New Western Glass House Reference Book

[westernbittersnut]

A new book containing 236 pages and 289 19th century advertisements and articles has gone to the publishers. This book is the most comprehensive and will be the definitive work on the subject of western made bottles. If you have any interest in this subject matter, you may want to purchase a copy.

I am accepting orders and today is the last day, October 17th. This will be a ONE time printing. The book will be a hard case cover with a sewn binding, printed on 100 lb high gloss paper in color. The price is $100 and is being pre-sold. If interested call me at (530) 265-5204 and I will put your name on the list, or if you have any questions.

Please send a check to Warren Friedrich, 11422 Ridge Road, Nevada City, Ca. 95959

 

[RED Matthews]

Hello Warren, I am in the process of going south for the winter, but I am interested in your book. I realize today is the last day of commitment, but I will check this out again this winter. Thank you, it sounds interesting. RED Matthews

 

[GuntherHess]

what percentage of it would you say deals with patent medicines?

If 17 oct is the last day to order and I sent a check it seems like my payment would be past the cutoff date for ordering?

 

[westernbittersnut]

Red,

The publisher has told me that to do a second printing would have another set-up cost and that the printer and bindery services would probably not honor the same cost as they have quoted me for this first printing. My cost is almost the price I am selling the book for. I researched this specific subject matter for 3 years and have gathered all the original sources of material by those who wrote about and visited these glassworks while in operation. The book's subject matter covers 1859 through 1899 and discusses 10 different glassworks including Baker & Cutting, San Francisco Flint Glass Works, Pacific Glass Works, San Francisco Glass Works, San Francisco & Pacific Glass Works, California Glass Works, Oakland Glass Works, etc.

With the demise of S. F. & P. G. W in 1899, I cut off including any further glass works such as Stockton Glass Works, Pacific Coast Glass Works or Illinois Pacific Glassworks as these all started in the 20th century. I wrote about the early glass works of California only.

I was able to procure use of some never before seen photographs from archives in S. F. and was given permission to scan at a high resolution and have included them in this book. If you are interested in western glass manufacturing this book is a must. I would need to know by late tonight if anyone is interested and I will include you on the list when I give the publisher the exact count tomorrow morning. A check can be sent to me, it does not have to be in my possession before tomorrow to receive a book, but must be sent before I pick up the order from the publisher. Thanks for your interest.

Regards, Warren

 

[westernbittersnut]

GuntherHess,

The book does not specifically discuss any particular patent or proprietary medicine bottle. The subject matter is broken down into 3 parts. Part 1 discusses the beginnings through the end of 10 different California Glass Works from 1859 through 1899.

Part 2 discusses and shows photographs of original glass making tools used by the workman who the western glassworks imported from Pittsburg and Philadelphia glass houses in the 1860's and 1870's including original moulds, blowing irons, lipping tools, tongs, snap case and sabot tools.

Part 3 discusses 9 different bottles that were likely blown by these glassworks, mostly bitters bottles [because that's what I collect and was able to provide the complete history of the product]. Incorrect information on these bottles were written about in earlier publications that I wanted to correct for those bottle collectors that have these examples. Such as Cassin's, Lacour's, Simon's and others.

Included in this book are some never before seen photographs of the glassworks display of their ware. This includes medicine bottles, fruit jars, whiskies, flasks, whimsies, target balls, druggists ware, bitters, pepper sauces, pickles, berry, demijohns, carboys and other interesting styles, shapes and sizes of containers.

Warren

 

[westernbittersnut]

I thought maybe I should state the reason on how this book came about. I am a western bitters collector and I wanted to to know who made these particular bottles and which glassworks produced them. This led into an intense research effort which took 3 years of my time to gather. I decided to try and compile this information into a book, just for my own accord. I did not have any intentions to try and market a book to the public, but some of my collecting friends heard me talking about this project and stated that they would be very interested in reading my research material on this subject. So I decided to print ONLY enough books for those western glass collectors that have a passion, thirst or hunger to learn all they could. At the present I have 93 confirmed orders and that will be all that is published unless I hear from anyone else and payment is sent.

Questions such as how many bottles could a glass blower make in a day? How many bottles did the glass houses keep in inventory at times to sell? How much did the glass works sell these bottles for to the trade? How much was the glass blower paid for making these bottles? What kind of bottles were these glass works making when they were visited by the various newspapers who wrote about their operations at various times?

This book will not answer everyone's questions, but it is filled with incredible information from the sources who visited and wrote about their operations at the time. I have used virtually NO information that wasn't written at the present time these glass houses were in operation. There is very little commentary from the author [me] or conjecture. I wanted the reader to have the facts as they were written at the time. I hope this helps.

Regards, Warren Friedrich


This book subject was posted on the Globtopwhiskies blogsite as well as the Tool Top Whiskey Gazette blog site by members and site owners a few days back. I apologize for the lateness of posting on this website.

 

[GuntherHess]

sorry , I thought incorrectly that it covered western bottles.
Its a bit too specialized for my needs at the moment.
Sounds like an interesting topic though.

 

[westernbittersnut]

Actually that is all this book is about, western manufactured bottles during the beginning through the end of the nineteenth century.

 

[RED Matthews]

Questions such as how many bottles could a glass blower make in a day? How many bottles did the glass houses keep in inventory at times to sell? How much did the glass works sell these bottles for to the trade? How much was the glass blower paid for making these bottles? What kind of bottles were these glass works making when they were visited by the various newspapers who wrote about their operations at various times?

I like your questions here. Have you found references or answers to any of them? One book that helped me some, was titled "The Mouth-Blown Bottle" by Grace Kendrick. I read the whole book three times and then created sections of special descriptions. Great book, that may be a little early for you bottles, but very interesting. This woman got into early bottle making to the point that she even learned to blow some of them. RED Matthews

 

[westernbittersnut]

This book answers those questions exactly and a LOT MORE. It is the most comprehensive work ever done on this topic. It is written as a reference book and I expect that buyers will be reading this book over and over because there is so much information pertaining to the glass works operations, description of dimensions, what happened to them, etc. Everything in this book is backed up with documentation. There is NO guesswork.
Warren