Warner’s Safe Rheumatic Cure

Rheumatism is one of those nonspecific diseases that I have always associated with elderly people. Another way of saying aches and pains. Dorland’s Medical Dictionary (27th Ed.) defines it as:

[A]ny of a variety of disorders marked by inflammation, degeneration, or metabolic derangement of the connective tissue structures of the body, especially the joints and related structures, including muscles, bursae, tendons and fibrous tissue. It is attended by pain, stiffness, or limitation of motion of these parts. Rheumatism confined to the joints is classified as arthritis.

Like I said, aches and pains. Apparently, rheumatism concerned folks in the 19th Century enough that they were willing to part with their hard earned dollars for the promise of relief from any number of patent medicine proprietors, including H. H. Warner.

In the world of patent medicine, most illnesses were the result of some affliction of the blood or the kidneys. Rheumatism was no exception. In his 1888 Artist’s Album, Warner devoted an entire page to Rheumatism saying “RHEUMATISM IS A BLOOD DISORDER AND MUST BE REACHED THROUGH THE KIDNEYS IN THE BLOOD.” (See above). The ad goes on to attribute this so-called blood disorder to “an acid condition of the kidneys caused by bad stomach action, indigestion, and false action of the kidneys and liver in blood purification.” It finally promises relief through alternating use of Warner’s Safe Cure and Warner’s Rheumatic Cure.

On an interesting note, if you look at the bottom of the page, you will see a testimonial for Rheumatic Cure attributed to Mrs. Carrie D. T. Swift of East Avenue, Rochester, NY. I suspect that she was the wife of Professor Lewis Swift, the astronomer who ran the Warner Observatory. Certainly, Mrs. Swift would have been motivated to support the products of her husband’s benefactor.

Warner’s Safe Rheumatic Cure was also the subject on one of Warner’s early trade cards depicting a poor soul with both feet bandaged and elevated and being attended by a lovely Victorian woman with Cure in hand. This card has no written pitch save that depicted on the box of Safe Rheumatic Cure on the lower right hand corner of the card. Obviously, the message of the card was thought to be self-expanatory.

The label on the bottles also offered relief from Sciatica, Lumbago and Gout. Indeed, most people associate the use of foot bandages as indicative of gout rather than rheumatism. The Rheumatic Cure must have been a good seller, because it migrated to most of Warner’s foreign offices including London, Frankfurt, Dundein and Melbourne. For whatever reason, the Toronto (3-Cities) and Pressburg Offices did not issue a Rheumatic Cure. As with most of the Warner’s Safe Cures, regulation gave rise to the use of “Remedy” rather than “Cure,” although the claims remained largely the same.

Warner’s Safe Cure: That “Other Warner” – William R.

If you have ever done a search on the internet for Warner’s Safe Cure, whether on eBay or some other site, inevitably, you will get hits for another patent medicine proprietor of the late-19th and 20th Centuries by the name of William R. Warner of Philadelphia. While I had always discarded references to this “other Warner”,” the guy rates a second look. One things for sure, H. H. Warner and any vestiges of his company were gone by the early 1940′s. In contrast, William R. Warner’s pharmeceutical business is still with us, albeit in a somewhat larger form. Perhaps you’ve heard of it……..does the name Warner-Lambert or Pfizer ring a bell?

That’s right. The folks that bring you Listerine and Schick razors. Pfizer acquired Warner-Lambert in 2000. However, back in 1856, William R. Warner opened his drug store in Philadelphia. Not content with being a simple pharmacist, William R. invented a tablet coating process that allowed harsh tasting medicines to be encased in a sugar shell. William R. gave up his retail pharmacy business in 1886 and turned to drug manufacturing under the name William R. Warner & Co. Consequently, it can be fairly said that William R. and Hulbert H. were contemporaries. Whether they knew each other or considered themselves competitors is a fact lost to history.

Although William R. clearly wins the award for longevity, Hulbert H. regins supreme when it comes to packaging. Most of the WIlliam R. Warner bottles I have seen over the years bear only the printed name of the company or the name and a monogram. Indeed, they look more like what you would expect as a pharmacy bottle. I will defer to others about the collectability of William R. Warner bottles and, for that matter, about the history of that company. I am sure they are collectors in Philadelphia that can shed more more light on the contributions of William R. What I can say, however, is that I have a new found admiration for this pioneer in American medicine.

Warner’s Safe Cure: Beautiful Londons!

Those of you that have followed this blog know that I have, on occasion, expressed my humble opinion that the Safe Cures from London are my personal favorites, because of the array of colors in which they appear. Mind you, I am not dismissing the importance or desirability of Warner’s from any of the other foreign offices, only noting that the title for the widest and most varied selection of colors belongs to the Brits.

Usually one has to see of display at a bottle show or in someone’s home to really appreciate the beauty of these bottles when displayed alongside one another. Every once in a while, such a display appears on the internet and deserves a second look. Recently, a British collector listed a selection of London gems on eBay and offered up some great pictures. Here, with the persmission of andrewb6296, is a second look. Cheers!

Warner’s Safe Nervine Tiger

For years, I have seen the Warner’s Safe Nervine poster featuring a heroic woman killing a tiger. The advertisement reads “Warner’s Safe Nervine Gives Rest & Sleep, Cures Headache & Neuralgia, Vertigo or Dizziness. Is A Positive Remedy for Nervous Prostration Caused By Excessive Pains, Drinking, Mental Shocks, Overwork, Etc.” At the base of the ad it reads “Warner’s Safe Pills Have No Equal.” All in all a wonderful piece of advertising.

The problem is that at some point in the 1960′s or 1970′s, the original poster was reproduced and distributed as a piece of vintage advertising. Over the years, many of those reproduced posters have made there way into the market and have appeared on auctions sites like eBay. At least one copy of the original poster does exist and is in a private collection. Other originals may also be available for purchase, but the prospective buyer should be careful. Often, the reproductions are listed as “vintage” with no mention that the poster is a reproduction. This may be because the seller does not realize that he is selling a reproduction or perhaps he does. On the reproductions that I have seen, a copywrite date is visible in the lower right hand corner of the document. Sometimes that date is obscured by framing around the poster. The above example shows a date of 1893 and may well be an original, but would still require careful examination by a buyer to ensure its authenticity.

Warner’s Safe Cure: Slug Plates

From time to time, you will hear bottle collectors refer to the term “slug plate” in their description of a particular bottle, usually one that is BIMAL (“blown in mold applied lip”). In his Glossary of Antique Bottle Terms, Reggie Lynch defines a slug plate as a “metal plate inserted into a bottle mold to provide product specific info to an otherwise generic mold. Also refers to the mark left on a bottle by such a plate.” Slug plates were fairly extensively used by bottle manufacturers probably as a cost saving measure to allow them to customize a particular bottle for a patron without having to create an entirely new mold.

Slug plate marks turns up on a variety of Warner’s Safe bottles beginning with Warner’s intial offerings, which were manufactured for him by the Chambers Works in Pittsburg. See Warner’s Safe Cure: The Early Bottles and Warner’s Safe Cure: Bitters. Warner’s early bottles featured, among other things, a full slug plate. Apparently, when Warner ordered a particular type of bottle, whether it be his Safe Kidney & LIver Cure or his Safe Bitters, the Chambers Works simply put that particular slug plate in the generic mold and turned out whatever quantity was ordered. The imprint of the full slug plate is obvious on the face of the bottle and serves to mark it as one of his early variants valued by collectors.

If you think the slug plates were limited to Warner’s early Rochester bottles, you would be wrong. Although the full slug appears unique to the early bottles, Warner and those from whom he purchased his bottles, used slugs in later bottles. It appears that those slugs served two principal purposes, they allowed Warner to alter that name of a particular product contained in a bottle (e.g. Nervine for Safe Cure) and to alter the foreign office using the mold (e.g. Frankfurt for London). As was mentioned earlier, the bottles for the Melbourne office were initially manufactured in the United States and shipped to Australia given the primitive state of bottle manufacturing at that time. A couple of examples that demonstrate Warner’s use of slug plates in this fashion are the Frankfurt half pint Nervine, which was clearly slugged from the mold of the London half pint and bears the rectangular slug mark to prove it. Another is the early Melbourne bottles which show that the word “Melbourne” is slug plated in, probably from a mold otherwise used for Rochester or perhaps London bottles. These are but a couple of examples and others exist. Indeed, they represent an interesting and, undoubtedly unintentional, fingerprint of bottle makers of the time.

Thanks to Ed Ojea for the photos comparing the half pint Frankfurt with the half pint Londons, which clear show the slug marks.

Warner’s Log Cabin Remedies (Part II)

Warner’s Log Cabin Remedies consisted of an entire line of products designed to appeal to that portion of the American market that had embraced the nation’s pioneering spirit as a virtue. The Log Cabin Remedies only existed for five years and were phased out in 1892 when the company was sold to British investors.

During their short lifetime, the Log Cabin Remedies offered consumers relief from almost every known malady. All of the bottles are rated from Good to Rare by Warner’s collectors and those with labels add a premium to the value. By far, the most difficult to find is the Scalpine, which appeared with both a Scalpine label and a Hair Tonic label at various times. On the other end of the spectrum, the Extracts and the Sarsparillas are the most frequently found. The Log Cabin Remedies were as follows:

HOPS & BUCHU REMEDY – (Large Size)  – promised to cure dyspepsia (indigestion) and disorders of the stomach, flatulence, pain after eating, liver cough, constipation, vertigo, sick headache, dizziness, bad taste in the morning or coated tongue, hot and dry mouth, pain in the left breast, palpitation of the heart, irritability, vexation of the mind, lump like feeling in the throat after eating, belching wind, sore stomach, heartburn, irregularity of the bowels, etc.

SARSPARILLA – (Large Size) – promised to cure all blood disorders, scrofula, kings evil, salt rheum, erysipelas, humors of all kinds, scald head, general debility, malaria, ulcers, chronic catarrh, rheumatism, neuralgia, syphlitic and mercural boils, pimples, pain in the back, dizziness, constipation, congestion, liver torpidity, biliousness, tired feelings, skin eruptions, female irregularities, dyspepsia, indigestion, liver complaints, common kidney derangements, dropsy, etc.

SCALPINE – (Large Size) – would remedy all scalp disorders, dandruff, itching, humors, scald head, ring worms, checks the falling out of hair and increases growth, softens harsh brittle hair, restores gloss, stimulates hair growth, and prevents baldness, prevents premature grey hair.

[NOTE: Remember, Warner was also marketing Benton's Hair Grower, which would seem to be a product that offers similar hair-related promises.]

COUGH & CONSUMPTION - (Small & Large Size) – promised to cure consumption, coughs, colds, lung troubles, after effects of pneumonia, bronchitis, pleurisy, and all diseases leading up to consumption, dependent upon the congestion or inflamed condition of the mucuous membranes of the throat and air passages.

EXTRACT – (Small & Large Size) – was intended to remedy rheumatism, neuralgia, burns, scalds, sprains, bruises, insect bites, chapped hands, chilblains, pain in back, lungs, sides, and limbs, swollen or stiff joints, contracted tendons, inflamed breasts, corns, toothaches, sunburn, face aches, sore throat, mumps, frost bites, stings, curry sores, etc.

[NOTE: I had to find out what "chilblains" and "curry sores" were. Chilblains are defined as "inflammation of the hands and feet caused by exposure to cold and moisture." Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, the definition of curry sores is lost to history.]

ROSE CREAM – promised to cure catarrh, rose cold, hay fever, influenza, cold in head, sniffles, deafness, discharges from throat, nose and head.

PLASTERS – were intended for rheumatism, chronic aches and pains, backache, sore and tender bowels and congestion of the stomach, liver, lungs and kidneys.

With a line of products like the Log Cabin Remedies, it’s hard to imagine that you would need any other products. For H. H. Warner, however, the Log Cabin Remedies merely complimented his Safe Cure line. It’s impossible to say whether any of the Log Cabin Remedies attracted customers that would otherwise have purchased products in the Safe Cure line, but, given the fact that both income streams enriched Warner, the question is academic.

Warner’s Safe Cure: Embracing Mysticism

Warner went to great lengths to cultivate the image that his enterprise was rooted in science. Indeed, his patronage of the Warner Observatory and of Dr. Lewis Swift were undoubtedly intended to enhance that image. His Safe Almanacs were loaded with testimonials of physicians praising his Safe Remedies and their beneficial effects. And yet, despite all of this, Warner still reached out to those practicing or those seeking advice from practitioners of fortune telling.

Several years ago, I had seen that above chart entitled “Palmistry or Fotune Telling by the Palm” that had supposedly been distributed by Warner. The example I saw was clearly a reproduction, but I purchased it anyway because of its novetly. When buying Warner go-withs, you must be especially careful, because there are plenty of reproductions out there, which are frequently claimed to be orginals or are not disclosed as reproductions. In the case of the palm reading chart, the seller disclosed it as a reproduction and its printing on a heavy board-like paper confirmed its status. I was pleased to acquire an original in a recent auction. Although water stained, the original has much better colors and captures the flavor of the advertising better. Having never had my fortune told or put much faith in astrology, I would welcome the comments of others as to whether Warner’s advertising accurately captures this realm of the mystic arts.

Given the host of speculative investments by Warner that ultimately cost him his company, perhaps he should have visited a fortune teller for investment advice. He certainly could not have done much worse than he did.

Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors Expo 2008 in York, Pennsylvania

Beautiful weather and a really nice show, what more could you ask for? Okay, a few showers, but otherwise delightful for August. Better yet, the Warner’s Safe Cures, Tippecanoes and Log Cabin Remedies were here for the picking during the dealers set-up and early admission. Many of us who worked on the Great Warner’s Safe Cure Exhibit  (“GWSCE”) in 2001 in Rochester, including Jack Stecher, Dave Kyle, Andy Lange and Bob Sheffield had a chance to catch-up. Andy was the clear winner as far as rare Warner’s on his sales table, including two London samples, a strap sided London Compound, a half-pint aqua London Safe Cure, two Pressburg Safe Cures (Green and Aqua), a labelled  olive London Diabetes Cure (perhaps one-of-a-kind), two Frankfurt half pint Nervines (in amber and green), a Frankfurt Diabetes Cure, a grass green Rochester Diabetes Remedy and two labelled Log Cabin Remedies with the orginal boxes. Seldom will you see so many bottles on the Warner A-List in one place, at one time. Nice work Andy!

When I was not drooling over Andy’s selection, I did manage to make it around the rest of the show. From Jack Stecher I got one of the original Safe Cure Almanacs from 1879-1880 and the London Almanac from 1888-1889. I have never seen either of these almanacs for sale before and neither had Jack. They had been in Dave Kyle’s collection.

In addition to the GWSCE, the show included folks from down under, who brought some of their Warner’s along. Wayne and Lorna Humphries from New Zealand came with Andy as well as James and Sandy Bell from Australia. Needless to say, they get the award for the longest journey. Perhaps the best thing was that there were Warner’s at almost every level from that for the beginning collector to that for the most seasoned collector. In addition to a host of Rochester Kidney & Liver Cures, Safe Remedies Company bottles and Kidney & Liver Remedies, I saw three Safe Bitters, four Animal Cures (including a light amber London, an olive London and an amber 3 Cities),  and a slug plate Rochester half-pint Nervine. In addition to the Safe Almanacs, Jack brought along so other go-withs, including vintage photos of the Warner Mansion and the Warner Observatory, several Benton’s Hair Growers and several stereoscope slides of Warner Island.

This Expo was a delight. Thanks to the Federation for a wonderful job.

A Visit to York

The Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors is set to hold its 2008 Expo in York, Pennsylvania and I could not resist making the five hour drive north. This will be my first Expo, although I have been collecting bottles from 30 years. This year, however, the show was in driving range and I decided it should not be missed. Also, some of the collectors who participated in the Great Warner’s Safe Cure Exhibit  in 2001 will be here, so its a reunion of sorts. Not sure how many Warner’s Safe Cures are lurking about, be I will keeps my eyes peeled.

I have brought my digital camera along and will make sure to post some photos of the Expo. York, Pennsylvania, also known as the White Rose City, is a picturesque town nestled in South Central Pennsylavania. It dates back prior to the Revolutionary War and served as the temporary capital of the Continental Congress giving it a claim to being the first capital of the United States. I’ll let the historians debate that, I’m here in search of Warner’s and the Expo begins tomorrow, so stay tuned.

Warner’s Safe Promotions: Safe Cure Prize Map

 

 In 1887, the United States was comprised of 38 states and a variety of territories on the verge of statehood including the Dakotas, Montana, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming and Utah. This westward expansion created a fervent interest in what likely seemed like the limitless expansion of the nation’s borders. For patent medicine proprietors, expansion of the country meant the opening of new and lucrative markets. Warner had already tapped into markets in Canada and London and preparing to open his offices in Australia and Germany. No doubt he had his eye on American expansion. Although it’s hard for us to imagine, our country was changing as new states entered the Union. By 1900, the number of states had risen to 45.

In his quest to market his products to a wider populace, Warner offered one of his more distinct promotional items – the Safe Cure Prize Map.  His 1887 Almanac had the offer on the cover:

 GIVEN AWAY

 A MAP OF THE UNITED STATES

39 BY 55 INCHES VALUED AT $2.50

OR WARNER’S SAFE COOK BOOK 500 PAGES VALUED AT $1.50

On page 1 inside the almanac the offer continued “A Finely Colored Map of the United States,or a Copy of ‘Warner’s Safe Cook Book,’ FREE” . In exchange for 10 cents ( in one-cent or two-cents stamps, Warner offered “a clean, beautiful, latest revised LARGE MAP OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA in four colors, showing State and County divisions, Railroads, Cities, Villages, etc.”

The Safe Cure Prize Map provides us with a snapshot of how the country and Canada looked in 1887. It also features an engraving of the recently erected Statue of Liberty, which had been a gift from France for the country’s centennial in 1876, but which had not been dedicated in New York Harbor until October 28, 1886. A few of these Prizes Maps have appeared over the years and are valued by Warner’s collectors as go-withs. By any stretch of the imagination, the Prize Map is rare addition to any Warner collection.