Very Old Radways

[DeepSeaDan]

Dan, I apologize for the misleading wording in my comment. In the book, Patent and Proprietary Medicine Bottles by Joseph K. Baldwin, the author mentions only the name of the newspaper and the date that it appeared. He didn't show any actual images of the ads. The one he listed for Radway's appeared in the New York Daily Times, January 26, 1852. Some of the online resources for early newspapers may show the actual ad. Hope this helps.

No worries Sandchip, it was fun to sleuth through old newspapers looking for ads. It would be great to find a resource that shows the evolution of a specific company's glass container history, to observe the changes in design over the years.

 

[DeepSeaDan]

Found several newer versions of this very common bottle and today, I was fortunate to swim up to this very early version. Question: this one doesn’t say “Act of Congress” etc. - would this indicate it was an older pontiled version?

Update:

I've learned that Radways started selling 'medicinal soaps' in 1847; in 1852, they patented the "R.R.R." aspect of their ( I'm to assume ) "Ready Relief" product, thus my bottle example was likely manufactured somewhere between 1847 & 1852. I still haven't found literature which speaks to the date when they first started putting the 'Act of Congress' and other such script on the side panels of their product bottles. Learning that date would certainly help to narrow down the date of my specific variant.