Dale recently mentioned that it seemed to be up to Lance and he to keep fresh posts appearing. I thought I'd help out as well. A couple of bottles sit proudly on my shelf; both "prides". One sports a glop top, the other tooled. And hence, this post is a tie in to the blurb that Dale recently put forth.The previous article pointed out the overall rarity of this particular bottle in glop top. Originally thought to be blown exclusively with an applied top, one example with a crudely tooled top appeared around 2000. I'll take it a step further and point out that the glop tops outnumber the tool tops by at least 10 to 1. Assuming a total count of between 30 - 40, that leaves, at the most, 3 - 4 tool tops in collections.
I can personally account for one mint one and one damaged example. I don't care what one uses as a criteria for scarcity, a tooled Pride is just flat rare~
Thomas dated the Pride as being blown between 1874 - 1879. I've owned five over my forty some years of collecting. All were, quite obviously, blown in the same mold.The brand was registered with the U.S. Patent Office to Livingston & Co. in 1873. So, Thomas was no doubt correct with his ca. 1874 dating. Livingston left the company in 1878 so that, and not 1879, would definitely spell the end of the bottles embossed Livingston & Co.. However, based on the few surviving examples, one would think that the embossed bottles were most probably only made for one run, and then sold in paper labeled slicks after the embossed supplies ran out.
According to Thomas, they have been found along the Pacific coast from Trinidad to San Jose and in Nevada - Belleville, Candaleria and Cerro Gordo (there's that name again). A major find of Prides occurred in the Trinity Mountains of Northern California many years ago. The hillside below the mine superintendents residence produced a total of seven intact and damaged examples. Odds are, there probably are still five (making up the rest of a case of twelve) waiting to be recovered. Hope springs eternal...
