Unlisted Poison

[Jim]

Hello everyone. I am sending a picture of an unusual poison bottle that I picked up at an antique shop in July on the way home from Ocean City. It stands 4 3/8" tall, rectangular with beveled front corners and is embossed FOR EXTERNAL USE ONLY with vertical ribbing on the front. It is an ABM Illinois Glass-made bottle from around 1915-1929. It is not listed in any of my books, including the new APBCA book. I have not been able to find anything else about it. Being an ABM Illinois bottle, I doubt that it is anything extraordinary but I would be interested to know if anyone else has seen one or knows anything about it. Many thanks! Jim

 

[ronvae]

This is a shot in the dark, but the time frame is prohibition, it doesn't look like it had a paper lable, it's surprising that a product to be used on the body, in a nicely embossed bottle, didn't identify the contents...think somebody was marketing drinkable alcohol as the undrinkable stuff, on a "medicinal use" excuse? (I can never remember which is which--methyl vs. ethyl).

 

[Jim]

That is an interesting possibility. I know they used some clever "tricks" to hide illicit beverage sales during Prohibition. The back of the bottle is smooth, so it may have had a label at one time, or maybe it never did. If this bottle did contain some kind of ethyl (booze) alcohol, it must have been potent stuff to be in a small-size bottle. I wish I could find an old Illinois Glass catalog. They used to put out a catalog with all of the bottles that they made, and companies could order their bottles in quantity from Illinois. Thanks for the reply. I'll keep posted if I somehow find anything else about this bottle.