Winter Finds #5

Well I must say it has been quite a while since I have been completely “caught up” with this blog!  I suppose I’ll have to blame the frozen ground and single digit temperatures.  Ebay was gracious enough to offer me a Bailey & Eaton Paraffine Sewing Machine Oil. About two years ago I made a chance purchase of a Bailey & Eaton Gun Oil bottle which I later discovered was from Boston/Providence.  This is the same deal, and just as rare!

The bottle show also bequeathed me with a nice green Liberty Club Beverages Providence deco soda.  While these are common in clear, you don’t come across the green one often, which is an unlisted color.

I recently contacted a local digger who had done a lot of digging in the 1970s-80s.  While he had sold most of his finds off, I was able to get a few to make the visit a fruitful one.  A Mt. Hope Distilling Co. Providence, RI soda was surprisingly ABM (machine made).  These bottles are very common, but they stuck with handmade bottles until they went out of business thanks to the prohibition.  This must have been one of the last bottles the company made.

Another exciting online purchase was a P. Lynch Bottler Nasonville, RI soda.  Surprisingly, I do have one of these rare unlisted sodas, but this one is quite different, and quite striking for a crown top.  Patrick Lynch ran the Western Hotel before McManus & Mead took it over.

While there was a little frost to contend with this mid-January, a backhoe will always solve the problem!  My last venture to the mega-dump produced a real crier.  It was a Drink Modox mug with an Indian head on it!  This Moxie imitator lost a lawsuit with Moxie, but not before making some of these beautiful advertising mugs.  It’s not technically a bottle, but I figured it deserves a mention!

Winter Finds #4

Last year I had a collector contact me asking me about some RI bottles he had bought in a display case full of odds and ends.  They turned out to be some rather nice RI pharmacy bottles.  It took me a while to finally organize a meeting, but it finally worked out last month.  He had already sold one, but I was able to get the remaining three, two of which were unlisted.  An A.O. Austin Pharmacist Providence is hard not to like.  This example has a different address and is a different size than the listed examples.

I was particularly happy to acquire a Farnham & Cundall Pharmacists E. Greenwich, RI.  This is probably the earliest pharmacy bottle from East Greenwich, and while one is listed as rectangular, this one is square.

I still have a few gaps to fill in on my E.P. Anthony Inc. Pharmacists, Providence RI run.  This 3-3/8” tall example was an unlisted size.

January is a bad digging month, but it is also host to the Little Rhody Bottle Club’s annual show.  I didn’t make any earth-shattering discoveries, but I was happy with what I got.  An Otis Clapp & Son with two lions on the front was a nice one to check off the list.  This uncommon example even had the original label with an illegible handwritten prescription.  

Another medicine I acquired was a Thomas M. Dorney Pharmacist Providence, RI.  It’s a nice pharmacy bottle that is simply packed with embossing.  At 4” it was an unlisted size.

Winter Finds #3

Welcome back!  I will finish up the Bristol adds today.  While it wasn’t unanimous, I would say my favorite discovery of the lot was an E.F. Hodgkinson Smith St. Providence, RI whiskey bottle.  It is a brand new bottle, and the name and location are pretty cool.  Research didn’t turn up much, but it appears Mr. Hodgkinson was one of the founding members of the Mt. Hope Distilling Co., a very successful company.

I almost passed a Maine Bottling Co. Inc. Providence, RI quart crown top, but took it home just in case.  My other example was nearly identical except it was a darker aqua, and did not have Inc. embossed. Better picture to come!

I was finally able to obtain my third size Purogen medicine (technically it was an antiseptic), which measures a cute 2-1/2”.  That leaves around 3 more sizes to track down, let the hunt begin!

A dig in Warwick unearthed quite the surprising find.  A broken John F. Perry Narragansett Pier, RI soda bottle had made a considerable journey from its hometown.  While the top is missing, I am almost certain that it was a crown top.  This narrow style bottle is unlisted.

Another bottle from the same dig has also seen better days.  An American Bottling Co. West Exchange St. Providence (blob?) didn’t take too kindly to being buried in this dump.  While blobs from this company are very common, I have never seen one with this address embossed on the front, making it unlisted!