REAL or FAKE? opinions welcome!

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shauntos

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I'm New to this site and have a question regarding handwritten labels on psychoative medicines. Has anyone ever seen small handwritten paper labels on bottles w/ no maker name or city or anything, just says opium, or morphine...? Can you tell anything by the style of writing? Thanks for any info
This bottle says cannabis on the front(handwritten paper label) and says H.T. Helmbold on the side.
cannabis1.jpg

cannabis3.jpg

cannabis4.jpg

cannabis2.jpg

the next bottle says morphine on the front(handwritten paper label)
morphine1.jpg

morphine2.jpg

the next bottle says opium on the front(handwritten paper label) and S&C Pacific Pharmacy Eureka CA. on the back
opium1.jpg

opium2.jpg
 

capsoda

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RE: handwritten labels on psychoatic medicines, GREAT PICS!

Hey Shaun, Welcome to the forum. Hand writen lables were common in the 1800s and even into the early 1900s.

Don't open any of those bottles. the contents were extremely potent and will do things to a person like you never dreamed of in your wildest nightmare.
 

shauntos

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RE: handwritten labels on psychoatic medicines, GREAT PICS!

thanks for the advice capsoda i collect them to keep the contents inside the bottle and not in me!
 

GuntherHess

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RE: handwritten labels on psychoatic medicines, GREAT PICS!

Those labels look fake to me. They are on bottles that would have not been used for those types of contents. The morphine one for example would have been a perfume, the Helmbolt was a flavoring extract. It appears someone added the labels to try to increase the values of common bottles. The text on the labels doesnt look authentic to me. Just my opinion of course.
 

diginit

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RE: handwritten labels on psychoatic medicines, GREAT PICS!

Ouch! If those are real-Keep in mind that they are controlled substances and a felony to posess. And are worth $$$ on the street.
(I didn't see a thing)
Lay them on their sides to Keep the Corks Wet.
One question. Are the contents of all the bottles the same color, tecture, etc? The only way to tell for sure is to have the contents tested in a lab.
 

bikegoon

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RE: handwritten labels on psychoatic medicines, GREAT PICS!

Heya,

Did you replace those corks?
 

KentOhio

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I've seen plenty of re-used bottles with labels that didn't originally belong on them. I've even seen a medicine label glued overtop of a furniture polish label. Handwritten labels did look like the ones you have, but they'd be easy to fake too. If you got them all from the same source, they'd more likely be fake than if they came from different places. A crime lab could do a test to see what kind of ink they're written in, but that could be expensive. Plus, if someone was really clever, they'd get antique paper and a bottle of unused ink from the era and then go to work.
 

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