Martin Rancich started in the soda water business sometime in the early 1850's. Martin's soda works were located at different addresses close to J Street in Sacramento California from around 1852 to 1861.
Rancich's first soda bottle was embossed MR/ SACRAMENTO. There is a misspelled variant of the MR bottle that is embossed MR/ SACRIMENTO.
Sometime in 1863 Rancich took Gaetano Deluchi in as a partner in the soda works and had a soda bottle embossed with MR&D on the face of the bottle and UNION GLASS WORKS PHILADa on the reverse.
Although the MR&D is the later of the two Rancich bottles it is quite a bit rarer. Up here in the gold country we run across the MR soda every so often in both of the correct and incorrect spelling of Sacramento. I have never seen a piece of the MR&D in Sierra County.
In all my years of digging in and around Sac-town I have never come across even a shard of an MR&D. I dug 33 regular MRs and two green misspelled ones on one J St pit, but nothin' with the Deluchi connection. The bottle remains a mystery, with no provenance that the partnership actually produced any bottles. Peck Markota used deductive reasoning to make the case for the bottle being a product of the short lived partnership of Rancich and Deluchi. He was most likely correct in that assumption.
ReplyDeleteThe known broken examples of the MR&D bottles were all found in El Dorado Co. It is "presumed" that this complete specimen was also dug in that county. Regardless, it is a fantastic piece of California history and a, if not the, top western soda.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteIn the research I have done the only connection I can find between Rancich & Deluchi is the Sacramento Daily Union January 1, 1868 edition that lists aliens that were naturalized in 1867. Rancich & Deluchi became American citizens on the same day June 18, 1867.
Sorry, that's all I got.
rs
Rancich is listed a soda manufacturer from 1853-1863 at 5th & J Sts. Deluchi is also listed a s a sda manufacturer at the same location in 1863-64 only. That is the sole connection that indicated the possibility of a Rancich-Deluchi partnership and said bottle produced only during that year+. The familiar M.R./Sacramento bottles were only blown in shades of blue, but the later misspelled ones came in blue and green. I have dug both and still have a pair of them.
ReplyDeleteMartin Rancich started his soda water manufactory in Sacramento in 1850. In an article written on January 1st, 1856 in the Sacaramento Daily Union newspaper, it states that the number of soda water manufacturers has decreased and now only three remain at the present time. Casey and Kelley which has a capacity of 500 dozen bottles per day, Martin Rancich which produces 150 dozen per day and Billings and Bryant.
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ReplyDeleteMike, this is jim jones, i just happened to run across this post, the M R &D that i dug at Mormon Island-(folsom lake) must have been in 1968 or 69 and was not in El dorado, county, it was a very low water year and i found several more broken M R & D/s all cobalt no greens and no M&R/s but did get the Rowlers Rheumatism by Dr J Boice Sac City there also. Good Luck Digging.
ReplyDeleteJUST found one of these bottles buried under the back patio at a bar i work at. a blue pretty bottle with MR Sacramento on it. Wow i love finding history.
ReplyDelete