cobaltbot
Well-Known Member
There's been some recent interesting threads on flask base marks. I recently reacquired a P.D. & CO. base marked flask. Today I got my ABGC mag in the mail and lo and behold there's a question about the P.D. & CO. mark in Digger McDirt. Digger gives the standard Parke Davis & Company answer but my research makes me reasonably certain that it stands for Packham DeWitt & Company a Baltimore based supplier of bottles and brewers supplies. It's a well established fact that his younger brothers were in the same business and I have flasks with their name on the base. Their older brother Eldridge is known for clear and amber half pint flasks with E. P. Jr & CO. on the base and this marking is also on the base of some South Carolina Dispensary bottles. Some of his other bottles are just base marked E. Packham & CO. Before 1891 he was in business with Charles DeWitt and my research has shown that this short lived partnership was also in the same business. I temporarily had the bottle pictured below and recently acquired another which I cataloged with Doc at the last Baltimore club meeting. Chris, aka baltbottles agrees with my theory - adding that the strapsided form has a Baltimore look to it as opposed to strapsides from other nearby eastern cities. I've posted here before about this but I think I'll write a letter to the editor for ABGC as food for thought. The only (non Parke Davis) bottles I've seen with this mark are amber half pint flasks.
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