Warner’s Safe Cure: Safe Nervine Banner

Warner's Safe Nervine Banner

Over the years, I have seen plenty of examples of Warner’s Safe advertising. Most of it was designed to instill brand loyalty and to help the 19th Century consumer associate the safety and security of an iron safe with the protection of a line of patent medicines.  Apparently, retailers of Warner’s Safe Remedies were encouraged to extend the branding into their establishments. Presumably, this  extension took the form of display advertising not unlike the displays that manufacturers use today to attract customers. Perhaps one of the best examples of this type of display advertising was the canvas banner. These banners heralded  the product, along with a concise statement of its benefits. One such example is the above banner of Warner’s Safe Nervine, Safe Pills and Safe Kidney & Liver Cure.

We don’t know much about this particular sign, except that it may have come from Northeastern Massachusetts, where it was auctioned. The very bottom of the sign bears the words “Murphy, Pine St., Jersey City.” We must assume that Murphy was the  producer of the sign, but that does not help much. Special thanks to Tom at Walnutt Antiques for use of his pictures. If you can shed any light on the unique piece of advertising or on “Murphy,” please let me know.

Warner’s Safe Cure: The Morning Telegram (1903)

I am always on the lookout for advertising from Warner Safe Remedies offices outside the United States. While print advertising inside the US was prolific, the same does not seem to be the case with the foreign offices. Below is a print ad from The Morning Telegram of November 11, 1903, which at first glance appears to be from the London Office. However, when you take a closer look at the text toward the end of the ad, it directs the buyer to the Toronto Office at 44 Lombard Street.

My favorite part of this ad is that it claims to cure “Weak Women” from “a life of suffering and an untimely end.” Wow, what more can you ask?

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: Yellow Fever

When you and I think about patent medicine from the 19th Century, most of us shake our heads and think what a bunch of dopes people were to believe the claims made by the likes of Warner’s Safe Cure. After all, who would think that a couple of bottles of anything could cure you of diabetes or kidney disease. What you have to keep in mind is that the state of medical education was in its infancy. Most Americans did not have a family doctor or access to a doctor at all and were on their own when it came to dealing with disease. A perfect atmosphere for selling patent medicine.

The enormous downside to the whole patent medicine industry, which takes it out of the realm of quaint history, was that genuinely ill people undoubtely purchased this stuff and relied upon it to their detriment. One recent example that I found dealt with the various serious Yellow Fever virus. This virus sickened and killed thousands, until it was isolated and a vaccine was developed through the efforts of Carlos Finlay (above right) and Walter Reed (above left), among others. Although we usually associate it with tropical regions, Yellow Fever cropped up in places like Philadelphia and the District of Columbia. A Warner’s Safe Cure ad running in the National Republican in 1880 actually claimed to prevent Yellow Fever:

 The ad asserts the widely believed notion that viruses like Yellow Fever were the result of breathing bad air (mal-aria) and not the result of transmission by insect bite. This notion dated back centuries and was ultimately laid to rest by the study of infectious diseases. The ad makes a second, and equally false, leap of faith that bad air poisons the blood. This claim flows directly into Warner’s tried and true theme that almost all disease was the result of  impurities in the blood.

For those who actually contracted Yellow Fever in 1880 and  had consumed Warner’s Safe Kidney & Liver Cure in hopes that it would prevent their suffering, one can only hope that they recovered notwithstanding the medicine. It was claims like this one, to cure Yellow Fever, that justifiably gave rise to the  Pure Food & Drug Act and ultimately, what we know today as the Food & Drug Administration.

 

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 Nervine Tiger Revisited

Back in 2008, when I wrote about the famous Warner’s Safe Nervine Tiger poster,  I suggested that this poster was appearing rather frequently for sale on eBay and other sites and I felt like many of the posters were, in fact, reproductions, rather than originals. I still believe this to be the case and have seen at least a half dozen of these come up for auction in 2009 alone. There is simply no way that so many originals have survived to be offered for sale.

In a recent auction, the seller did an excellent job photographing the poster he was offering. I have attached above two of those photographs. Looking at the first photograph, you could easily believe that you were looking at an original. One of the great difficulties with buying antique paper over the internet is that you cannot actually examine the piece being offered. In this case, the second photograph is key. You will note that it says the piece was copyrighted by “Portal Publications, Sausalito, Calif. 94965″. This tells you that you are looking at a reproduction. While Portal was not the only publisher to reproduce this vintage poster, it was undoubtedly one of the most prolific. The other clue is the presence of the Zip Code after Sausalito. Zip Codes did not come into wide use by the U.S. Postal Service until the 1960′s. While there are no indicators of what is a genuine Nervine Tiger poster, any prospective buyer should carefully examine the item offered for markings that disclose a reproduction.

Warner’s Safe Asthma Cure/Remedy

Although most Warner’s collectors focus on the glass bottles, there are other Warner products that deserve attention. Perhaps one of the most desirable of those non-glass Warner collectibles is the tin that contained the Warner’s Safe Asthma Cure or Asthma Remedy. Very few of these tins exist, because proper use of the product damaged or destroyed the container. Unlike the Safe Cures or Log Cabin Remedies, the Asthma Cure was not designed to be taken internally. Instead, the instructions advised the user to “burn a half teaspoonful in the cover or saucer. Inhale the fumes.”  This burning certainly damaged the cover of the tin and over time may have damaged the rest of the container. This perhaps explains the exceeding rarity of these tins.

Never one to miss the opportunity to cross-market his products, Warner instructed users of his Asthma Cure that patients reported improved health after using a dozen bottles of Warner’s Safe Cure to purify their blood and Warner’s Safe Pills to “keep the bowels free.” The Safe Asthma Remedy dropped the endorsement of the Safe Cure, but kept the reference to the Safe Pills. Both of these endorsements echo an important theme in the patent medicine community, which believed that all disease sprang from a diseased liver or kidneys or the failure of the bowels to function properly.

If you are fortunate enough to come across an example of Warner’s Safe Asthma Cure/Remedy, don’t miss the chance to add it to your collection. Thanks to Jack Stecher for pictures of these unique items.

Warner’s Safe Nervine Tiger

For years, I have seen the Warner’s Safe Nervine poster featuring a heroic woman killing a tiger. The advertisement reads “Warner’s Safe Nervine Gives Rest & Sleep, Cures Headache & Neuralgia, Vertigo or Dizziness. Is A Positive Remedy for Nervous Prostration Caused By Excessive Pains, Drinking, Mental Shocks, Overwork, Etc.” At the base of the ad it reads “Warner’s Safe Pills Have No Equal.” All in all a wonderful piece of advertising.

The problem is that at some point in the 1960′s or 1970′s, the original poster was reproduced and distributed as a piece of vintage advertising. Over the years, many of those reproduced posters have made there way into the market and have appeared on auctions sites like eBay. At least one copy of the original poster does exist and is in a private collection. Other originals may also be available for purchase, but the prospective buyer should be careful. Often, the reproductions are listed as “vintage” with no mention that the poster is a reproduction. This may be because the seller does not realize that he is selling a reproduction or perhaps he does. On the reproductions that I have seen, a copywrite date is visible in the lower right hand corner of the document. Sometimes that date is obscured by framing around the poster. The above example shows a date of 1893 and may well be an original, but would still require careful examination by a buyer to ensure its authenticity.

Warner’s Safe Pills

  Warner’s Safe Pills were one of the original five products that H. H. Warner introduced in 1879. In addition to being one of his first products, his Safe Pills were one of his most enduring products, surviving into the 20th Century. I have included a portion of one of the Artist’s Albums from 1888 that featured the Safe Pills. According to that, “[t]hey are compounded on the formula of a successful British army physician in India, and are the best and safest pills in the market.”

The Safe Pills were packaged in a small, clear glass vial with a paper label and inserted into paper packaging. Sealed and opened packages of Safe Pills appear from time to time on Ebay. However, because the packaging would not survive exposure to the elements, only labelled examples can be verified as Safe Pills.

I have included two pictures of Safe Pills containers. One is clearly from the 1880′s and the other from the early 1900′s. If you look closely, you will see that the first has a plainer appearance. The Safe on the packaging includes the word “Tippecanoe” across the top, which means it dates 1883 or after. The second package is much more cluttered. The Safe on the package includes the words “Warner’s Safe Cure” across the top rather than Tippecanoe. More significantly, it includes “Guaranteed Under the Food and Drug Act June 30, 1906″. It also includes the word “Sugar” along the side of the package possibly to suggest wholesomeness.

The description on the package suggests that Safe Pills were designed to treat constipation as well as diarrhoea. Warner later introduces Log Cabin Liver Pills and Cathartic Pills. The picture of the tin suggests that he provided free samples of his pills to the public.