Henley must have been a cranky ol' SOB. He kept changing distributors and agents. He formed new partnerships at every turn it seems. Good for the collectors of Henley's bottles. Just in the IXL bottle alone, there are numerous different moulds. Wilson did a creditable job of trying to sort out some of the different bottles in his 1969 book Western Bitters. Some beautiful colors are found in nearly all of the varieties, but the first group "no circle around IXL" can be truly spectacular.
Quality control or at least 'color control' was not in practice at all.
Now that pic is simply awesome!
ReplyDeleteBEAUTIMOUS!! Did any of those come from me?
ReplyDeleteDamn those are big old bottles and they ain't even fifths. Guess color is king when you've got those deep pockets! :')
ReplyDeleteooooooooooooh, I'd do those in a second. Can I have one please ?
ReplyDeleteYo Mike, these all came from Nev, except second from left. Olive green, that bottle was rattling around several shows back in the mid 1970's. It was found in Cal., can't remember who dug it. Found in Eastern Calif. area.
ReplyDeleteI've found a few Henley's but never a no circle. They're too old for Utah, just accross the border in Nevada is where they are. The amber one came from Western Nev. I think.
I managed to pry it away from its cousins in Santa Rosa, then in a weak moment sold it to Ted S. Guess he could never talk his brother out of one... HA! Ted moved it along to Bryan Gr. and when it came up at auction.. Lordy... that is the last big bottle I have purchased for awhile. I am so short on coin, I don't require pockets. I picked these up back in the day a couple of c notes would buy about any bottle I could hope for.
They've been a pretty good investment..... Har!
soleagent
Boy, now that's a gorgeous run of IXLs. I think that color control though was fairly good because anything other than shades of aqua is pretty special for one of these, at least in my travels.
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WOW! The IXL is the true "KING OF COLOR"
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