Bennet's Wild Cherry Stomach Bitters

Here is a crude square which is actually pretty rare. This is the first version of the Bennet's and was made from 1870 or so, through the late 1870s.
Joseph Souther apparently worked in the U.S. Branch Mint in San Francisco starting in 1862. He worked his way up into the treasurer's position. He partnered with Richard Chenery  who had a Naval background in San Francisco starting in the 1850s. and became a Navy agent in the 1860s. This partnership began in 1869 and the two purchased the rights to a bitters product from Henry Bennet. Bennet had been in the syrups, cordial, and medicinal bizz in San Francisco since the early 1850s Apparently Chenery and Souther did not pay very much for this brand, as Bennet died broke and his wife made a living as an artist which was not likely very lucrative. I believe even his young son had to find employment to make ends meet.
The embossed Wild Cherry Bitters is thought to have begun in 1870 or 71, and was produced until Chenery decided to go in to real estate in 1880, and the company became Joseph N. Souther & Co. At this point, the later "Celebrated Stomach Bitters" was produced in another amber square.
Wilson had the two variants of this bottle mixed up in "Western Bitters". The Wild Cherry was listed as "very scarce" while the later Celebrated version was listed as "very rare". it should have been the other way around as the earlier Wild Cherry is quite rare with maybe 20 in collections. There are likely 30-40 of the Celebrated Stomach Bitters in collections in my opinion.
The "Bennet's Wild Cherry Stomach Bitters" is beautifully embossed for a square. The arching pattern on both sides, as well as "sole agents" is extremely attractive. I have seen these in an "old" amber with some olive, through the gold tones, to a reddish amber. These do not become available very often and I cannot recall one being dug in good condition for a long time. Dale M.

Fuzzy Bennet's Tops $400

Last week on ebay this Bennet's Celebrated Stomach Bitters sold for $416.77.

Although the description left a bit to be desired "Nice western bitters in a medium amber color. Clean glass with no damage. Has nice applied top." and the pictures of the bottle were somewhat fuzzy, this Bennet's sold for what I thought was a reasonable price. Maybe the reason for the bargain price was the fact that only 6 bidders placed 16 bids during the 5 day auction.

That being said, it would be hard for this old collector to place a bid on a bottle that had a sketchy description, fuzzy photos and absolutely no picture of the top. But then, I guess I'm from the old school.

Contrasting colors of Western Squares

I noticed over on the Western Glob Top Whiskies blogsite they had been posting several examples showing the various hues of amber those cylinders come in. I thought our followers on this blogsite might enjoy seeing some western squares in some contrasting colors. The photograph below shows a orange-amber colored Bennet's Wild Cherry Stomach Bitters / Chenery, Souther & Co Sole Agents San Francisco, Cal. (I've also owned this bottle in an olive-amber coloration as well). Next to it is a Dr. Henley's Wild Grape Root IXL Bitters in yellow w/slight amber hue. Quite the contrast between these two squares in color.

The photograph to the right shows the two variants of the Hibernia Bitters in contrasting colors also. On the left is the later variant with Hibernia Bitters embossed horizontally across the front panel in a yellow color with slight amber hue. On the right is the Hibernia Bitters Braunschweiger & Bumsted San Francisco, Cal. variant in a reddish orange amber.