DavidW
Well-Known Member
Halfempty, Thank you and you're welcome. I thought I should also add a little clarification here. I wrote "Although that Whitall Tatum mark is supposed to range from 1857 to 1901, my guess is it dates from around the very late 1880s or early thru mid- 1890s"'
I should change that to read "my guess is that THAT PARTICULAR BOTTLE dates from around the very late 1880s to early thru mid-1890s".
The "W T & CO" marking was placed on gobs of different styles of bottles and no one really knows exactly what year those initials were first used on their bottles. "1857 to 1901" is often given as a date range, but only because the exact name of the company was changed slightly in 1857 to "Whitall Tatum & Company". So, we don't know how long after the name change they actually started tooling "W T & CO" on their bottle molds. It could have been a long period of time afterward.
Bottles with that mark might have been made as far back as the late 1850s, but I think most bottles (and there are huge numbers of personalized slug plate druggist bottles from around the US with that mark on the bottom) date from the 1870s - 1890s decades.
Again, no one really knows for sure about the EXACT date range during which the W T & CO initials was used. And 1901 is a pretty safe bet for the ending year of the mark, although some molds might have been used after 1901 without changing the engraving (retooling the mold). I hope this makes sense and doesn't make this subject more confusing!
PS. One thing that can help narrow down a date range very closely for an embossed drug bottle (if the name of the druggist and city is embossed on the front of the bottle), is when a collector can find all the known listings for that druggist in early city business directories.
I should change that to read "my guess is that THAT PARTICULAR BOTTLE dates from around the very late 1880s to early thru mid-1890s".
The "W T & CO" marking was placed on gobs of different styles of bottles and no one really knows exactly what year those initials were first used on their bottles. "1857 to 1901" is often given as a date range, but only because the exact name of the company was changed slightly in 1857 to "Whitall Tatum & Company". So, we don't know how long after the name change they actually started tooling "W T & CO" on their bottle molds. It could have been a long period of time afterward.
Bottles with that mark might have been made as far back as the late 1850s, but I think most bottles (and there are huge numbers of personalized slug plate druggist bottles from around the US with that mark on the bottom) date from the 1870s - 1890s decades.
Again, no one really knows for sure about the EXACT date range during which the W T & CO initials was used. And 1901 is a pretty safe bet for the ending year of the mark, although some molds might have been used after 1901 without changing the engraving (retooling the mold). I hope this makes sense and doesn't make this subject more confusing!
PS. One thing that can help narrow down a date range very closely for an embossed drug bottle (if the name of the druggist and city is embossed on the front of the bottle), is when a collector can find all the known listings for that druggist in early city business directories.
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