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!

Winter Finds #2

Welcome back!  I will continue to cover the finds from the Bristol purchase.  A nice Patrick Sheehan Newport, RI blob seemed a little different.  Sure enough, all the listed versions have P. Sheehan instead of Patrick.

I was excited to find a Shiloh Bottling Works Providence, RI soda with an embossed Indian among the fray.  I had one of these which met an untimely demise.  My first example was listed and had a round slugplate.  This one has an oval slugplate and additional embossing.

Another soda that I hadn’t seen until last year was a Star Soda Bottling Works East Providence.  This version is listed in aqua, but not in clear.

A rather familiar bottle was a McKenna Bros. Eagle St. Providence, RI.  It was one of my first RI blob sodas, but this might be a variant.  The listed version has the maker, Karl Hutter New York on the base.  This one simply says K. Hutter NY.  I will have to check my other example to make sure.  Update:  I checked, and it is indeed a variant!

Another bottle that has appeared with some regularity was a Phosa ABM crown top.  It comes in handmade and machine made versions.  I noticed this one had 7oz. embossed on the heel, which my other example lacks.

Winter Finds #1

Well, I finally caught up to the present season!  While the weather is hostile towards diggers this time of year, there are plenty of other ways to find bottles!  That's not to say I get the occasional case of cabin fever, and go out and give the frozen ground a run for its money.  Luckily I have plentiful options to keep me busy right now.

The Little Rhody Bottle Club has an annual Christmas party, and of course what is a club party without bottles?  I was happy to be gifted a J. Scheminger Providence, RI blob.  I had two examples from this unlisted bottler, and thought this was one of them until I took a closer look.  I’m proud to be the owner of this third version!

I had bought a few bottles from another club member, and one of them was a McKenna Bros. Brovidence (error), RI blob.  I didn’t realize it was an error bottle until I was holding it!  There is an error version listed, but it does not mention the embossing being on the shoulder.

Another find from the club meeting was a Jacob Wirth & Co. Prov., RI blob.  I almost automatically pass these by now that I have so many, but I noticed Registered was embossed on the back of the neck.  I had a crown top example like this, but not a blob.

 

It was about time for Craigslist to produce a good lead (there seems to be 2-4 per year on average), and sure enough it did!  I met a collector from Bristol, RI who was thinning out his collection.  It was an early Christmas for me, which included a handful of nice unlisted RI bottles.  A plain but still neat find was an Echo Bristol, RI ABM crown top.  The listed example of this soda has the proprietors names (Moren & Sullivan) embossed as well.

I kept my embossing error streak alive with a The Ewd. Smith Co. Patwucket, RI whiskey.  While Ewd can still work as an awkward abbreviation for Edward, I’m sure Mr. Smith wasn’t too happy with the engraver!

Fall Finds #10

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 8^th 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. 

I also acquired a nice G.T. Dana & Co. Pharmacists Pawtucket, RI.  The round with flat front panel shape and 8” size make it the most impressive bottle from this company.

Fall Finds #9

A few months ago I had eyeballed a Yacht Club Bottling Works Centerdale, RI shoulder embossed soda.  It sported a higher than appealing price, but I made a note to check the size.  Sure enough, it was a pint sized bottle, which was unlisted. 

 

Responding to a Craigslist post almost turned out to be a wash.  Aside from one RI blob, I finally added an amber ABM Otis Clapp & Son Incorporated medicine.  It is only listed as BIM.

It was finally that time of the year again!  After a lot of procrastinating at river sites, I finally revisited the Warwick dump.  It had met the owner back in March, and we had made an agreement of $1 per decent, undamaged bottle.  I had found enough to see the site had immense potential.  Summer brought an impenetrable blockade of Japanese knotweed.  This revisitation was an exciting one, as I got a hand from a backhoe.  The landowner dug up a spot I was skeptical of, and before long I had my hands full!  One semi-crier was a Cappelli Bros. Spruce cor. Sutton St. Providence, RI blob.  This is an early (1880s) blob from before A.F. and Nicola Cappelli went their separate ways.  This example had a period after Spruce and Providence.

The Warwick dump produced a lot of Roger Williams Bottling Co. Cranston, RI sodas.  A crown top with the HK monogram turned out to be another variant, this one being my 13^th!

Last but not least was a Natick Bottling Co. Natick, RI blob.  Crown top sodas from this small town are uncommon, and a blob is unlisted!