I have neen collecting A.P. Hotaling bottles and memorabilia for many years, and have compiled the most complete history of his companies and their products known to date. I will not refute Mr. Heinemann's article, as it is based in fact, but missing several details.
Hotaling is not known to have produced a pint flask in the earlier years, but Martin did. The fact that the bourbon it contained was a spurious product caused it to be a poor seller, resulting in it's relative scarcity. I doubt that many flasks were blown, and fewer survived to this day. Hence the importance of having this example in a J.H. Cutter collection.
Rather than bore the members of this forum with the mundane trials of of those halcyon days of San Francisco liquor industry history, I'll just toss in a few more of Mr. Hotaling's more interesting bottles.
I'll do some fill in of info, one of these days, Warren. Thanks for the kind comments and reply to my posting.
Value is relative, but let's just say that the entire group would expect to bring no less than 25K, but probably a little closer to 30. The green ones, being an exceptional color, are very rare. I have other specimines of the same bottle in other shades of amber, but only one in true green.
The left bottle and the one next to it are from Hotaling's Portland, Oregon agency. They are out of chronological order, the second one is actually his first pattern from up there. The green one is his first embossed S.F. type, and dates from 1866 to '71, or so. The crown on shoulder is second. It was made from about 1872 to '77. The last, or OPS(Old Private Stock) goes from it's trade mark year of 1874 to the late '80s.
It is unfortunate that the claims of trademark files for these bottles have all been stolen from the CA State Archives. I have no idea where they are, but know that I don't have them, nor does anyone else I am familiar with.