Warner’s Safe Cure: Digging “Down Under”

One of the things I’ve always wanted to do, but have never done is to dig a Warner’s Safe Cure.  A garden variety Kidney & Liver Cure would do. I’m not picky. Just the thrill of seeing that profile of a safe  emerge from a trash pit would pretty much do me in.  Truly buried treasure.  Recently, I discovered a website that I recommend to you called The Australian Antique Bottle Forum.  This great site brings together all manner of bottle collectors from down under. Needless to say, I had to check out the Warner’s collectors and, to my delight, I found quite a few.

One of the posts that immediately caught me eye was on Warner’s Safe Cures that had been recently dug. Feast your eyes on these beauties from the Melbourne and Dundein (4-Cities) Offices. Did I happen to mention that all of these came out of one hole?  I need to go digging with Steve. 

Okay, let’s see.  Melboure and 4-Cities Safe Cures in various shades, two Melboure Safe Medicines,  two 4-Cities Diabetes Cures (rare),  two Melbourne  and one 4-Cities Rheumatic Cures (really rare),  a Melbourne Safe Nervine and a Safe Remedies and three H. H. Warner & Co. Ltd. bottles. What else do you need?  If I had been in that hole, I would have passed out. Really nice stuff. Keep those great Warner’s coming!

Warner’s Safe Cure: Foreign Language Labels

It stands to reason that if you are going to market a product in a foreign county, doing so in the native language increases the appeal of that product. That is true, not only today, but in the late 19th Century as well. Many of Warner’s foreign markets were countries where English was the predominant language (Canada, England, Australia and New Zealand). That is not to say that other languages were not spoken in those countries, but rather that the use of English did not handicap sales of Safe Cure.

Other foreign markets did not use English as their primary language (Germany, Austria-Hungary and France) and the labels on those products were translated into the native language. It is interesting to note that, while the labels were modified to reflect the native language, the embossing was not. This suggests that there were limits on what Warner was willing to do to appeal to his customers outside the United States. It also suggests that the embossing was an important part of his “brand” and his trademark that he was unwilling to modify. The same can be said of “Warner’s Safe Cure” on the label. It remains in English notwithstanding the fact that the remainder of the label is translated. Again, brand and trademark. Above, is a detail of the Frankfurt Safe Cure label. Below is another version, this time it is the rare Darmstadt label.

The Pressburg labels offer a slight variation from Frankfurt, although they are very similar.

Finally, there is the French label Safe Cure. As I have said in earlier posts, this bottle is embossed “London,” but bears a French label, which suggests that sales to France were London-based. This notion is strengthened by the fact that the base of the French label does not list Paris or another French city as an office, but instead lists London, Franfurt and Rochester.

The labels included in this post are the examples that I am aware of, however, I still believe that Warner likely marketed his product south of the United States border to Mexico, Central and South America. Any yet, I am not aware of any examples of a Spanish label.  If such a thing exists or if you have examples of other foreign Warner’s labels, please let me know and I will supplement this post.

Warner’s Safe Cure: A Chronology

I thought I would take a shot at creating a time line that summaries the significant events in the existence of the Warner’s Safe Cure Company and its founder, H. H. Warner. I’m sure that I will miss something and welcome any suggestions. This will likely be a work in progress, but here goes:

• 1842    Hulbert Harrington Warner born near Syracuse, New York in a small town called Warners, which was named after his grandfather, Seth, who had moved there in 1807 from Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

• 1864     Warner marries Martha L. Keeney, a prominent young woman from Skaneateles, New York. Like Warner, she was born in 1842, but died suddenly in 1871. The marriage produced no children. 

 

• 1865    Warner avoided service in the Union Army in the Civil War. He moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan where he and a partner were engaged in the stove and hardware business.

• 1870     Returned to New York and settled in Rochester as a dealer in fire and burglar proof safes. He was a dealer for the predecessor of the Mosler Safe Company of Cincinnati, Ohio. (See New York Daily Graphic, May 10, 1888; Rochester Union & Advertiser, April 27, 1883).

• 1872     Warner marries Emily Olive Stoddard (born 1847 in Michigan). It appears that this second marriage produced one child, a daughter, Maud. It also appears that Emily predeceased Warner.

• 1879     Following his recovery from Bright’s Disease, Warner purchases the rights to Dr. Charles Craig’s Kidney Cure and promptly begins to market it as Warner’s Safe Kidney & Liver Cure. In addition, he offers four other products: Safe Pills, Safe Nervine,  Safe Bitters and Safe Diabetes Cure. The company operates initially out of a building on Exhange Street in downtown Rochester.

• 1879     Warner is introduced to “Doctor” Lewis Swift, who was by vocation a partner in a hardware store and by avocation an astronomer who has discovered several comets. It was rumored that Swift was leaving Rochester, because he believed his talents were not sufficiently appreciated.

• 1882     Warner opens his Toronto Office and offers his cures in the 3-Cities bottles.

• 1883     Warner opens his London Office and begins offering his cures in a spectacular array of colored bottles.

• 1883     The Warner Observatory is completed and fitted out by January at a cost to Warner of $100,000. It boasts a 16″ telescope that was 22 feet long donated by the citizens of Rochester. It becomes a focal point of much of Warner’s advertising.

• 1884     The Warner’s Safe Remedies Building is opened on Warner’s 42nd birthday in January on St. Paul’s Avenue in Rochester. The iron front building was also marketed as the Warner’s Safe Yeast Building and in its eight stories housed Warner’s manufacturing, shipping and marketing operations. The fascade is graced with the monograms “W” and fitted out with first class details. The building remains today as the last vestige of Warner’s patent medicine empire.

 

• 1885     Warner adds his Safe Rheumatic Cure, Animal Cure and Safe Throatine to his product line. In addition, he introduces his Tippecanoe Bitters in two grades, “The Best” and “XXX” and phases out his Safe Bitters.

• 1887     Warner introduces his Log Cabin Remedies line of products, which included Log Cabin Sarsaparilla, Log Cabin Hops & Buchu Remedy, Log Cabin Cough and Consumption Remedy, Log Cabin Extract, Log Cabin Rose Cream, Log Cabin Hair Tonic, Log Cabin Plasters and Log Cabin Liver Pills.

 

• 1887     Warner opens his Frankfurt, Germany and Melbourne, Australia Office expanding his patent medicine empire onto three continents.

• 1888     Warner delivers his inaugeral address as president of the Rochester Chamber of Commerce in January.  Warner had been elected president in 1887 winning out over George Eastman, the owner of a little known camera company. Warner is perhaps at the peak of his prosperity with business failure and bankruptcy looming on the horizon.

• 1888     Warner opens his Pressburg, Hungary Office, which remains open only two years. Bottles from the Pressburg Office are particularly prized by collectors because of their rarity.

 

• 1891     Warner opens his Kreuzlingen, Switzerland and Dundein, New Zealand Offices. No Warner bottles embossed Kreuzlingen have ever surfaced. The bottles from the Dundein Office have become known as 4-Cities bottles because they bear the names of four of Warner’s offices at the time: Rochester, London, Toronto and Melbourne.

• 1893     In what would become known as the Panic of 1893, the American securities market crashed in February. Warner was overextended and when his creditors began to call his loans, he scrambled to raise cash. Warner’s longtime business partner, Arthur G. Yates, was unable to cover all of Warner’s debt. Warner was left to travel the country trying to offer his shares in H. H. Warner & Co. Ltd. as collateral for his debts. While some creditors accepted the shares, others did not, and Warner was forced into bankruptcy  on May 8. He lost his mansion on East Avenue, his Observatory, his yacht, his retreat on Warner Island in the St. Lawrence River and, most importantly, his reputation.

 

• 1917     Christina de Martinez Warner (born 1878 in Mexico) was never officially married to  Warner, but apparently resided with him and served as an officer to the Nuera Remedy Company in Minneapolis in the 1930′s to early 1940′s. She resided at his address of 1311 Blaisdell Avenue in Minneapolis between 1917 and 1948.

• 1923     Warner dies in Minneapolis having never regained the economic prominence he enjoyed when the the Warner’s Safe Remedies Company was at its peak. To his credit, he never quit trying to reestablish his former renown. Warner is buried next to his first wife, Martha, in her family’s plot at Lakeview Cemetary in Skaneateles, New York.

• 1929     The Warner Mansion on East Avenue in Rochester is razed to make way for a parking lot.

Warner’s Safe Cure in Paris?

In his quest to extend his patent medicine empire around the world, H. H. Warner made stops in Toronto, London, Frankfurt, Melbourne, Dundein and Pressburg. But why did he apparently miss the opportunity to open foreign offices in places like Rome, Madrid, Moscow or Paris? That may be a question that is lost to history, but there is evidence that Warner marketed his products beyond the cities embossed on his bottles. Perhaps the best evidence of this can be found in his advertising and in at least one of his bottles.

The 1891 Almanac is particularly interesting. It is entitled “Census Statistics” and depicts eight arms reaching toward a box of Warner’s Safe Cure. On the sleeve of each arm is the name of one of the Warner foreign offices: Frankfurt, Pressburg, Toronto, Melbourne, Dundein, London, Rochester and Rangoon, Burmah. That’s right, Rangoon. To me knowledge, no one has ever found a Warner’s Safe Cure embossed Rangoon or bearing a Burmese label. And yet, the almanac puts Rangoon alongside Warner’s other established offices.

The second piece of advertising that suggests a broader foreign market is a flyer issued by Warner’s London office. The flyer provides Warner’s London address on Laystall Street, but just below that it states “ALSO AT PARIS, KREUZLINGEN, BRUSSELS, &c.” This would seem to suggest that Warner’s Safe Cure had made it to France, Switzerland and Belgium in addition to Burma. As with the Rangoon Office, no one has unearthed a Safe Cure embossed Paris, Kreuzlingen or Brussels. Having said that, there is one additional piece of evidence which confirms that Warner had, in fact, targeted the French market.

Above is the only known example of a French labelled Warner’s Safe Cure. Although the label is clearly in French and designed for Parisian consumers, the bottles is embossed London. Had this bottle been tossed into a trash pit and its label destroyed, it would be just another London Safe Cure. This proves that Warner not only marketed his Safe Cure in countries beyond his foreign offices, but that he may have done so by using a bottle embossed with a known office, such as London, and a label for the new market. Based upon this evidence, it may be that Warner’s Safe Cure actually made it to Burma, but used a bottle embossed Melbourne or 4-Cities or that one was available to the Swiss in Kreuzlingen but contained in  a bottle from Frankfurt.

One thing is for sure, the Warner’s Safe Cure empire was larger than his embossed bottles  would suggest.

Warner’s Foreign Offices: Melbourne Revisited

Back in June, I wrote about Warner’s foreign offices in Melbourne and Dundein, New Zealand.  With help from Wayne Harris, I shed a bit of light on the opening of those two offices as Warner’s business was beginning its upward rise. Apparently, the early bottles from Melbourne and Dundein was imported from the United States or possibly London. It was not until the H. H. Warner & Co. Ltd. bottles appeared in the 20th Century that one can say with conviction that the Melbourne bottles were home grown.

The more important question is in what order did the Melbourne bottles appear in the market and what is there relative importance among Warner’s collectors. After talking with those who I consider to be the experts in this, I am prepared to offer up what I think is the most probable sequence of those bottles with the caveat that I’m not sure that anyone can provide an absolute answer. It is also reasonable to expect that there was overlap between the Melbourne Safe Cure bottles.

The Safe Cures

There is no doubt that the Safe Cures were the first to arrive on the scene in Melbourne. They consisted of the Safe Cure, Nervine, Diabetes Cure and Rheumatic Cure and each of them had the specific Cure embossed on the bottle. In other words, the Diabetes Cure had “Diabetes Cure” embossed on the bottle. These are great bottles and were made in the United States and shipped down under. The most often appear in shades of amber with an occasional puce. They appear in the pint and half pint sizes (Safe Cure and Nervine are the only half pints). Clearly the Nervine, Diabetes Cure and Rheumatic Cure are difficult to get and fetch a nice price.

The Safe Remedies

The next in line were likely the “Safe Remedies,” which were the first Melbourne bottles without the specific Cure embossed on the bottle. I have not seen a labelled version, but I suspect that Warner still offered his Safe Cure, Nervine, Diabetes Cure and Rheumatic Cure but distinguished each with a specific label adhered to the “Safe Remedies” bottle. Undoubtedly, this would have been done as a cost control measure. They appear only in the pint size and in shades of amber. These are very desirable bottles and can fetch close to $1000 in good condition.

The Safe Medicines

The Safe Medicines likely followed the Safe Remedies and probably appeared on the scene about the same time that the 1906 Food & Drug Act was passed in the United States. At this stage I am not sure if the Warner’s Safe Company was still marketing the full range of remedies, but as with the Remedies, they would have been distinguished by product-specific labels. The Safe Medicines appear in amber and, unlike their predecessors, they appear in both a pint and half pint size. They are somewhat less scarce that the Safe Remedies, with the half pint being particularly hard to get.

H. H. Warner & Co. Ltd./Warner’s Safe Cure (Concentrated)

These bottles bear the monogram “AGM” on the base and were actually manufactured in Australia. The AGM mark stands for Australian Glass Manufacturers Co. Dating them is a more difficult task. They probably came out in the 1910′s and the HHWCL bottles appear in both a pint and half pint size in amber and a much rarer olive. The Concentrated bottle appears in amber. Generally speaking these bottles are not considered hard to find, but labelled versions fetch a higher price.

My effort to try to fix the progression of Warner’s Safe bottles from Melbourne is my opinion and I would welcome any information that anyone has that would either support my theory or rebut it. G’day.

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: 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 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.

Warner’s Foreign Offices: Pressburg (1888 – 1890)

One of the great mysteries about Warner remains his selection of cities to establish his foreign offices. London, Toronto and Frankfurt are no-brainers. They were significant commercial centers in the late 19th Century and remain so today. Melbourne, while a significant city today, was much more primitive in that era and had to import its Safe Cure bottles from New York until much later in its existence. Dundein, New Zealand is a complete mystery, although the current thinking is that it was little more than a laboratory and certainly less than a factory. And then, there is, of course, Pressburg. I recall when I first picked up Seeliger’s book and saw a Safe Cure from Pressburg. Like most, my reaction was “where?” Even now, if pressed (no pun intended), I would find it difficult to find the city on a map of Europe. And for good reason.

Pressburg is the German name for the City of Bratislava located on both banks of the Danube River bordering both Austria and Hungary. It is the seat of government for Slovakia and, as you can imagine, it has changed hands down the centuries as the borders of Europe have been redrawn many times. It was renamed Bratislava in 1919 and appears to be quite picturesque. Apparently, Germans still refer to it as Pressburg. The above photo is courtesy of Wikipedia.

For whatever reason, in 1888, Warner elected to open an office in Pressburg. Perhaps it was an effort to penetrate more into the market of central Europe. Whatever the motivation, the Pressburg Office has short-lived. It lasted only two years, until 1890. This, of course, accounts for the relative rarity of Pressburg Safe Cures. Indeed, when Seeliger published in 1974, he listed only one variant from the Pressburg Office, an amber pint Safe Cure the rareness of which he rated as “few known.” (Seeliger No. 46). Even thirty years later, Pressburg Safe Cures are still rare. Frankly, I don’t recall seeing one “in the flesh” until the mid-1990′s. The Safe Cure appears only in a pint size in amber, olive green and aqua, with amber being the most frequently seen. The only other Pressburg variant is a pint Diabetes Cure with only one example known to exist.  Both the Pressburg Diabetes and the aqua Pressburg Safe Cure rank in the top 10 of the Rarest Warner’s. The labelled Pressburgs shown above are as rare as they come.

Undoubtedly the collapse of the Soviet Union and the opening of commerce with Eastern Europe had made more of the Pressburg bottles available to collectors. However, given the short life of that Office, Warner’s Safe Cures from Pressburg will never be anything less than rare.

Warner’s Safe Errors: Melbourne “SAEE” Cure

Some of the Warner’s Safe embossing errors are as simple as an incorrect letter in the mold. Take, for example, the “WARNER’S SAEE CURE” from Melbourne. But for the incorrect subsitution of an “E” for an “F”,  the bottle is normal. While this error does not dramatically increase the bottle’s value, it does create a distinct novelty that is worth adding to a Warner’s collection.

Thanks to Ed Ojea for the picture (above) the other is from the internet.