The Ceribelli gravitator from SLO has a curved R. Any others?

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  3. What was the last year we find the curved R's embossed on the Western bottles? I was looking at my beers and only see this "R" on the BOCA.
    Ken

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  4. I believe the "western R" was used from 1872 through the mid 80s.

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  5. Probably the earliest western R that we are talking about might be the Henley's OK Bitters, isn't that about 1871?

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  6. Boca was still in business in the 1890's so maybe molds from the 80's were still being used?

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  7. I agree Warren...I think the OK Bitters was one of, if not the first western R bottle...the Regulator is right about there in age too. The Chittum Bitters is also 1872.

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  8. Empire Soda Works Vallejo grav has a couple....

    AP

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  9. The question "What was the last year we find the curved R's embossed on the Western bottles?" was posed.

    There were two notably different molds produced for the Choice Old Cabinet brand, sold by Crane Hastings & Co. of S. F. Both had the stylized "serif" R's.

    The early glop top mold with the rounded play-dough embossing dates ca. mid 1870's - 1880s.

    The later chisel point embossing variant, which only comes with a tooled top and which has an overly accented "hitch legged R" in Bourbon, dates ca. late 1880's - very early 1890's.

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  10. W.E. DEAMER Nevada Soda Water Co. Grass Valley, Nevada Co. Cal. Gravitating stopper soda (( older variant) has curved R's.

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