These photos are from a very rare bottle from my collection which is the N. B. Jacobs San Francisco Seal Wine with Star. This bottle probably dates from the late 1860's and this specimen was dug by Dave Hartley when he lived in Sonora. He dug it from the dump which is just South of the town by the Water Treatment Plant. He kept it for all of these years and I can understand why as it is a great specimen with nice crudity and a great laid on lip ring of a top with some nice stretch marks. I think there are probably less than five known. I think Richard Siri has one, and anyone else is free to add in if they have one.
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Dr. Miller's Ratafia Damiana was a bitters product marketed by, sole agents for the Pacific Coast, Siebe Bros. & Plagemann. It is believed that in 1878 the Siebe brothers formed a partnership with Jacob Plagemann and began operating a wholesale liquor house. The Ratafia product was only marketed for a very short time, possibly from 1878 to sometime in 1879. The bottle itself is a whiskey shaped 6th size and is heavily embossed on the face. It has the large size flat lettering and curved "R's" associated with western glasshouses. There is a winged lion or sphinx looking creature holding a big wineglass full of, what I assume is, Dr. Miller's Ratafia Damiana and looking pretty pleased with his choice of beverage. The bitters product was a franchise from Dr. Charles Miller and was compounded from the damiana plant that grows wild in Mexico and Central America. It is claimed that the damiana plant acts as a tonic, laxative, stimu
lant and to have aphrodisiac properties. The damiana was mixed with a sweetened bitter almond flavored alcohol to produce the finished product.
Relation to Sierra County:
One whole medium green example of the large size Rosenbaums was dug by the author at Indian Hill in Western Sierra County. This bottle had a small base chip and was sold to a collector from Redding California. A broken green small variant Rosenbaums was also uncovered at Indian Hill by a Nevada City digger in the 1990’s. A base of a dark green large size Rosenbaums was discovered above the Ruby Mine by the author in 2008. To my knowledge these are the only examples of the Rosenbaums discovered in Sierra County.
cipe for bitters, and George Smith with the capital to produce and market the product, in 1853, formed the firm of Hostetter & Smith. The first containers produced for the western market were the large 31 ounce size black glass or amber bottles that were manufactured for the Pacific Coast. A 27 ounce bottle was also produced for the western market. These large blacks are rarely unearthed east of the Rocky Mountains and almost all examples have been discovered on the west coast. The large size Hostetter’s were distributed until sometime around February 1865 when in an advertisement run by Hostetter, Smith & Dean they claim to be discontinuing “the old size large bottle used exclusively in the west” and replacing it with the small size 20 ounce bottle. This information leads me to believe that if you are digging the large size Hostetter’s here in the west you are digging a bottle made before 1865 and possibly as early as 1858.
s of the 19th century and the amount of these bottles available to collectors is staggering. It is believed that after 1865 Hostetter was selling over six thousand bottles of bitters a day, an unbelievable amount of bottled goods for that time period. The Hostetter’s come in dozens of variants and a myriad of colors ranging from the lightest of yellows to a dark black-amber. Although the majority of the Hostetter’s are considered common, unusual colors and different mold variants are highly desirable and sought after by collectors.
Which product did James, Malcolm, Archibald, Thomas and Robert Turner fill their "Turner Brothers" square quart size bottle with ?
Chaparral Hill was located on the west side of Goodyears Creek, north of the town of Goodyears Bar, and was settled as early as the early 1850's. This small gold rush era camp, consisting of some roughly constructed cabins, mine buildings and a blacksmith shop, was entirely dependent on the drift and hydraulic mines of the area. The area was mined from the early 1850’s to sometime around the early 1870’s when the ancient river channel they were mining played out. This area was again mined during the depression years by the Thompson family without too much success. It is generally believed that Chaparral Hill was mined exclusively by the drift tunnel method of mining, but on one of several field trips to the area I found evidence to the contrary. The discovery of pieces of a hydraulic monitor, large cast iron diversion valves, remains of hand riveted iron pipe and a water ditch running from Goodyears Creek to the area indicate that hydraulic mining played a major role in the recovery of gold at Chaparral Hill.
The heavy winter snow, seasonal availability of water and rugged remote location, I believe, forced this camp or settlement into being a seasonal mining community. 
The example above, discovered at Chaparral Hill, is a six log variant with a smooth base and came out of the ground without any stain in near mint condition. This bottle shows the same characteristics as the 1862 patent drawing for the Drakes Plantation Bitters that is shown in the Ring - Ham Bitters Book.
There are conflicting theories on the origin of this bottle and even a report of an example of this un-embossed cabin style bottle with an open pontil on the base. Some collectors believe that this bottle was an attempt to counterfeit the Drakes Plantation Bitters. Other collectors believe that this cabin bottle was the prototype of the embossed Drakes Plantation Bitters and was first sold in bottles with paper labels. There have been other examples of this "Drakes Clone" un-earthed in Northern California, but to my knowledge, the Chaparral Hill example is the only one recovered from Sierra County.
The above post was taken from the forthcoming book "Gold Rush Camps & Bottles of Sierra County" by Rick Simi. This book will be available starting in September of 2009 at the Downieville Bottle Show.
