Many years ago I dug a small farm dump near my house. It was certainly a sad dig through many rocks
and shards of pontils and nicely colored fragments. One of the few whole bottles was a mysterious
one. It was marked Antiseptic / Sure Cure on the sides and had a WHS monogram on the front. I
tried to research it a few years ago with little success. I was quite surprised when digging at a farm
dump the next property over (more recently), I found another one! I renewed my search which again proved
fruitless. The mystery was finally
solved by medicine bottle expert Matt Knapp, who was able to track down an old
advertisement for William H. Sheldon’s Antiseptic Sure Cure, which was sold by
Oliver Johnson & Co. of Providence,
RI. I’m still at a loss at the odds of finding
two unlisted RI cure bottles within a few months!
I was happy to see a Wm.
K. Reynolds Providence, RI pharmacy bottle show up on ebay. It has a neat design on the front, and when I
found that it was an unlisted “ size, it was even better!
Out of all the Rhode Island
beverage companies out there, I think I have the most diverse assortment of
bottles from the Standard Bottling Co.
of Pawtucket, RI.
I have a small army of blob and crown top sodas from them, and a few
uncommon examples. They include an
etched amber beer bottle, a seltzer, and now an etched wine bottle. Most
etched wines are fairly simple in design, so to see the company’s American flag
trademark on the front makes it stand out from the crowd.
Ok, after a small break I’m back to more Otis collection
bottles. A nice Joseph Demers Pawtucket, RI blob had an unfamiliar look to it. It turns out to be my first example with "and" embossed between the address numbers. The period after Joseph also made it unlisted.
When it came to bottling in Rhode Island, the name McKenna was a
prominent one. From the prolific McKenna
brothers to McKenna & Conaty, and lastly McKenna & Nolan Providence, RI.
This was certainly the least prosperous partnership between one of the
McKennas and James P. Nolan. It is first
mentioned in 1903. In 1911 they created
their own baseball team. They disbanded
by 1913, but Mr. Nolan continued bottling by himself at the same location.
