Some Recent Finds

Here's a couple of pictures of some recent finds here in California's gold country. Appears the highlights of this dig include a Schnapps, western soda and some food and wine bottles.

Very nice.... Keep them bottles coming out of the ground boys!

That empty Coors light can behind the bucket might give you a clue to one of the diggers. rs

Some Close up Pictures of "Blue"

I am not sure what feature, or group of features, triggers "WESTERN" in a collectors mind. Is it the top or the shape of the indented panels or maybe the color of the piece. How about the semi flared out base.

One thing is for sure. If more than one of these beauties have been recovered from the "left coast" they were more than likely distributed out here.










Interesting flared base with a dot in the center











Square collar top with a ton of spillover and what appears to be lipping tool marks on the spillover?

Not a very handsome top for such a regal looking bottle.

Western or Eastern? The jury's still out for me.
rs

Western or Eastern?

The bottle pictured at left just closed on Ebay.
Described as:
"Up for sale here is an extremely rare version of a western blown piece of glass in the form of a bitters bottle. The color on this example is just stunning on this label only example. The shade is a vivid sapphire blue color, and the early ring banded top is heavily applied. The drip goes way down below the lip, and all the way around, (see pictures). Half of the drip acually curles outward! There is no embossing on this bitters bottle, and it has the three indented panels, with one being perfectly flat. There is a certain dot on the base, (so common to the early western bottles). The glass is definetely western made, and was probably blown at the San Francisco Glass Works in the late 1860's to early 1870's. The color is the same as on the early Dickey chemists medicine bottles. This bottle is in near mint condition, with a small open bubble made in the inmanufacturing process (where the neck meets the shoulder), and a small chip on the lower edge of the drip, (see pictures). This example was never pro cleaned, as there is a bit of patchy haze in the neck and shoulder area. These flaws are non detracting from this wonderful piece of western glass. The glass is sparkling clean overall. Bottle was found about 10 years ago in the San Francisco, California area on a construction site by a construction worker. It measures 9" tall, and 2 7/8" square across the base. This bottle has a very interesting and appealing shape to it, and it is quite heavy for its size, due to the thick glass. This is a bottle that I have not seen around before in my 35 years of bottle collecting. You will be extremely pleased with this top shelf example of a western made bottle! The pictures do not do this bottle much justice."

Western? Eastern? I don't know how you can prove one way or another just where this bottle was made. One thing is for certain, someone felt this bottle was desirable enough to pay over $600 for it.

Around the Local Net

Late last week my trusty laptop melted down. I’m not talking about it losing all of my information or even catching the flu or a virus, I’m talking a literal meltdown. I was running low on battery and plugged the power cord into the laptop and FLASH! Everything went black.

After a 100 mile round trip to buy this new laptop I started to put my favorites list back together. As I started bookmarking the usual sites that I regularly visit I really started to take a good look at some of the bottle related websites that I quickly scan.

After checking the Western Bitters News for new posts and comments my first stop is the Western Glob top Whiskey site. Usually, with the amount of followers that the site garners, some new comments or posts appear almost daily and, after being offline for a few days, was pleasantly surprised to see the post on the W.S. Wright soda and the museum post. http://www.globtopwhiskies.com/

Old West Bottles has been energized with a western bottle auction, a renewed trading post and 25 new digging pictures. Take a look at the new revitalized Old West Bottles and these great digging pictures. http://www.oldwestbottles.com/Dig_Pics.php

Our friends “up north” have a couple of good western bottle sites to enjoy and the Western Whiskey Gazette is loaded with information on both tool and globby whiskies. http://www.westernwhiskeytooltopgazette.com/

Looking for a nice western bottle to add to your shelf? Oregon Trail Antique Bottles always has in stock a nice selection of western fifths, flasks, bitters and medicines for your purchasing pleasure. http://www.oregontrailantiquebottles.com/

American Bottle Auctions site has some interesting commentary and plenty of pictures of all types of bottles, bottle people and other related subjects. At present they are advertising a new auction starting this spring. I sure hope Jeff’s planning a ”valley spring” and not a “mountain spring” auction. Spring up here in this high country canyon sometimes doesn’t start until June. http://americanbottle.com/

Yep, there’s lots of other bottle related sites, and they pack plenty of information and pictures, but next time you click on one of our “local” sites take a good look around. I think you’ll be glad you did.

Lyon's Powder

Rick's thoughtful post about these beautiful little insect poison bottles urged me to show some of my small collection of them. Lyon's. Like Rick said, Lyon's Powders are found in nearly every city and town, but rarely in the gold camps of the Sierra. A few have been found along the Pony Express trail in upper El Dorado County, as well as in dumps from the many inns and toll stations that dotted the old road to Washoe. Vermin of all sorts were common to every place where the unwashed resided, but the rough and tumble residents of the high lonesome camps most likely took them in stride and were not likely to fork over hard won dust for a tiny bottle of supposed relief. In the more populated areas, where the locals were of a more fastidious nature, and cleanliness was next to Godliness, the product was in great demand. In the Valley, Sacramento and Marysville have produced these little gems in good numbers. Up country, you have Placerville, Auburn, Grass Valley, and Nevada City, all places that Lyon's turn up.

In the photo are examples of just a few of the many colors that open pontiled Lyon's Powders were blown in. The large size one is gasoline puce and was not dug in California. It came from Brooklyn, NY, a metropolis where many hundreds of these bottles were used and discarded. Thankfully, plenty of them survived to grace bottle collector's shelves.

Lyons Powder

I just happened to run across this 1851 ad for steamer passage to New York.

Among the amenities they offered to their passengers was free "bug powder".

Maybe some of today's motel chains should offer the same.

Lyon's Powder B&P N.Y.

Emanuel Lyon is reported to have started in business as early as the late 1840’s at 424 Broadway in New York City. His embossed bottle is believed to have been produced starting sometime in 1859. Embossed LYONS/POWDER on the front shoulder of the bottle and B&P N.Y. on the reverse shoulder. The B&P embossed on the reverse quite possibly stand’s for the wholesale drug firm of Barnes & Park who were also located in New York City.

Collectors believe Lyons Powder was used as a dusting powder to kill household bugs and insects. Redington & Co., San Francisco wholesale druggists, lists the Lyon’s product as a flea powder in several of their early advertisements.

This bottle comes in two sizes with the large size being the rarer of the two variants. The Lyons can be found in several different colors ranging from amber to yellow, puce, aqua and various shades of green. These bottles were made for a long period of time; the earliest variants come with an open pontil, and the later found with a smooth base.

The Lyons bottle is often found in the larger camps and towns in the California gold rush country. Here in Sierra County, in the smaller settlements and camps, we rarely find any Lyons bottles. Seems like the small camps didn't have bug problems, or if they did, Schnapps, Gin and bitters was the preferred remedy.

How about some green Jakes?

Winter Blues?

Some of us cope differently. No white stuff for me, I'll take the warn sun of the Big Island. Breakfast, anyone? Starfruit, papayas and mangoes fresh picked in the yard.


Hiking is another part of life on Hawaii. Nothing is more than 4 hours away. The Kohala Coast is sparsely populated and has some great hikes. Steep, but doable in flip flops if you wish.


"The Crew" down in Pololu Valley.


Eating is also a big thing over there. We have a big kitchen so hardly ever go out to eat. Plenty shopping in Kona. Costco, Safeway, Walley World, etc. Sittin' down to dinner.


We share with out little friends, too. Geckos are everywhere, inside, outside, but they keep the bugs down.

Winter Blues

Here are a couple of pictures that one of The Western Bitters News' favorite digger’s sent me.

I suspect some of you think its all sunshine and warm weather out here in the west and when we’re not digging bottles we might be surfing or playing golf.

Looks like old Cal49er has his hands full trying to keep us in power.
It might be a while before we get to do any digging up this way

rs

Two Thousand Ten - Some Awesome Finds

HAPPY NEW YEAR

From the WESTERN BITTERS NEWS

and the DOWNIEVILLE BOTTLE SHOW

Wishing you health and wealth in the coming year.... The Downieville crew..........

Tim & Fran - Rick & Jackie - Lou & Leisa - Warren & Linda - Charlie & Tina - Rick & Cherry and of course Bob K.

See ya September 10, 2011 when the snow's melted.

Western Wines

After seeing that CC & B, I was a bit reluctant to post this, but I opened one of my Christmas presents a few days ago, and was thrilled to see these western blown wines!

Apparently my wife acquired these at the Canyonville show last October from my good friend Jeff Hooper in Washington. I kept noticing he, Dennis Eastley, and her in some type of covert discussions but never thought she was wheeling and dealing on these wines, and the Henley's. They were stored secretly in my basement for the months since. I NEVER go down there anymore, as Lance Westfall used his "ghost detector" on his I-Phone recently, and the radar showed several ghosts, or spirit activity. I have not gone down there since!

I now have 16 of these beautiful wines, and each one is a different color. It is interesting ( though not as interesting as a CC & friggin B soda), that the Henley's Celery Beef and Iron is the exact same mold as the regular unembossed wines. I have seen these in some wild colors, and would love an ice blue one.

Happy New year to all! I just want to dig a W B Shasta...I guess that is next?

Dale M.

Recent Finds

How about these recent finds.

All I received was this picture, no other information was provided.

Nice looking blue bottle in the center!

Thanks,

rs

GOLD RUSH SQUARES

More Than Meets Your Eye
The California gold rush produced some interesting and rare products that were contained in square glass bottles. Gin, various brands of schnapps and more than a handful of medicated, aromatic and other vague sounding alcohol based concoctions competed for their share of the California market.

Did the companies that produced and sold these products understand or care what words they had blown in the containers that held their products? I, for one, think they probably did. They chose carefully what they had embossed in their bottles to entice consumers, that could read, into buying their product. For those potential customers that couldn’t read, horses, jockeys, animals and other attractive objects were blown into their glass bottles. I’m not an expert on 1850-60s’ marketing, but I do know a little about the California gold rush. During the beginning of the gold rush you could sell anything you could get to California. Not so true during the mid to late 1850’s. By the late 1850’s every liquor distributor on the east coast was “riding the elephant” and the California market was flooded with goods from the east. Just take a look at any late 1850’s California newspaper and count the advertisements for cases of liquor products being auctioned right off of the wharf that the supply ship was moored to.

What this all boils down to is the competition was extremely fierce during the late 50s’ and early 60s’. Liquor distributors had to use their wits to compete in an over supplied market. “Medicated Gin”, “Aromatic Schnapps” and “Club House Gin” were but a few of the products that were being pushed on the buying public. The advertisements for these products claimed to cure as many ailments as the patent medicines of the period. Oh, and by the way, they tasted better and left you feeling tipsy if not downright comatose.

Ever wonder what these early gold rush squares contained? I certainly have. Two of the foremost products were Gin and Schnapps.

Gin - we all know that gin is a strong colorless alcoholic beverage made by distilling or redistilling rye or other grain spirits. There were dozens of varieties of gin and each agent claimed theirs was the best tasting, most medicinal or had the greatest healing properties.
London Gin is your basic run of the mill dry tasting gin and usually doesn’t have any flavorings or spices added. Old Tom Gin is a lightly sweetened gin that was very popular back in the day. Dutch or Holland gin was typically distilled from Juniper berries and had a distinctive aroma and flavor. And then there’s the medicated gin (containing some sort of medicine), Cordial Gin (a stimulating and invigorating concoction), Clubhouse (high class belonging to a club) kind of gin and it goes on and on.

Schnapps, on the other hand, is a Dutch spirit distilled from potatoes and sometimes other grains. Schnapps was possibly the first widely distributed liquor based product during the gold rush. We find scads of them in the early gold rush camps and towns here in California, and like the gins, there were dozens of different brands and types.

Udolpho Wolfe’s Aromatic Schnapps, the most common of schnapps found here in California, was a distilled spirit flavored with spices to give it a pleasing aroma and flavor. Voldner’s Aromatic Schiedam Schnapps was distilled from juniper berries, and as such, had a very different aromatic flavor.
The word Schiedam refers to not only to the city in Holland but to a particular type of schnapps. The recipe for Schiedam schnapps varied by manufacturer but almost always included the addition of honey, nutmeg and orange flower water to give it that “aromatic” flavor. Yummy! Schnapps was always advertised as a medicinal product and recommended for family consumption.

Next time you take a gander at one of various Clubhouse gins, aromatic schnapps, or one of the dozens of colorful embossed or un-embossed glass containers that made their way to California during the middle of the 19th century. Remember you're not just looking at a piece glass, you're looking at a GOLD RUSH SQUARE!

Thanks to Max Bell for the pictures and contributions to this post

Bryne & Castree

Here's another ad I found in the Daily Alta California. Seems Bryne & Castree (the dynamic duo) had a little run in with Henry Bryne and had their property sold at auction.