Warner’s Safe Cure – Frank Romanowski’s Safe Compound Dig in 2010

Warner's Safe Compounds Dug by Frank Romanowski

If you follow this blog with any regularity, you have heard me say more than once that my favorite Safe Cures come from the London Office. That is not a slight against the cures from Frankfurt, Pressburg or Melbourne, but rather an acknowledgement that London offers, perhaps, the widest variety of types and colors, second only to Rochester. For example, the London Office offers us the remarkable sample in amber and green or the Safe Compound in  6″ or 5 1/2″ strap sided varieties. Also, the colors run from amber to ice blue aqua.

Although I have never had the opportunity to dig in Great Britain, I have had the pleasure of making the acquaintance (virtually) of Frank Romanowski. Frank lives in the north of England and is an avid bottle digger. More to the point, he has had occasion to dig some nice Warner’s Safe Cures over the years. One such dig yielded some nice Safe Compounds pictured above. I asked him to share the story of that dig and he graciously agreed to do so. Here is his unedited account of that dig:

                                                     The ‘Compound’ Dig
 
          It was February 28th 2010. A day in my digging career I will never forget! This is how the story began. My sister Helena is what we call here in the UK a ‘rambler’. That doesn’t mean she talks endlessly! It actually means that she is a member of The Ramblers Association,  a national group which organises group walks through the countryside and takes pride in protecting rights of way. The previous weekend, my sister had been on one such ‘ramble’ and had spotted broken glass and stoneware at the bottom of a stream bank. I had asked her to look out for such tell-tale signs of possible old dumping grounds whenever she was out walking and had several leads which turned out to be false starts in the past. So I didn’t hold out much hope when she offered to take me to the spot.

         It was quite a long drive and then a hike on foot, so it was mid-morning when we finally arrived at the site. It was just as she had said, broken stoneware jam pots and fragments of codd bottles could be seen in the stream and it was clear that they had come from the eroded edges of an ashy bank above it. I cut into the banking with my shovel and after removing about a foot of hard clay ash and bottle fragments began to appear. It looked promising! A few minutes later my heart sank a little as clear glass machine-made sauce bottles and jam jars began to surface. ”Another horrible late 20s site” I thought to myself. My sister took her dogs off for a long walk and left me to get on with the dig. Three hours and a ton of fruitlessly shifted ash later my mobile phone rang. It was my partner Catherine calling to enquire how I was getting on. ”I’ve got nothing” I told her ”I doubt I’ll be hurrying back to dig this place again”. A few minutes after ending our conversation I decided to fork in the sides of the trench. A small amber bottle fell face down on to the ash. ”Another Jeye’s Fluid” I thought to myself, picked the bottle up and turned it around. A Warner’s Compound!! I couldn’t believe it! A moment later the base of another appeared, alas it was only the base. An amber hair restorer had my heart racing again for a moment as i pulled it from the ash thinking it might be yet another Compound! I dug with renewed vigour for a few minutes untill suddenly the top of another small amber bottle appeared, sticking out of the wall of the trench. I gently eased it out….Warner’s Compound number two!! My sister returned shortly afterwards to find me one excited and happy digger! Upon returning home, Catherine couldn’t believe my good fortune. ”I want to dig one” she said, ”Shall we go back there tomorrow?” I didn’t need a second invitation to return.

         March 1st, we set off good and early and upon arrival set about starting to dig each side of the trench I had dug the day before. Hopeful of yet more success, I quickly hit the bottom of the site in my trench…for little reward. Meanwhile, Catherine had been struggling a little with the hard clay that capped the site. ”Here, let me have a go” I said, quickly cutting off the clay in her trench to get down into the ash. As I lifted my shovel, a small amber lip appeared. ”Can I dig it out?” she said and then carefully lifted the bottle from the ash. Another sparkling Warner’s Compound! Elated we dug on, but unfortunately no more Compounds surfaced that day. I have since returned to the site on several occasions and have dug a further five broken Compounds. There is very little left of the site to dig now, but I live in hope! 

Thanks for sharing Frank!  I hope to have the opportunity to dig with Frank some day. Cheers.

The Rise and Fall of the Warner Empire: The Warner’s Safe Remedies Co. (Part VIII)

Warner’s slide into insolvency was hastened by the Panic of 1893, which some historians compare to the Great Depression of the late 1920′s and 1930′s. However, the fact of the matter is that H. H. Warner was the architect of his own misfortune. His once great patent medicine empire could not support the weight of his wildly speculative investments and ever diminishing interest in managing his once great enterprise. His collapse surprised many, who had seen him as favorite son of Rochester. Indeed, in December, 1887, he had been elected as president of the newly formed Rochester Chamber of Commerce. Ironically, Warner’s inaugeral address to the organization highlighted the importance of reinvestment of capital to promote business growth. The Chamber later selected Warner as their Man of the Year over a lesser known camera maker named George Eastman. Clearly, the Kodak would never last.

 By 1893, however, Warner’s successes were ancient history. The British directors of the H. H. Warner & Co. Ltd. voted that his stock should be forfieted as a penalty for his mismanagement. With his last valuable asset stripped away, Warner filed for bankruptcy and spent the remaining years of his life attempting to regain his business prominence. Although he was out as the owner of the company, it continued to exist without him. Atwater reports that the American branch of the company was sold to Rochester businessmen, J. J. DeMay and S. B. Keaner, who moved it back to Rochester to occupy the Duffy Malt Whiskey warehouse and it survived on an ever diminishing scale until the mid-1940′s.

Under the management of DeMay and Keaner, the company produced remedies under the name Warner’s Safe Remedies Company, which included a Diabetes Remedy, Rheumatic Remedy, Kidney & Liver Remedy, Acute Rheumatic Compound, Compound: A Diuretic, Nervine and Sedative.  As Seeliger reports, these bottles had the same embossing with different labels to designate the specific contents. An approach similar to that used with the H. H. Warner & Co. Ltd. bottles in Melbourne. The Safe Remedies Co. bottles generally appear as amber, aqua and clear variants, although a select few may have color variations that make them more valuable.

From its beginning in 1879, Warner’s Safe Remedies had been a dramatic success growing almost exponentially and spreading out to the four corners of the globe. Perhaps in the end, its rapid success with Warner at the helm was its undoing. Perhaps he began to believe that everything he invested in was bound to produce the riches he had become accustomed to. Whatever the reason, by 1893, Warner’s intuitive skills for investing and marketing failed him. The star that had burned so brilliantly was burning itself out. Although Warner would live another 30 years, he would live them in the shadow of his former successes.

Warner’s Foreign Offices: London (1882 – 1939?)

Perhaps one of Warner’s most prestigious foreign branches was his London office opened in 1882. Not only was the office in a major world capital, but it produced some, if not most of the most colorful Warner’s available to collectors. (See Warner Colors). This includes 40 oz. Animal Cures in various shades of amber and green, the Safe Cure in pint and half-pint in amber, shades or green and aqua, the Diabetes Cure in pints in shades of amber to green, the Nervine in pint and half-pint in shades of amber and green, the Rheumatic Cure in pints in shades of amber and green, two sizes of Compound and sample miniatures in amber and green.

Over the course of its existence until the 1930′s, the London office shifted its locations around the City. According to research based upon Warner advertising and London City Directories, H. H. Warner & Co. Ltd. operated out of the following locations:

1885   81 Southhampton Row, WC

1889, 1899, 1902   86 Clarkenwell Road, EC

1909, 1914, 1920 and 1923   18 & 20 Laystall Street, Rosebury Avenue, EC

1927   18 Laystall Street, EC1

1931-1932   18 &20 Laystall Street, EC1 (Space shared with M. F. Frederick, Mechanical Engineer)

1934    18 & 20 Laystall Street, EC1

1939    63a Hall Road, Peckham SE15

See http://bottlediggers.netfirms.com/cures.html. In addition to supplying the Safe Cure needs of the Brits, the London office apparently also supplied Safe Cure across the English Channel to France and possibly to Belgium and Switzerland as well.

I have attached a copy of what was likely an insert in a box of Safe Cure or Safe Compound. I have also enlarged part of the flyer. This flyer is particularly interesting on three fronts. First, although it does not include a copywrite or publication date, it states “Renowned for Nearly Fifty Years.” Assuming we use 1879 as the date when Warner first introduced his medicines to the public (in Rochester), that would suggest this insert dates to the late 1920′s. Second, this also confirms that he operated out of the 18 & 20 Laystall Street address well into the 20th Century. Finally, it suggests that Warner’s London office was still supplying products to Paris, Kreuzlingen and Brussels after the turn of the last century. This likely accounts for the wide variety of Safe Remedies bottles from London.