The next dig at the Warwick
dump was wet and wild. I had invited a
few fellow diggers, and despite the drizzle which turned into rain, we all
stuck around. I was happy to find an Empire Bottling Co. Cranston, RI blob,
which was my 8th version.
Next I uncovered a large and plain looking food bottle. It had a sun embossed on the front, and I was
in near disbelief when I saw the back heel was embossed Queen Cordial Co. Providence, RI!
There are only a handful of embossed food bottles from RI, so this was
an exciting find. A later dig turned up
an unembossed (sun only) example, which adds to the mystery.
I had found a few dozen “slicks”, or plain unembossed
bottles in this dump, which is typical.
The ratio of unembossed to embossed medicine bottles in this dump was somewhere
around 20 to 1. One of these so-called
slicks had G.L.C. & Co. embossed
on the base. Typically a base mark like
this is almost a trademark for the company that produced the bottle. However, I remembered seeing a label only
Geo. L. Claflin & Co. medicine on ebay with this embossing on the
base. While it is questionable, I am
fairly certain this is a RI bottle.
At the last RI club meeting, I was happy to get a nice Jones & Davis Pharmacists Central Falls,
RI medicine. This is a much earlier
and more ornate example than the typical bottles from this company.
