WHAT A WEB WE WEAVE

I am intrigued by the tangled web of related bottles from Wilmerding and Kellogg, separately or together. G.O.'s post of the Wilmerding ad for S.H.M., and the chatter about the McKennas got me started. I'm going to just list some questions and assumptions and lets see where it goes.

S.H.M(t-169) The Superior Hand Made is the oldest of the W&K bottles, at least the non C&I SHMs are oldest. Like I noted, we find these in Utah with the early stuff. 1873-74 stuff. The only other place I have seen them in abundance is C-bus, again 1873-75 stuff.
C&I mold variation is much later by my estimation. A digger I know in the Idaho pan-handle area dug one in 1999 with just the lip broken out. He found it in some early 80's stuff. Just recently a C&I was located in the Boise area. Digging context unknown.
The C&I SHM's are very attractive bottles, whittled and light yellow amber color.

McKennas(t-168) Mckennas long lived, say 1876-1883. Kellogg separated from Wilmerding, long before end of McKennas usage. Still, W&K on reverse shoulder.
The C&I McKennas are found in Calif., Nev., and here in Utah. Found a couple of broken ones in a small mill town on Rush Lake. This mill serviced ore from the Chicago Mine out of Jacob City, Ut. That would give this bottle at least a fingerprint in the mid to late '70s. I just purchased one from a digger in Nevada, said it came from Storey County. Digging context unknown.
C&I Mckennas color range from medium amber, orange amber, to fairly dark amber. Not even close to the SHM C&I variants.

United We Stand(t-170) circa 1878-1883, Kellogg gone, Wilmerding is on his own with this one. W in circle on the back. No C&I variant with this bottle. Why not??

C.W.Stuart(t-146) circa 1883-87. Wilmerding definitely the distributor. Sold the brand to Loewe Brothers in 1892. Much later bottle than once thought. Two broken examples found in the Idaho panhandle, both in '80s stuff. All examples have C&I glass works initials on base. Using the back half of the Cassin's Golden Plantation(t-16) mold. Which has the C&I initials on the base of course.

What is the relationship between Wilmerding and the Cassin Bros.?
Golden Plantation fifth is also later than once thought. Whenever it disappeared, was as early as the Stuarts could have started. Using the same mold.
And as if to play with our heads just a bit more, Stuart -(Wilmerding) has the small letter "k" on the reverse. Why a K?? Kellogg was long gone when the Stuarts came out. A "w" - Wilmerding, even a "L" - Loewe Bros, but a "K"
what the...

Kelloggs(t-171) circa 1890's. Red amber - German blown. W.L. Co. -- Wilmerding and Loewe. Some known with W & Co.-- Wilmerding & Co.
My confusion here is with the Kelloggs name. Did I miss something? Wilson indicates that Kellogg left the liquor business to go into the banking business. Did he actually purchase the McKennas name or distillery? No?It's now Kellogg's Nelson County Kentucky Bourbon? Not busy enough counting coins, had time to formulate your own bourbon? Kellogg name on several different bottles of the 90's and tc. Don't know what gives with Kellogg. Must have been involved silently throughout the entire time? Which might account for that little "k" on the Stuarts. Really reaching on that one...

Alright, now that I have confused everyone, even myself, lets talk about the C&I variants.
Cunningham & Ihmsen glass works - Pittsburg (as in PA. not Calif.)
Supposedly C&I glass works stopped production of bottles in 1875. None of the 4 mentioned fifths with the C&I initials were made that early. ??
Lettering style, or font, on the C&I fifths is different than the counterpart W&K fifths. Golden Plantation fifth also with so-called "eastern style lettering". C.W. Stuart bottle has "western lettering", curved leg 'R'. Of course the Stuarts was just using the back half of the Golden Plantation mold. Which means, likely, that the "mold re-use"... Stuart from Golden Plantation was done in San Francisco... ??
The glass characteristics of the 4 C&I fifths appears western to my old eyes, espec. the SHM and the Golden Plantation. Hard to quantify this, but the glass comes out the ground fairly clean with these C&I's. Compare that to other Pittsburg blown glass you find in the west. The amber Rosedale fifth definitely Pittsburg product, MCC - McCulley Glass Works, usually look like hell when they come out of the ground. Beside the fact C & I was out of business before these bottles were blown. Did another Pittsburg works blow these bottles? So what gives? Molds made in Pittsburg, shipped west to be used at SF glass works? Plenty of mold makers in San Francisco by 1875. Why two molds anyway, weren't cranking out that many bottles.
McKennas variants are being used at the same time, SHM variants seem to have quite a time break in usage.
I'm going to let this sit here for your comments and corrections. This is what I like, stir the pot for new ideas and new information. Or maybe just some adjusting of the cluttered mess in my head... Wilmer"ding" has made me ding-eeee!

Question and Answer~

What's better than a crude, whittled to death Tea Kettle with a big gooey glop top? Answer; a crude whittled to death Tea Kettle with a big gooey glop top and a nearly complete label!

Back in the mid 70's, when everyone and their brother was scrubbing the labels off their whiskies in order to better see the pretty glass, I realized that the mortality rate of 100 year old acid based paper was a lot higher than the glass. Back then, a whiskey was a whiskey and pretty much sold for the same price whether it had the original label or not. I appreciated the artwork, colorful graphics and rarity of the labels and began to make a concerted effort to pick up honest labeled and embossed western whiskies whenever the opportunity presented itself. Roughly forty years and several dozen bottles later my labeled & embossed collection had begun to achieve a level of respectability.

One of my favorites is a clear glop top with full labels distributed by Goldberg Bowen & Lebenbaum / Dealers in Wines & Liquops (it's the rare mis-spelled variant). The product advertised on the label is Early and Often whiskey cocktail. Well now, that pretty well spells it out. Early and Often - I love it!

Many years ago, back around 1970, a couple of Tea Kettles were found beneath a house dating to the 1870's. Both had their original contents and one had a perfect label; the other had a nearly complete label with a little damage to one side. As so often happens to extreme rarities, both were snapped up and disappeared from the radar, never to be seen again. Or so we thought...

A few months ago I received a call from an individual that I was not familiar with. He'd been a collector back in the 60's & 70's, had a number of better glop tops that he'd had boxed away for years, and wondered if I'd like to buy him out. He knew my reputation and was comfortable sending the bottles to me on approval. His price was fair considering the power of the group and I anxiously looked forward to receipt of them. It's not often that I am able to purchase this many potential upgrades at one time and the list was a veritable who's who of high end globbys. Tea Kettle, a full face Phoenix, Pride of Ky., McKenna, lollipop yellow Old Judge, SHM, fire aqua Gold Dust, red Spruance, and a handful of others.

UPS rumbled down our gravel road a few days later and the driver unloaded two large boxes. It was Christmas time in February! And like Christmas, the best present was saved for last. The last piece to make it's appearance was the Tea Kettle. All he'd said was that it was whittled, "the crudest one that he'd seen" and had about a half inch of spillover. What he failed to mention was that it also had the label. And suddenly, one of the two that had disappeared from the radar around 1970, was back up on the screen; and in my collection. A crude whittled to death Tea Kettle with a big gooey glop top and a nearly complete label!

Label from a later A.M. Smith Bottle

This label for a A.M.Smith Wine Varient has a great image of Lady Liberty Holding a cluster of grapes with a pioneer looking at his new glass of wine along with a grizzly bear for this image of California Wines. I also have a letterhead with the same images from the 1870's. From my collection. I know its not a glob top but great graphics none the less.

Cutter Whiskey Advertising Pieces

This advertising piece was purchased at the Auburn Bottle Show 12/08 advertising J.H. Cutter Whiskies Superior to them all. The A. P. Hotaling Company Sole Agent and I found the twin piece on e-bay in a group of paper items in March of this year. I think they both originated from the Oregon/Washington area. 7inches x 3.10 inches each.

EASTERN SUIT'S ????

Here is an interesting bottle that raises a few questions. One question is where are they coming from??? East or West.

Has anyone dug one of these shoulder embossed 6ths in the West?

G.O. sent me an alert that an example of this bottle was on Ebay a couple of weeks ago. It was a good looking bottle, had a bit of greenish color to it. My example is orange amber which seems to be the standard color. The ebay example was being sold out of Penn., and the seller had a couple of other eastern glob cylinders.

I have seen 8 or 10 of these over the years. Mine came from the Vegas show 15 yrs ago. Seen them for sale at Reno. Are they all migrating in from the East?

I guess the possibility of this being a California version of the Suit's bottle has been on the table for discussion for a number of years. There are trade cards that exist advertising S.T.Suit with Booth & Co. /Sacramento; W.W. Dodge & Co. /San Francisco listed as "General agents for the Pacific Coast". Did Booth/Dodge use this shoulder embossed bottle?
My guess is no, probably just labeled only.









Compare the eastern? version 6th to the western Walker Bros. 5th.

Other eastern distributed Suit bottles exist:

S. T. Suit's Salt River Bourbon dark amber fifth - extremely rare, and rect. aqua bottle with similar embossing * medicinal whiskey?- scarce
numerous salt glaze jugs exist in various sizes.