Welcome back! I’d
like to start up where I left off, at that exciting dig in Shannock. There was actually more to the story I
neglected to mention. Before venturing
into the river, I talked to a tenant in one of the old mill houses. He had the fortune of being there when the
old dam was taken out, and had some bottles from the excavation. Nothing struck my interest until I saw an
unembossed beer bottle. Well, not
exactly. It was an acid-etched bottle
that read Narragansett Brewing Co.
Famous Export Lager Prov. RI. Acid
etching was a cheap method of marking bottles but was rarely used and is most
commonly found on wine bottles. Soda and
beer bottles are scarce, so it made this one of the rarest Narragansett
bottles. He was curious of the value,
and I said given the heavy wear and scratching, I thought it was worth around
$10-15. I was pretty surprised when he
then offered it to me for $5! We became
fast friends and had many a pleasant chat on the river while I dug away.
Sometimes you find a really uncommon bottle, then déjà
vu! It happens again like something from
the Twilight Zone. While browsing the Richmond Antique Center,
I came across another acid etched RI beer in a display of bottles. This one was an Eagle Brewing Co. Prov. RI.
I actually passed up the $12 tag, and then came back the next week. I figured how often do you see acid etched RI
beers? Almost never!
I remember one particularly exciting ebay auction a few
years ago. Someone had amassed an
impressive collection of Bristol,
RI pharmacy bottles. There are very few known, and given how lots
on ebay usually sell cheaper than separately listed bottles, I put in an
aggressive bid and won the lot. I was
initially disappointed by the numerous chipped bottles that were not mentioned,
but after getting a partial refund I was able to appreciate the lot. There were a total of four new J.H. Young variants, which was the only
listed Bristol
druggist online at the time, and three new druggists. There was a Morris, Bedell, and my
personal favorite, W.H. Buffington. With that addition I involuntarily became the
authority on Bristol
druggists.
Until two years ago, the only bottle show I had attended was
the Little Rhody Bottle Club’s annual show.
So when Al Otis invited me to come to the Merrimack Bottle Show in Lowell, Mass, I gladly
tagged along. Upon arriving, I was
pretty overwhelmed. It was significantly
bigger than the Rhody show, and while it was heaven there was almost too much
to process. I wasn’t even able to see
all the tables, and left with two boxes of goods. Among them was an unlisted Providence medicine, A.J. Hopkins & Son. It’s
an unassuming square bottle, but I remembered that A.J. Hopkins put out a quack
medicine that was listed on the website.
His Magic and Improved Magic Healing Powders were both rare
bottles.
I’ll finish up with a rather iconic RI medicine bottle. The massive chemical company Caswell & Hazard of Newport and New York produced some
of the nicest colored RI medicines around.
Particularly well-known are their
square cobalt bottles embossed with their motto “Labor Omnia Vincit” (Hard work
conquers all). There are three
generations of this bottle, in order of succession: Caswell Mack, Caswell
Hazard, and Hazard Hazard. The newest
generation, Caswell & Massey, is still around and there are rumors that
they put out the “LOV” bottle too. They
are actually quite common, with around 10 cobalt blue examples surfacing on
ebay each year. The scarcer colors,
including amber and clear, are harder to find but cheaper. I somehow acquired three amber examples but
was too cheap to competitively bid for one of those blue ones. One day I just decided to lay down the cash
and bought one for a reasonable total of $37.50. I was pleasantly surprised when it came in
the mail and found it to be an unlisted smaller size! The embossing was also very bold, which was a
bonus since most examples have weak impressions. I still have a long ways to go to catch up to
David Andrews, but I have a start…
