For quite awhile another Western Bitters News author and I have been throwing around the idea of writing a post on "What is Western"
I have asked a half dozen collectors what their definition of western is and have received six different answers. A couple of western collectors looked at me aghast when asked the "W" question, "Just what do you mean by that" or "What part of the country are you considering western" and "why do you want to know" Whoa' boys I'm not trying to pin the tail on the donkey - just asking a simple question. I sure don't understand why these so called "western " collectors get their hackles up when asked "What is Western?"
How about this reply - "To many Easterners the term west used to mean on the west side of the Mississippi or even the western end of Pennsylvania. So should we call the Ohio & Pittsburgh glasshouses western?". Gimme a break anybody knows Ohio isn't in the west, try heading a little further toward the Pacific Ocean feller. Here's one that got me to laughing- "I collect Arizona bottles, do they have to be made in Arizona or just say Arizona to be Arizona bottles?" Huh? Are western bottles only manufactured in San Francisco? Listen to this reply " I have a western whiskey collection, and I am personally not going to throw out all of my bottles that are not pictured in the San Francisco Glassworks display" Come on, start throwing those non S.F. Glass Works fifth's my way!
Most all bottle collectors seem to collect in some area, category or grouping. For instance some folks collect bottles that they found while others collect a type of bottle that is popular or heavily advertised as a desirable category. Other collectors try to put together groupings of what they feel are related bottles.
And then there is the western collector! Now a western collector can be a soda, whiskey, bitters, medicine, seltzer, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, Nevada or even a Hawaii etc. collector or all of the above. (can't get much further west than Hawaii unless you call Japan west) Some collectors specialize in whiskey bottles from Sacramento or soda bottles from Oregon. Others in western bitters blown at the Pacific or San Francisco glass works before 1870. Do you get where I am going with this? Well, lets try to put a few parameters on this whole western bottle collecting thing. Here are a few things to consider:
Should you consider a bottle western if it was blown in the east for an eastern merchant that was marketing the product in the west. I believe the Old Sachem Bitters & Wigwam Tonic, Bryant's Stomach Bitters, Liediard's Stomach Bitters, Catawba Wine Bitters and others fit into this category. The gold rush produced an instant market for any product that could be sent to the west. Are these western?
How about considering a bottle western if it was blown in the east for a western merchant that was marketing the product in the west. For instance, most of the pontiled soda bottles such as the Boley, Cudworth and the M&R and the early medicines like the Oil of Manzanita for Sacramento druggists McDonald & Levy fit into this category. Are you calling these western?
Oh, how about a bottle that was blown in a different country for a western merchant that was marketing the product in the west? The red whittled whiskies and bitters of the late 1880's come to mind. Is that what you would call western? Or would you call these foreign?
And then there's the ( what my old friend Roger Terrry would call the royal flush ) bottle that was blown in a western glass house, for a western merchant, filled with western ingredients, marketed exclusively in the west and discovered by a western bottle digger in a western state. WOW! THAT HAS TO BE WESTERN!
Andrew sent this picture of a Mason's Improved fruit jar sporting one of those very distinctive western "R's". Andrew reports that the jar was dug from a mid 1880's pit in central California and came out of the ground without any staining (i.e. sparklematic). He was wondering if anyone has seen another Mason's Improved with the western R embossed on it.
