Jesse Moore Whiskey

[CALDIGR2]

It is difficult to tell in the photos, but that looks to be the oldest Jesse. In other words, there is no blob air vent between the antlers, which would date the bottle to the late 1870s. Moores don't get the higher prices of other fifths of that vintage, but sell in the $100-200 in plain amber and much higher for any off coloration. Green examples are very desirable and command BIG bucks. At $4. I'd say you done real good.[]

 

[sandchip]

Killer bold embossing!

 

[amblypygi]

Excellent deal for 4 bucks! The following is from John L. Thomas' Whiskey Bottles of the Old West (2002). The bit about value at the end is a range of values from 3 years with the central value being the center of a bell curve. That puts your $4 investment at an average return of $200 in 2002, which sure beats Bernie Madoff

94. JESSE MOORE (MooreHunt) (Ca. 1876-85) This bottle was made over a long period of time. Early Jesse Moore bottles are quite crude and come in many variations of the amber to green-amber in color. All the early ones have an applied top. Later Jesse Moore bottles are neatly made, and have a tooled top. The very early ones are often light yellow amber with the flattened kick-up in the base (see Bases 1 & 2 in "Whiskey Characteristics"). The majority of the early ones are not air vented (no blob between top of antlers, or on the reverse side in the same area). The flattened kick-up type is before the air-venting period, and is cruder. Jesse Moore bottles have been found in the early mining and lumber camps of California, Nevada, Oregon, and western Utah. This is one of the more common of the western whiskeys produced during the1880's. There are probably more than a hundred in western collections, and it was the last of the older whiskeys to start disappearing from sales tables at western bottle shows. Only the applied top ones are covered here. The history of the Jesse Moore Company as presented in the 1905 Wine and Spirit Bulletin of San Francisco follows: "The Jesse Moore-Hunt Co. is a consolidation which was formed in 1896 by two old and well-known firms---Jesse Moore & Co., and Moore, Hunt & CO.---into a corporation under the present name, and including the business of both the oldtime firms. One of the firms, Jesse Moore & Co. began business in Louisville as long ago as 1853, and after building up and maintaining for many years, a business, of the first class, sold, in 1890 to Mr. G. H. 48 Moore, who was also a partner of Moore, Hunt & Co., also an old and well-known firm, and the consolidation of the business later became a matter of course, and the business thus aggregated placed the new company among the largest controllers of trade in the city of Louisville. The distillery of the Jesse MooreHunt Co. is in Marion County, and the product turned out is among the finest of the many very fine Kentucky whiskeys. It is distilled after the oldstyle method, put up in high-class cooperage and stored in the most approved kind of warehouses, where the maturity, brought about by the aging process makes as fine of whiskey anyone may wish to drink. This company has an extensive bottling plant and distillery, where goods are bottled in bond under the eyes of the Government, and their trade is widespread as is the reputation of the Jesse Moore Whisky. " There is a rare variant of this bottle that only occurs in red amber and is whittled. The wording at the base is "SAN FRANCISCO" instead of "SOLE AGENTS". This is one of 1890's bottles that was probably made in Germany.
(1969) 15-35-45-65-150 (1977) 45-65-75-100-300 (2002) 125-150-200-250-300 Yellow 300-350-400-500-600 Green 700-800-1000-1500-1750 Variant 400-500-600-650-7000

 

[amblypygi]

I'm guessing the upper value for the "variant" of 7000 is a typo and should read 700.

 

[CALDIGR2]

Actually, the whittled red amber German made Jesses run at the top end of that price spectrum. $700 is the correct number, but I don't recall any of them makng that high a draw. I have dug dozens of Moores over the years and certainly remember them going steadily at 35-40 bucks. I probably sold the last one for a hundred and a quarter. Like Sole Agent Cutters, you seldom find only one in a pit, it's usually multiples.

 

[Anderson]

Sorry for the old thread resurrection. I just found an old bottle, it's the first one I've ever found, and a search for information led me here.

While transplanting a tree yesterday I found this about 2.5 feet down.

Near as I can tell from above, this is the amber "San Francisco" ?

Interesting to me (I live on a hill above Camas, WA.) is that this is from a time right around Washington State becoming a state (1889), and at least a decade before Camas (where I live) became a town.

Any more information? Do I go back out and dig more holes? Looks like this can become addicting.

 

[rockbot]

ORIGINAL: Anderson

Sorry for the old thread resurrection. I just found an old bottle, it's the first one I've ever found, and a search for information led me here.

While transplanting a tree yesterday I found this about 2.5 feet down.

Near as I can tell from above, this is the amber "San Francisco" ?

Interesting to me (I live on a hill above Camas, WA.) is that this is from a time right around Washington State becoming a state (1889), and at least a decade before Camas (where I live) became a town.

Any more information? Do I go back out and dig more holes? Looks like this can become addicting.

By all means dig,dig,dig![]

 

[LC]

Nice looking bottle , looks as though it was never in the ground . They do come out that way once in a while .