deepbluedigger
Posts: 231
Joined: 1/12/2006
From: Yorkshire, England
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quote:
ORIGINAL: GuntherHess
quote:
Guys I collect English pontiled meds, live in the UK, buy a lot of US-found English bottles via eBay and directly from friends in the US, and there's just no way that's an English bottle.
Deepblue, I would like to hear your reasoning on that. Do you agree with the same arguments Chris made against it being English or are there other reasons? I dont believe it is English either but the shape and embossing might lead people to think that.
Hi Gunther,
This is an ongoing story, the whole 'British or American' thing. There are huge numbers of US bottles here in the UK that are sold and re-sold as being English. Turlingtons, Dalby's and Essence of Peppermint are the 'worst', but also Hastings Naphtha Syrup, Buchans Hungarian Balsam and many others. All of those except the Hastings also exist in genuine English versions, which just adds to the confusion. I will be adding a 'British or American' page to the diggersdiary website in the next month or two, which hopefuly will be useful.
For this Braddee bottle there are four things that, together, mean (to me) it is 100% American made.
1. There is really solid documentary evidence that Bradee was a US proprietor selling home-grown US medicines. A really interesting guy, who died in prison in 1846 - he was sentenced in 1840 or '41 for robbing the US mail (see http://elements.fay-west.com/pdf/haddens/ch27.pdf), so it's a bottle with really great provenance. If I was a US pontil med collector I would be finghting to get this bottle. But I'm not a US collector. Although it is a great bottle and if money was no object ...... !
2. The inward rolled lip. Chris and I agree 100% on this. British bottles with inward rolled lips are rare as hens teeth. To the point that they almost don't exist.
3. The open pontil mark is quite small, and would be very unusual if it was an English example.
4. The colour is very, very, rare on early English bottles. Green yes, olive yes, but this green-with-lots-of-yellow (or yellow with a hint of green, perhaps)? Almost never.
The body shape is very similar to many English Cordial Balm bottles (Dr Solomons, for example), and the embossing is also English in style, but that is not enough to overturn the four points above.
Of course, there's always the chance that I'm wrong. But I doubt it on this one.
< Message edited by deepbluedigger -- 12/3/2007 2:10:55 PM >
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RE: colored pontil medicine-cure - 
Quite confusing sometimes.
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