Warner’s Safe Cure – Rare Warner’s in Baltimore!

2012 Baltimore Antique Bottle Show & Sale

Without fail, the Baltimore Antique Bottle Show in March is a terrific show to attend for both the seasoned collector and the newbie, it offers something for everyone. The 2012 Show was no exception. That was especially true for those of us who collect Warner’s Safe Cures.  I usually meet up with Jack Stecher at the Baltimore Show, but also ran into a number of other Warner’s collectors including Andy Lang, Richard Peal,  Russ Dean, Ed Nikles and John Wolf. Jack was kind enough to loan me some of his Warner’s paper, which will be the subject of some future posts on this site.  Also, Terry McMurray had his table with some labelled Log Cabin Remedies, including the extremely rare Scalpine and a half pint Safe Tonic with Tonic Bitters label.

Steve Jackson at the 2012 Baltimore Bottle Show & Sale

Jack Stecher at the 2012 Baltimore Bottle Show & Sale

Carl Sturm from Florida also had a table full of Warner’s, including a London Diabetes Cure, Melbourne Diabetes Cure and 4-Cities Rheumatic Cure.  Richard Peal was offering a nice amber Animal Cure and an amber London Safe Cure Sample.  There were even some extremely rare Warner’s that never hit the sales table, including the one-of-a-kind Frankfurt Safe Nervine pint and an equally rare Pressburg Safe Diabetic Cure. Jack had a half pint Tonic Bitters with a double collar lip, which Russ Dean scored. Normally, the half pint Tonic Bitters sports a medicine lip.

From the standpoint of Warner’s collectors, the 2012 Baltimore Show was a treasure trove. Not sure if 2013 can top it, but do yourself a favor and make the trip next March. You won’t be sorry.

Warner’s Safe Cure: Tonic, Bitters & Tonic Bitters

If you are confused by why Warner created these three variations among his earliest cure inventory, then join the crowd. I have always just assumed they were basically the same thing in three different bottles. This theory, of course, assumes that there was any distinction between the contents of any of Warner’s cures and remedies. All three were replaced by Tippecanoe and were gone by the early 1880′s. My theory is supported, at least in part, by the fact that we know that Warner’s Safe Tonic often bore a label for “Tonic Bitters.” We saw this again recently in a half pint Tonic with a Tonic Bitters label that sold in the most recent Glassworks Auction.

It’s surprising how little there is in print by Warner about how the Safe Tonic, Safe Bitters and Safe Tonic Bitters compare. This is made more acute by the fact that these three concoctions with gone by 1885, replaced by Tippecanoe. Even a review of his early “pink cover” almanacs yield little in the way of a discussion about the proported benefits of these products.

Warner's Safe Cure Book of Prize Enigmas (1882)

If you flip through the pages of the 1882 Prize Enigmas almanac, you will find the following succinct discussion of Tonic Bitters:

This tidbit yields little except to suggest that Tonic Bitters was a blood purifier and cathartic or purgative. We are told that they were “experimentally compounded, by an eminent practitioner”.  I’m not sure who that was or if that was meant to inspire confidence.

Tonic Bitters were also apparently designed to act in concert with Safe Pills to get rid of malaria and all that “fatty bile” that has accumulated over the winter. In short, if Tonic Bitters cannot help you, no Bitters in the world will. And just to dispel the notion that Tonic Bitters might be consumed as an inebriant, Warner notes that “[t]hey are an unfermented medicine, not a drink” and have received some special exemption by the government.

In the end, I don’t think there was a dime’s worth of difference between these three products. Their purpose, it seems to me, was to give Warner a foothold in the lucrative “bitters” market. In the end, he must have decided that they were not having the impact he intended and abandoned them in favor of Tippecanoe.

Special thanks to Glassworks for the use of their picture of the labelled Tonic Bitters.

Warner’s Safe Cure: Closing the Deal

 

 

Warner’s Safe Remedies Envelope

For all of the money that Warner poured into advertising in its various forms, he was not unmindful of the impact of personal communication with potential and existing customers. In the 19th Century, much the same as in the 21st, people respond best to marketing on a personal level.  This may have been even more important in Warner’s time, because people actually sat down and wrote letters to one another. Consequently, receiving personal correspondence from a merchant might well help close the deal. The above picture is an example of what one might have received in response to a letter to the Warner’s Safe Remedies Company. As you can see, very little space is wasted and the envelope is emblazoned with the image of the Safe Remedies Building, perhaps second only to the “Safe” as Warner’s trademark.

Undoubtedly, this envelope contained  yet more information to entice the prospective purchaser. This flow of information was designed to establish a personal connection with the recipient. After all, you are more likely to buy something from someone you know and trust than from a complete stranger. Warner knew this and exploited it as well as any other patent medicine manufacturer of the era. He wanted his potential customers to see Warner’s Safe Remedies as a source of helpful information that might not be readily available to them otherwise. This explains why his annual almanacs were so popular. They were crammed full of information (some of it accurate, but a lot that was not) and offers of assistance.

One of the perenial  offers that appears in Warner’s Safe Remedies advertising was for a urine analysis. For example, in his 1890 Almanac entitled “Safe Points,” Warner again extended this offer to his customers:

1890 Warner’s Safe Remedies “Safe Points” Almanac

It is impossible to say whether a drop of the gallons of urine that showed up at the Safe Remedies Building was ever really analyzed. More likely, the recipient received a form in response to his or her submission that detailed the dire state of his or her health. Fortunately, a return to good health was within grasp provided the person promptly purchase and consume a bottle (or bottles) of Safe Kidney & Liver Cure or Diabetes Cure or whichever Warner’s Safe Cure pertained.

This offer of help and information required an investment of time and money on the part of the consumer, but, at the same time, helped Warner close the deal. In effect, he was saying “I will help you, provided you follow my advice.” Many thousands of consumers did just that, making Warner a very wealthy man.

Warner’s Safe Cure: Dr. Diocletian “Dio” Lewis (1888)

It seems like every time that I think I have seen all there is to see in Warner’s Safe Cure paper, another piece pops up that grabs my attention. This is particularly true of Warner’s Safe Cure almanacs. Beginning in 1879-80, the Warner’s Safe Remedies Company, like many of its competitors, issued almanacs that contained a wide variety of helpful material, intersperced with testimonials and ads for products. When I first began collecting these almanacs, I wrongly assumed that there would be one for each year. I soon found, however, that, like baseball cards, different almanacs surfaced for the same year. Accordingly, there was no way to know whether you had them all, because no one seemed to have a comprehensive list. This is a roundabout way of saying that I am no longer smug enough to think that I have seen all the paper Mr. Warner and his company had occasion to put into circulation.

Case in point, an 1888 almanac featuring the countenance of Dr. Diocletian “Dio” Lewis (1823-1886), an apparently acclaimed temperance leader of the time. The contents of the almanac are the same as most Warner almanacs, a collection of testimonials and descriptions of various disease for which one or another of Warner’s Safe Cures can provide relief. The only mention of Dr. Lewis that I can see is on the front cover and it consists of the reproduction of a letter from Dr. Lewis endorsing Safe Cure. Amazingly, Dr. Lewis, who practiced homeopathy and states in his letter “…years ago I gave up the use of medicines…”, apparently suspended his convictions and downed a dose of Safe Cure that was “three times the prescribed quantity” in response to a serious kidney trouble. Go figure.

I think that the significance of the 1888 Dio Lewis Warner’s almanac is that it sounds a theme common to Warner’s Safe Cure advertising. The product is endorsed by noted physicians, so it must be beneficial. In the case of Dr. Lewis, he was no longer alive to argue the point. As if to drive the point home, the back cover of this almanac bears another testimonial letter from 1883 from R[obert] A. Gunn, MD.  The letter is subtitled “A High Endorsement.” Dr. Gunn claims to have been the Dean and Professor of Surgery of the United States Medical College and author of “Gunn’s New and Improved Hand-Book of Hygiene and Domestic Medicine.” While I was not able to confirm the existence of the United States Medical College, I was able to confirm the publication of Gunn’s Hand-Book, which appears to have been a self-help medical book of the day. As with Dr. Lewis, the strategy is the same, if Safe Cure is good enough for trained physicians, it must be good enough for you.

Baltimore Antique Bottle Show & Sale – March 6, 2011

The Baltimore Antique Bottle Club’s 2011 Show & Sale is this Sunday, March 6, 2011 at the Physical Education Center of the Essex Campus of the Community College of Baltimore County. This is one of the best bottle shows on the East Coast. If you make it by, please stop by and say “Hello.” I’ll be the guy with all the Warner’s Safe Cures on his sales table. For more information, check out the Baltimore Club’s website. See you there!  Photo courtesy of the Baltimore Antique Bottle Club.

The 2011 Baltimore Show is now history. Another nice show with excellent bottles and lots of dealers. Some very nice Warner’s Safe Cures to be had this year (including my own). I saw a half pint aqua London Safe Cure (very rare), a green Tippecanoe that is consigned for auction later this year and some nice Log Cabin Remedies to mention a few. In the not too distant future, I will be posting a list of Warner’s that I have available for sale. If you are looking for a particular Safe Cure, let me know. I may have seen it. Thanks again to the Baltimore Club and we’ll see you in March, 2012.

Warner’s Safe Cure: Artist’s Album (1888) – Part II

The Artist’s Album features some terrific graphics of both the Warner product line and its spurious claims. It is perhaps appropriate to start at the beginning with Safe Cure. It harkens back to the business that made Warner his first millions, the fireproof safe business. He modestly proclaims that he was “formerly the largest Safe dealer in the world” and provides the reader with a list of his available products.

Warner then moves on to another one of his original line of cures, his Diabetes Cure.  He distinguishes the two types of diabetes, insipid and sweet and notes the symtoms. However, he noted that the Diabetes Cure should not be used for kidney ailments, use only Safe Cure.

Next was the Rheumatic Cure, which also was supposed to be taken in concert with Safe Cure and Safe Pills. The claim promises that the “most obstinate rheumatic disorders disappear” if the treatment is maintained long enough to produce effects. I am not sure how long, “long enough” is, but I would venture a guess that it is more than one bottle. It is also worth noting that one of the testimonials accompanying this portion of the Album is from Mrs. Carrie D. T. Swift of East Avenue in Rochester.  One might surmise that she was the wife of Warner’s chief astronomer, Lewis Swift. Nothing like a little family support.

The next featured standard cure was the Nervine, which Warner sold to those whose nerves were too frayed to produce a good night’s sleep.

This represents the first portion of the Artist’s Album and the bulk of Warner’s original line of cures. The remainder of the Album deals with other Warner remedies including his Log Cabin Remedies and his Tippecanoe Bitters. I will feature the remaining portions in a future post. Thanks again to Jon Moran for the images.

Warner’s Safe Cure: Artist’s Album (1888) – Part I

If you have been following this blog for even a short amount of time, you have undoubtedly come to the conclusion that collecting Warner’s Safe Cures extends beyond just the bottles. Warners collectors are blessed with an enormous array of advertising paper and other ephemera produced by one of the great proprietary medicine companies of  the late 19th and early 20th centuries. H. H. Warner missed few, if any, opportunities to plaster the reading public with his brand, whether by almanacs, newspaper ads, posters, cookbooks or puzzles and games. This list is extensive.

Having said that, the question becomes which examples of his advertising best informs us of the enterprise. By my way of thinking, his almanacs and other publications give us one of the most complete pictures of his pitch to an American public desperate to cope with disease in an age where real, medically competent physicians were indeed rare. Among his publications, one of the best has to be his Artist’s Albums. I say “albums,” because there were actually two. While one of the two is distinctly more rare than the other, both are terrific examples of his marketing. The version with Santa Claus going down the chimney (above) is the more common of the two, while the version with the boy sitting on the log (below) is rare.

Unlike other Warner’s Safe publications that were printed by Mensing & Stecher, the Artists’ Albums were printed by Cosack & Company of Buffalo, New York. The back cover of both albums featured a box of Log Cabin Sarsaparilla.

Apart from the terrific graphics, the Artists’ Albums feature the most comprehensive catalog of the Warner’s Safe Cure inventory as it existed in 1888. The featured products included Safe Cure, Rheumatic Cure, Diabetes Cure, Nervine, Tippecanoe – The Best, Asthma Cure, Safe Pills, Benton Hair Grower, Animal Cure, Log Cabin Sarsaparilla, Log Cabin Hops & Buchu Remedy, Log Cabin Cough & Consumption Remedy, Log Cabin Hair Tonic, Log Cabin Extract, Log Cabin Plaster, Log Cabin Rose Cream, Log Cabin Liver Pills and Safe Yeast.  Each of the products was discussed and a facsimile of the package was included. The next part of this post will feature some of those articles.

The Artists’ Albums were issued at about the time that Warner’s medicine empire reached its peak. Over the period of the next five years, Warner went from proprietary medicine mogul to financial collapse and public humiliation. These publications provide us with a glimpse of the types of products pitched to our great grandparents.

Special thanks to Jon Moran for reminding me of the uniqueness of the Artist’s Album and providing me with scans of its contents.

Warner’s Safe Cure: Early H. H. Warner and Reynolds Arcade (1874)

For most Warner’s collectors, the history of H. H. Warner begins about 1879 when Warner introduced his intial line of Safe Cures to the public. I covered some of Warner’s history in my series “The Rise and Fall of the Warner Empire.”  We know that prior to his life and death struggle with Brights Disease and his miraculous discovery of Dr. Craig’s Kidney Cure, Warner made a fortune selling fireproof safes in the post-Civil War era. Indeed, some of those safes have survived down the years as testimony to Warner’s first career. However, it seems that very little paper has survived from that enterprise. One exception is the above letter from Warner to a customer in 1874. The stationery is engraved “Office of H. H. Warner & Co., Fire & Burglar Proof Safes, Combination Locks, Vault Work [Etc], No 18 Arcade, Rochester,  N.Y.”

This terrific piece of paper is merely the confirmation of the order of a safe and nothing more, but it gives us a glimpse into the world of H. H. Warner before patent medicine. The other interesting tidbit we get from this otherwise seemingly innocuous piece of stationery is the address “No. 18 Arcade.” Thanks to the Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County, I was able to learn a bit more about Reynolds Arcade. Architectually speaking, I love arcades because they combine the feeling of an open space with the beauty of natural light.  The structure was the brainchild of Abelard Reynolds (1785-1878) and was completed in 1829 with additions in 1838, 1842 and 1862. Fortunately, both illustrations and photographs of the Arcade have survived.

Based on the above floor plan, the Arcade apparently stretched between East Main Street and Exchange Place. The location of No. 18 would have placed Warner’s safe business on the outer edge fronting on Exchange Place opposite the Post Office. This is interesting because, although we usually associate Warner’s Safe Cure business with his Safe Remedies Building on St. Paul Street, his initial location was on Exchange Place as depicted in one of his early almanacs.

My initial thought was that perhaps this early Safe Remedies office was simply converted from selling burglar and fireproof safes; however, the building depicted in the almanac seems too tall to have been part of the Arcade. At any rate, we now have a better sense of where Warner was doing his safe business in the early 1870′s. Sadly, the Arcade in its original form has not survived.

The original Arcade and any vestiges of Offices of H. H. Warner & Co. Fire & Burglar Proof Safes at No. 18 were razed in May, 1932 and replaced by an Art Deco style building bearing the same name. Time marches on. Special thanks to Jack Stecher, who owns this nice piece of early-Warner stationery and to the Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County for the wonderful information on Reynolds Arcade.

Warner’s Safe Cure: 2010 Baltimore Antique Bottle Show Recap

Well, another Baltimore Antique Bottle Show is in the books and hats off to the Baltimore Club for another nice event. Even the weather cooperated this year with a beautiful spring day. Caught up with some old friends and Warner’s collectors, including Jack Stecher and Michael Seeliger, and even sold a few things. In addition to my Warner’s,  I saw a few nice ones on the sales tables, including a London Animal Cure and a beautiful puce London Safe Cure. If you did not make the show and are still interested, I have some Warner’s for sale. Drop me a note with your email and I will send you my sale list.  Can’t wait for March 6, 2011.

Warner’s Safe Cure: Here Comes the 2010 Baltimore Antique Bottle Show

The Baltimore Antique Bottle Show is this Sunday (March 7, 2010) at the Essex Community College outside of Baltimore. The show lasts from 8:00am to 3:00pm and is one of the really great bottle shows around. Last year was my first year as a dealer, although I have been going to the show for over ten years. This year, I will be at Table D-18 along with a variety of nice Warner’s Safe Cures and emphemera for sale, including a nice 4-Cities Rheumatic Cure. The 4-Cities Rheumatic is perhaps the toughest of the 4-Cities bottles to get. I will also have a few labelled Warner’s for sale. I hope to see you there.

If you need more information on the show, please check out the site of the Baltimore Antique Bottle Club, Inc. that lists all of the details.

Photo courtesy of the Baltimore Antique Bottle Club, Inc.