Merry Christmas!

I wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, and a happy New Year! I appreciate the relationships I have developed in this wonderful hobby. Thank You!

Miller's Extra

Awesome Jewel sliced down to three carats.........

Well, it would've been too cool if this one had survived its dip in the wet privy pool ! Yesterday was the first time I'd ever turned pieces of this extremely rare glob-top fifth. At first I wasn't even sure which fifth it was, then my partner pointed out the diamonds on the sides, and that put us on the right track of diamonds...... to jewels. Only got about 2/3's of it, but that was enough to get the blood pumping, as it came out soon and up high in the hole. Of course there's always some kind of a "hook" to get you to dig a nasty or difficult hole, but it's usually not of such a high caliber as a John S. Bowman Jewel Old Bourbon Sole Agents S.F.

The bottom layer was '70's, but no bourbons were to be found from that era.... not even pcs. The guy was strictly a wino and an ale drinker in the '70's. The Jewel may have been a gift from someone to celebrate a birth or something in 1886, as this bottle was made only in that year. Surely if he was a real bourbon drinker, a few Cutters or Moore's would've been part of the mix !

The base has a dimple in the center of an 8-pointed ray or star. These appear to be "western blown", as the glass became very sparkley after scrubbing the mud off, and the star is similar to those found on earlier Western unembossed fifths. My count is seven intact examples of the Jewel Old Bourbon. There is also a very similar amber pint coffin flask, but for some reason is embossed "Old Jewel Bourbon" instead of "Jewel Old Bourbon". This brand has a really crazy distribution pattern (basically no pattern at all ! ), as whole examples of the flask and fifth have turned-up mostly on singular occasions all from different towns throughout Ca, Nv, and Az. I'm not aware of any being found in different holes in the same town.

What went wrong?

Last evening a very scarce and sought after glop top closed on ebay. Listed as "Livingstone's Western Glob Top Whiskey w/whittling Rare" lot number 360214238214, it should have created a veritable feeding frenzy. Opening at a reasonable $1200~, I'd expected it to bring at least $1750~. Instead, only two bidders competed for bragging rights and it closed at a weak $1225~.

So what the heck went wrong? Simple, lousy pictures
and a lousy description.


Initially described as "Livingstone's Whiskey bottle, a western glob top, with whittling" there was no mention of condition. Later, in a belated attempt to more accurately describe condition, the seller added the following " It is free of chips and cracks with the following exceptions: in response to a bidder request, we re-examined this bottle and found three small nicks or "flea-bites" on the bottom, on the rim. We are including a scan we did of the bottom, to better illustrate these small defects. Imagining that the base is a clock dial, the largest nick is at about 9 oclock. There is a tiny flea bite at 11 oclock and there is one other slight nick at 4 oclock. The football shaped object towards the bottom of our clock dial is an embedded bubble. The only other defect in this bottle is on one side, near the seam, about 3/8" from the bottom, a tiny pin-prick which appears to be a tiny bubble that "popped." A poor quality black and white scan of the base was also attached.



Ya just gotta love these technical descriptions... Big flea? Little flea? Happy flea? Flea with a bad attitude? Come On!

In an attempt to nail down the true condition, I emailed "In regards to the Livingston Blackberry Brandy; You state ""flea-bites" on the bottom, on the rim.

Could you please provide dimensions in regards to the described damage? IE: "largest nick is at about 9 oclock, measures 3mm in length, 2mm in width and is 3mm in depth". I've found that detailed, subjective descriptions take all the guess work out of a purchase.

The bottle is fairly scarce but damage to a higher end western whiskey can make or break the desirability.

Thanks~"

I never heard back in regards to this inquiry or a follow up. Was the seller out of town or just trying to let the cards fall as they may? Guess we'll never know. Having been bitten more often than I'd care to admit on ebay, I opted not to place a bid until I heard back.

My guess is that I'm not the only one...

JUDGE THROWN IN PRIVY HOLE IS RESCUED BY BOTTLE DIGGERS !

Yes, this Judge, after being thrown under the privy bench over 120 years ago, was recently rescued from a well hidden, shallow pit in Northern Ca. If it wasn't for the efforts of my partners and myself launching an intense 'probathon', the Newmark Gruenberg Judge would've remained silenced for another generation. He's now granted himself probation and resides under house arrest on my whiskey shelf, in between his predecessor Kane-O'Leary, and his much younger successor, S.B. Rothenberg !

After the gavel was passed to them from Kane-O'Leary in late 1882, Newmark Gruenberg served up Old Judge Bourbon from the bench only from 1883-1885, , . In 1886 Gruenberg bought out Newmark and had his own bottles made for a year or two.

This dig was exciting, as it was filled with anticipation after waiting many years to explore this site. A recent change in ownership prompted a renewed effort that resulted in successfully obtaining permission to hunt for old bourbons and other Western preparations. A very sparse older pit yielded a broken var 1 JF Cutter in light olive-amber and a few very early S.F. Jamaica Gingers, which coincidentally seem to often hang out with Western liquor containers.

Out of the many bottles and relics recovered from numerous pits, the Old Judge was the lone intact fifth, and probably only survived because it was on the front side of an already sparse pit.

Hopefully, this will be the start of a run of intact Western fifths !

Early and Often~

Kinda sums it up now, doesn't it? Truth be known; it sounds like an accurate description of our annual house boating trip...

As many of you know, I developed a penchant for hoarding and displaying honest labeled western whiskies back in the seventies when most folks were scrubbing the labels off the bottles in order to better appreciate the glass. Me, well, a simple mind equals simple pleasures. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that paper rots away long before glass. And contrary to what I used to tell my wife (back when I was young enough to care), I really didn't read the articles, I just looked at the pictures~ To me, the western whiskey label is the centerfold on the bottle and the rest is, well, pretty much just an article.

A while back I posted an article about the labeled and embossed Tea Kettle that showed up on my doorstep. Never a day goes by that I don't pay my respects to Shea, Bocqueraz and McKee for that bit of sunshine in my collection.

Too tell the truth though, my all time favorite was produced for Jacob Goldberg, Charles and Henry Bowen, and Louis Lebenbaum. The firm of Goldberg, Bowen & Lebenbaum was in business for a relatively short period of time (1892-1895), and were located at 426-432 Pine in San Francisco. The firm was officially listed as Importers of Wines And Liquors and Commercial and Retail grocers. Their grocery outlets were located at 432 Pine and 215 Sutter.



In 1892, they contracted with a German Glass factory, (probably Gerresheimer Glashuettenwerk of the Dusseldorf region) through Abramson - Heunisch Co. of S.F., who were jobbers of bottles, corks etc., etc. and had a run of clear applied top cylinder fifths blown. The bottles were embossed "Bottled By / Goldberg, Bowen, / & Lebenbaum / Importers of / Wines And Liquors / 426 To 432 Pine St. / S. F." A large company logo is located above this at the shoulder at the top of this full faced embossing pattern.


The quality of the bottles left something to be desired and most all display with small flashes or checks and other production related issues attributable to poor annealing at the glass factory. Most of this variant are also heavily whittled and display with extreme crudity. One small production run was produced with a mis-spelling and Liquors is spelled Liquops. It is estimated that fewer than a half dozen of the mis-spelled variant are in collections at this time.


They contracted with L. Schmidt & Co. / lithographers to have a label plate cut for a new brand of whiskey called Early & Often. The neck label has directions for the "proper use" of the product and the main body label pictures typical Victorian scroll work and the sun rising above the main body of the label. .
There are believed to be two or three of these examples currently in collections. Two of the labeled examples are on the rare mis-spelled variant of this bottle


Lebenbaum left the partnership in 1895. The 1897 Crocker Langley directory lists Louis as an importing grocer and tea & wine merchant in partnership with Jesse Meyerfeld located at 236 Sutter and residing at 1522 O'Farrell.

Goldberg Bowen & Co. continued forward, weathering the setback caused by the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906, and remained prosperous as commercial and retail grocers, even after prohibition had forced most of the wholesale liquor dealers in the city to close their doors.

"Slickers"!

Yesterday's privy dig did kick out a couple of globbies, but both had no embossing. Maybe the letters fled as our tools approached them. LOL That's the way diggin goes. Not every pit has "glory". This one was just a few years too old to hold embossed whiskeys and the saving grace was a couple of blue Owen Casey sodas. The amber coffin was a late throw that was found above the actual use layer.

REVISITING SOME OLDER POSTS

Here are some ads that surfaced again when sorting all my files and junk.   We have written about these topics in the past and you may find these interesting.

E. Chielovich was out in the "wilds" of Eastern Nevada in 1869 trying to grow the market for Jesse Moore Bourbon.   Obviously, this is a couple of years before the embossed J.Moore bottle made an appearance.   Outfitting saloons was a significant part of the early San Francisco liqour dealers distribution method.  

Chielovich supplied, "fitted up", and/or "managed" saloons in several early Nevada towns.

DAVY CROCKETT - PURE OLD BOURBON   label.   This blown up  from an envelope or advertising cover.

Here is a cool Renz Wholesale Dealer ad that I had printed once before.  It comes from an 1882 issue of the San Francisco paper, the WASP. 

Renz's Blackberry Brandy,  Renz's Herb Bitters and Bonanza Bourbon Whiskey represented.