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.

Tippecanoe: Unique By Design

When you’re talking uniqueness of shape in the realm of antique bottle collecting, it is hard to imagine that the discussion would not turn to figural bitters. Now, before everyone who doesn’t collect figural bitters jumps on me for my gross overgeneralization, I’m not saying that figural bitters are best bottles or the most valuable, although some examples can lay claim to those titles. What I am saying is that figural bitters represent some of the most unique shapes among bottles. A quick stroll through any major show will reveal indian queens, ears of corn, log cabins, pineapples, and the list goes on. Among proprietors of bitters in the 19th Century, shape was seemingly as important as name to consumers.  And a good thing too, because it has given bottle collectors an amazing array of shape to collect.

Although H. H. Warner was, perhaps, one of the top marketers of patent medicines, including bitters. He staked his brand to the image of the safe and reinforced that claim through constant advertising and promotions bearing that trademark.  Within the Warner empire, there were several notable exceptions to this branding. Among them were his Tippecanoe and the Log Cabin Remedies line. Putting aside Log Cabin Remedies, his Tippecanoe bitters replaced his Warner’s Safe Bitter, Tonic and Tonic Bitters. He clearly wanted to make a clean break and decided to use unique packaging. So unique, in fact, that he registered it with the U.S. Patent Office.

Fortunately, we are the beneficiaries of his efforts.  While his Tippecanoe bottles are not considered rare among collectors (unless they have full labels or an olive color),  they are an excellent addition to a figural bitters collection. Warner was out of business by 1893, although the company continued to exist and the Tippecanoe remained part of the inventory of products until 1895 or so. It is unclear why it was retired, but retired it was and Warner’s experiment in figural bitters faded into history.

Special thanks to Glass Works Auctions for the photograph of the labelled Tippecanoe.

Warner’s Safe Cure: Newspaper Advertisements

It seems that virtually every medium available to H. H. Warner carried his pitch to the patent medicine buying public. In the age the preceded broadcast media, newspapers were the principal way to reach out to the public at large. Fortunately, copies of those newspapers including their advertisements still exist and I have been able to pull out a few of the Warner’s Safe Cure ads that ran from the early 1880′s until into the 1920′s.  As you will see, many of the ads take on a familiar formula and incorporate testimonials that proclaim that Warner’s Safe Cure saved the user from certain death. Although the ads are not limited to Safe Cure, many of them continue the pitch that Warner made when he first introduced his line of Safe Cures – the kidneys are the key to good health.

The above advertisement is the earliest I have found to date. It ran in the Fort Wayne News on June 11, 1880. Notably, it mentions parenthectically “Formerly Dr. Craig’s Kidney Cure”.  Clearly, Warner had not established himself and wanted to ride the coattails of Craig. The ad also lists the early Safe Cures including: Kidney & Liver Cure, Diabetes Cure, Nervine, Bitters and Safe Pills.  With an almost biblical flourish, it says “Read! Save Thyself.”

A close look at the ad reveals that it looks almost amateurish. Most of the print is typeset, but the graphics look almost hand-drawn. Needless to say, it would be a few years before Warner would have a full marketing department at his disposal.

Warner’s Safe Cure: The Rochester “A” List (Part I)

A couple years ago, I attempted to put together a list of Warner’s Safe Cures that are the most difficult varieties to get.  I called it the “A” Lists. I did this with the help of other knowledgeable Warner’s collectors. I had originally set out to do a “Top 10 List,” but I found that it was difficult to arrange the rarest Warner’s in any meaningful order and that it necessarily meant comparing apples to oranges. Instead, I settled for a list of rare Warner’s in no particular order. Since the A-List was published, I have heard from numerous collectors with suggested additions to the list as well as other improvements.

This time around, I am going to group the rare Warner’s by office and I will include a picture, either from my collection or another. This will include reference to Ed Ojea’s Warner’s Reference Guide site. As is appropriate, I will start where it all started in Rochester. Although Rochester is the  source of the most ubiquitous Warner bottle, the Kidney & Liver Cure, it also produced a few rarer examples. The rarity of a Warner bottle may be as much about color as it is about type. A perfect example is the Kidney & Liver Cure. The standard K&L Cure will fetch anywhere from $18-25 depending on condition. However, if you come  up with an example that is a very pale amber or has shades of green, the rarity and value is enhanced dramatically.

Turning to the Rochester variants, the best place to start is with the early Warner’s Cures packaged in bottles produced at the Chambers Works in Pittsburgh. These bottles are characterized by the “gravestone” shaped slug plate that traces the edge of the entire face of the bottle and by the acronym “A&DHC” embossed on the base of the bottle for Alexander and David H. Chambers. The K&L Cure from Chambers Works catapults to the $100-125 range. Other Warner’s bottles produced by the Chambers Works include the NERVINE,  DIABETES CURE,  BITTERS (Pint and Half Pint),  TONIC (Pint & Half Pint) and TONIC BITTERS (Pint and Half Pint).

I have pictured several examples above (courtesy of Ed Ojea), which illustrate the typical Chambers Works bottle. Note that the pints are topped with the double collar lip, while the half pints typically have the medicine lip. Although “A&HDC” usually appears on the base, that is not true on every bottle. Of the Chambers Works Warner’s, the hardest to get are the DIABETES CURE, the NERVINE (half pint), the TONIC BITTERS (both sizes) and the BITTERS (half pint).

In the next part, I will take on some of the other Warner rarities from Rochester.

Warner’s Collector Profile: Mike Seeliger

For those of you who have collected Warner’s Safe Cures for many years, the name Mike Seeliger is familiar. For those who are new to Warner’s collecting, Mike was one of the pioneers and published the first guide to collecting Warner’s Safe Cures back in 1974 called “H.H. Warner: His Company & His Bottles.” I started collecting Warner’s shortly after Mike published his book, so he deserves a good deal of the credit (or blame) for getting me hooked on these bottles. Mike also participated in the Great Warner’s Safe Cure Exhibit on April 21, 2001 in Rochester. I was fortunate enough to be asked to participate in that exhibit and to get the chance to meet Mike.

When I started this blog, I wanted to interview some of the collectors who have contributed  to Warner’s collecting and have posted interviews of Jack Stecher and Dave Kyle. Mike was also on my short list and I am happy to report that he agreed to participate. Thanks to Mike for bringing Warner’s collecting into its own and for sharing some of his insights.

1.    When did you first start collecting Warner’s Safe bottles?

     I actually started collecting Ruby Red Schlitz throw away bottles. We would find them and could sell them for about $6 each. These were made in 1963. This was about 1969 or so. We then found some ruby red beers from 1949-1953 and these brought even more money (Quarts and 7oz returnables). We would find the old dumps and leave them alone. Then we found that this is where the real money was and the real interest. I would go out with my Aunt and hunt bottles during the day when I wasn’t attending classes at the University of Wisconsin.

2.    Why?

     When we would dig a dump at an old farm house or go into an abandoned farm building or house, you could almost write the history of the illnesses, and what the family was doing based on the old stuff in dumps. You knew what illnesses they had and what they drank or used for food based on the bottles that ended up in the dump.

3.    What was the first Warner’s Safe bottle that you added to your collection?

     After hunting one morning, I went up to an old abandoned house and started digging behind it. The hillside sloped down about 80 feet into the Wisconsin River. The whole hillside was broken Warner bottles. There were double collar tops, blobs, cures, remedys and even a Safe Remedies Co. pieces. I have a olive green corner of a warner (K&L Remedy) that I found there. No whole bottles. I always wanted a Warner bottle but had not acquired one.

     Then my shovel struck a Warner bottle right in the middle. I reached down and started digging with my hand. The bottle was upside down so it might be intact. It was. A double collar K&L cure. I almost cried I was so happy and excited. I quickly rushed to the car and hid it in case I got kicked out of the dump.

     I ended up digging 5 whole bottles out of that dump. 3 Cures and 2 Remedys.  Almost every bottle in the dump was a Warner.  KL cures and remedys.  There was never a Nervine, Diabetes Cure, Bitters, Tippecanoe or anything else. Seems this family needed to cure their Kidneys or liver and that was all. The bottles ranged in age for over 25 years. They must have been a great customer of Warner.

 

4.    What is the last Warner’s Safe bottle that you added to your collection?

     I just added a nice double collar reverse safe.

 

5.    Out of the Warner’s Safe bottles that you own or have owned, which was your favorite and why?

     1. The labeled Animal cure on Ojea’s cover. I offered it to Jack Stecher when I sold it but Jack couldn’t buy it then. He eventually got it from Luke. The bottle is the king of all cures and labeled at that.

     2. If you read the second “Collecting All Cures” by Agee, you will see a reference in the back talking about 2 Animal cures London that I sent him.

     I had argued with the owner of a shop about their authenticity and he wanted $18 for them. I said they were fake. Finally, I bought them when I came to my senses and realized that $18 was a small price to pay for an Animal cure even if it was a repro.

     The two were different colors, olive and apple green. I started to realize that they were English glass. Why two different colors of repros? Were they real? I called Agee and discussed. I sent them to him to see. I also sent them to Jack to see. Were they real?

     Agee said he didn’t know but if they were real, they were the greatest cure to be found at the time. The rest is history.

     At that time I found an “Antique Trader Magazine” in England and started to advertise for Warner bottles. Suddenly I could by all sorts of them. Bottle hunting was just beginning in England and I had the market almost to myself. It was great. Soon I was collecting all sorts of Warners. I also found some collectors in Australia and Germany and started to get Warners and began to trade, buy and sell.

     I did buy Lafferty’s collection that had the Bitters, Tonics and Tonic Bitters in it. Also it had a black glass Diabetes cure 4 cities and a Safe cure 4 cities that was almost clear on top and light amber at the base. The two were quite a pair.

 

6.    Is there a Warner’s Safe bottle that you always wanted, but were never able to add to your collection?  If yes, which one?

     I think the green Tippecanoe is the greatest Warner of all time.

7.    Apart from Warner’s Safe bottles, is there another piece of Warner’s advertising or paper that is your favorite? If yes, what is it?

     I collected all the Almanacs I could find. When I compared them from year to year I could trace Warner’s expansion through the years. I finally had to write a book to clear up all the confusion about Warner bottles in the early 1970s. The books written up until then didn’t do Warner justice.

 

8.    What’s your best story (or stories if you have more than one) about getting a Warner’s Safe bottle?  The more details, the better.

     The two stories about digging my first and the Animal cures from London are the best. My next best story is a man who called me from Germany. He had 14 Warners from Frankfurt that came out of his wife’s attic. He wanted $1200 for the lot. I didn’t have that kind of money at the time. I went to my father and asked for a loan. He thought I was crazy. But I had never asked for anything before.  He said are you sure you can get your money out of them? Needless to say when I received the bottles 9 Cures 4 green ones, and 5 Nervines large and small some with labels I had no problem selling them. He got his money back in 2 weeks.

     Another story really is about writing my book. Back then it was written by my wife Alice (Married 39 years) and I with a typewriter sitting on the picnic table out in the back yard. The bottles were drawn around a cardboard template and all the drawings were done by me freehand. I kept trying to make it as complete as possible but Warner bottles kept turning up. Soon I had to publish it. I bought 250 copies for $1 each printed by Insty Prints. I sold them for $2.50 which included the postage. The first few I didn’t sign and these are the rare ones after that I signed each one.

     I believe in the dedication at the front of the book. My wife’s understanding of my need to collect and my enthusiasm toward bottles has allowed this all to be an important part of my entire life. I think that without this any collector will tear apart a marriage, collecting can become an addiction. A good addiction but an addiction none the less.

     I did walk into a store to find a large safe with H.H. Warner sole agent written on the front. Store owner wouldn’t sell it to me. It is still there although he painted some screens while leaning then against the safe a few years ago.

9.    If H. H. Warner were still alive and you could interview him, what questions would be at the top of your list?

     Did you really think this cured anyone?

     How did you develop your great marketing plan?

     The 9 ½ inch Safe Cure (safe) Rochester N Y, where did that bottle fit in in the time frame of Warner bottles? Is it a mold error like the reverse safe?  How about that reverse safe, did you know about it?

      Also the Safe cure around the neck, I think it is a transition bottle between the Double collar K&L cure and the blob because it has the Safe Cure Label on it not the K&L cure label, when was it used?

 

10.  Other than Warner’s Safe bottles, what is your favorite bottle or bottles? Why?

     I have both of the Spark’s bottles. I really like them. One time I found a Spark’s dose cup.

 

11.  What’s the best way to encourage young bottle collectors to develop an interest in Warner’s Safe bottles?

 

     Unfortunately digging is really the way to really get to like bottles. When you look at bottles they seem to reek history. I love black glass and think about Washington, Jefferson and others drinking out of them. I love movies that are true to bottles in the period films.

     Bottle collecting has made me some very dear friends that have been with me all my life, this is the best part. Now I go to bottle shows with Bill Mitchell of Steven’s Point Wisconsin we make about 8 shows a year and the National Show is the high point.

Thanks again Mike. I think if I had come across that dump with all of the Warner’s, I might have gone into shock. Needless to say, the price of Animal Cures has risen somewhat from $18, not to mention the price of Frankfurts, especially Nervines and labelled ones. With any luck, I will try to get Mike to provide us with some more Warner’s stories and information that will dazzle you.

Warner’s Safe Cure: It’s All in the Lips

Since I began this blog back in March, I have spent considerable time talking about the history of the Warner empire, the products marketed by Warner and the all important bottles that contained his wonderous elixirs. I have talked about the colors of those bottles, their labels and even some of the mistakes. I have, however, neglected one important feature those bottles….their lips. Now, that sounds like a relatively minor omission, but an important one nevertheless.

Over the course of its history, the Warner Safe Cure Company used a variety of lips on its bottles. The lips vary depending one when a particular bottle was manufactured and where it came from. Let me correct my omission, but illustrating some of the lips that graced Warner’s Safe Remedies over the years.

DOUBLE COLLAR – the double collar lip is distinct among the early Warner’s Safe Cures that came from Rochester: Safe Kidney & Liver Cure, Safe Nervine, Safe Diabetes Cure, Safe Rheumatic Cure, Safe Bitters, Safe Tonic and Safe Tonic Bitters. They also appear on the 3-City Cures sold from the Toronto Office and the early 4-Cities bottles from the Dundein Office (which were likely made in the United States).

MEDICINE COLLAR – this lip is noticeably present on some of the half pint varieties of the early Warner’s Safe Cures, such as the Safe Bitters and Safe Tonic, but not the Safe Tonic Bitters.

BLOB COLLAR – The blob collar is perhaps the most extensively used lip among Warner’s Safe Remedies. It effectively replaced the double collar and medicine collar lips and appeared in all variety of Safe Cures from almost all of the foreign offices, with the exception of Toronto. It was also used in the Log Cabin Remedies bottles.

FLARED OR TIPPECANOE – this lip is fairly unique among antique bottles and Warner even took out a patent on the Tippecanoe bottle design to protect it from imitators. Its mushroom lip is attached to the familiar log shaped bottle embossed with a canoe.

SMALL SQUARE LIP – the small square lip was less common than its large brother, but appeared in several Warner bottles, namely the sample bottles both from Rochester and London.

LARGE SQUARE LIP – the large square lip or collar graced later Warner bottles, most notably the Warner’s Safe Remedies Co. bottles in their various colors.

These represent the principal types of lips found on Warner’s Safe bottles. You will undoubtedly find some examples that are exagerated or diminished versions of these styles. Many thanks to Ed Ojea for assistance with the photos and for being the first to categorize Warner bottles based on lip type in his Warner’s Reference Guide. Watch those lips!

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.

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.

Warner’s Safe Cure: Tippecanoe Bitters?

In 1883, Warner introduced a new product to replace his bitters line (Safe Tonic, Safe Bitters and Safe Tonic Bitters) that had come into being when he launched his patent medicine business. Although the distinct figural log bottle reveals no product difference, labelled versions suggest that Tippecanoe came in two grades: “XXX Bitters” and “The Best.” But why? Why take an established bitters line off the market and replace it with an unknown? Why two grades?

These are questions that may not have clear answers. Mark McDonald has suggested that Warner introduced the XXX Bitters first and later dropped the word “Bitters” from the label. Indeed, a close inspection of the XXX Bitters label reveals the following statement “Use No Nostrums or Preparations Called” followed by the word “Bitters,” which suggests a rebuke of bitters. Mark also suggests that Tippecanoe was introduced to create a clearly trademarked product, perhaps to compete with the Hop Bitters product marketed by fellow Rochesterian, Asa T. Soule.

Whatever the motivation, the product was principally (about 99%) rum for at least part of its existence. That existence likely spanned into the 20th Century. Although it was originally believed that Tippecanoe vanished from the market about 1895, at least one labelled version makes specific reference to the 1906 legislation enacted to limit the expansive claims of patent medicine hucksters. That label states in part:

Contains ethyl alcohol, 23 per cent. Guaranteed under the Food and Drug Act June 30, 1906. Serial No. 5017.

 In the end, collectors love the Tippecanoe bottle, because of its uniqueness and not because of what it contained. The majority of Tippecanoe bottles are found in the familiar amber with a prized few in green (which multiply their value considerably). Reports of a clear variety have never been confirmed. Some Tippecanoes also can be found with mold errors which misspell the word Rochester as either “Rochestr” or “Rocheter” and are also more scarce.

The Tippecane product was heavily advertised by Warner and appeared in his almanacs and other publications, including the Artists Album pictured above. Advertising signs also have been found in three varieties, including the one pictured above for “Bilious Headache/Blood Disorders.”  They provide an interesting diversion from the Safe Remedies for which Warner was best known.

Warner’s Safe Cure – Bitters

Anyone who collects bottles is familiar with the term “bitters.”  Bitters refers generically to a group of bottles that packaged a concoction of roots and herbs with a distinct bitter flavor compounded with alcohol. Understandably there are bottle collectors that confine their collections strictly to bitters bottles, including figural bitters. Without a doubt, bitters bottles occupy a significant place in the hearts and minds of collectors. Although Warner did not have collectors in mind when he introduced his bitters, he was, no doubt, aware of the market for such a product.

Warner produced a bitters product from the time that he introduced his first line of products in 1879-1880 until about 1883. The half pint of the Tonic Bitters continued after 1883 for whatever reason. Warner produced three bottles that contained bitters: Safe Bitters (pint and half pint), Safe Tonic (pint and half pint) and Safe Tonic Bitters (pint and half pint). I have also seen a Safe Tonic bottle with a Safe Tonic Bitters label (pictured above), so there was some interchangability among the products.  In the 1879 Almanac, Warner described the Safe Tonic as follows:

Warner’s Safe Tonic does not differ from the Safe Bitters in effect, except that the Tonic contains less stimulant properties and is therefore preferable for use where in order to obtain the alternative and blood purifying effect of the medicine it is necessary to use it at short intervals and for a longer period.

All of these bottles in both the pint and half pint sizes are valued by Warner collectors ranging from the Safe Tonic as Scare to the Safe Bitters and Safe Tonic Bitters as Rare. As a rule, the half pints are much more difficult to acquire than the pints and the half pint Tonic may be considered Rare. Not many collectors can say they have all six varieties and those that do are not likely to part with them easily.

Warner is not known for figural bottles. The notable exception is his Tippecanoe Bitters that was introduced in 1883. Stay tuned for more on that wonderful bottle.