Warner’s Safe Cure: Fantastic Frankfurt!

Warner's Safe Diabetes Cure Frankfurt a/main Pint

Please pardon my terrible alliteration. I was trying for a suitable sequel to Marvelous Melbourne. I recently featured a beautiful green half pint Melbourne Nervine that had been unearthed in Leipsig, Germany.  Well, history has repeated itself and yet another rare Warner’s Safe Cure has surfaced from Leipsig. This time, it was a pint Frankfurt Diabetes Cure a/main. This is another terrific Safe Cure that does not surface very often and it brought just under $2000 when it sold on eBay. Alas, some of us will have to settle for pictures rather than the actual bottle. Enjoy!

Warner's Safe Diabetes Cure Frankfurt a/main

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: 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: 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: The Native Gatherer Revisited

In April, 2008, I did a post on one of the trademarks of Warner’s Safe Cure, the Native Gatherer. This icon appeared early in Warner’s advertising campaign to highlight the fact that his remedies were the result of a combination of rare herbs gathered from distant lands. This symbol appeared on Warner’s  Safe Cure proprietary stamps and in early Warner’s almanacs. Recently, I found that the image was also used in newspaper ads placed by Warner in the early  1880′s. Below are a few of those  ads:

The first ad appeared in the Fort Wayne Sentinel on July 6, 1882 and the second in the Atlanta Constitution on November 22, 1881. Although the text of both ads differs slightly, the message is unmistakeable.  Warner’s Safe Cure is the key to good health.

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: 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: 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 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.