Friday, August 30, 2013

Summer Finds #3

My second trip to the Coventry, Ct. bottle show wasn’t very productive.  I bought three bottles total.  I then made a choice I should have made last year, and went into the museum.  Who would have guessed they had a whole table of bottles for sale inside!  Most were common, but they were all for sale for a $3 donation per bottle.  Needless to say, I donated $30 and left a happy camper.  My favorite bottle of the bunch was a Doctor Bannon’s Emulsion Cod Liver Oil.  While I have no concrete evidence that this is a RI bottle, I do have a strong argument.  Thomas J. Bannon was a pharmacist from Westerly, RI.  I have a bottle of his embossed “Doctor Bannon’s Red Root Balsam.”  The fact that doctor is spelled out, and that I cannot find reference to any other Dr. Bannon in the northeastern US has me pretty much convinced that this is a very rare (even unique!) Westerly, RI medicine bottle!


Another Otis straggler was a U.S. Bottling Co. Providence, RI ABM crown top.  I had already acquired this 7-1/2oz. bottle from the Otis collection in aqua, and this example was in clear with embossing variants.  They are both unlisted.


I have been pretty negligent when it comes to spur-the-moment stops at active construction sites.  I noticed two months ago that a slope in front of an old house had been graded to make visibility on a side road better.  A quick stop revealed glass shards, but the owner was not home.  So, when I drove by it last month and saw a car there, I had to stop.  The owner was a very cool guy who showed me all around and was all for me looking for bottles!  So, I took out the gear and went to town.  I had to be careful not to make a huge mess on the side of the road (less I incur the wrath of the DOT).  The best find was a real crier.  I liked it enough to bring the shards home and tape them together.  It was a Lymansville Soda Bottling Co. Raffaele L’Bello, Prop. Lymansville, RI.  As far as crown top sodas go, this is about as good as you could ask for!  There is a very rare blob soda from Lymansville, but it is not related to this company.



Last time I went to the Stillwater Antique Center I saw a Royal Carbonating Co. Providence, RI. shoulder embossed ABM crown top soda.  I didn’t even debate paying the $12 asking price for the badly damaged soda, it was way too much.  What would the odds be when two weeks later; I found one during my first river dig of the year?  It was free, and in better condition!




As I mentioned above, I was excited to finally buy some waders that did not leak and get back to wading the rivers of RI.  I also found a James Lavell Fountain St. Providence, RI blob soda.  While very common, this unlisted version had a comma after St., and a comma after the R in R.I. (whoops!).