Dug a broken clear cylinder from an 1880's privy in Ky. Embossed "E J Baldwin/ Santa Anita Vineyard/ San Gabriel Valley/ Los Angeles Co./ California/ Brandy". Rarity? Value?
I have told the story of my bottle collecting beginnings, this specific bottle was among those I found the first day in the attic of an 1882 house in Tustin, California. I foolishly sold or traded it off many years ago. I would dearly enjoy having a nice clean example of one of these. I can tell you they are not common, I have seen only one or two available in 40 years. Thanks for sharing, it brought back memories. Jim
Thanks Jim. The rarity was what I wanted to know. I thought they might be common in the West, and I'm glad they're not. I found some history about Mr Baldwin and his ranch online, but nothing on his bottles.
Yea, he was quite the guy in the L.A. area around 1900 +/-, you probably found that his nickname was "Lucky". The bottle may be more common than I remember, I haven't looked for one in 30 years or more, if it really matters you might want to dig further. If you run across one or more I would be interested. Jim
Jim is correct re rarity, I have only seen one in 1964 when I started digging/collecting bottles, a guy dug it out of a dump in Stockton California on Washington street. It must have not been very good brandy since there are only a very few examples around....Andy