Here is a western square which is a bit of a mystery to me. The Dr. Hauseman's German Bitters was blown in a re-worked "small" Rosenbaum's Bitters mold and the slugged out areas are easily visible. The small Rosenbaum's are late 1860's, and most reference material considers this a late 1870's or 1880's bottle. It just seems hard to imagine that the old Rosenbaum's molds were just laying around for 10 years, and the effort to re tool the mold was necessary to create the Hauseman's. It would seem that this bitters could be earlier than originally thought...possibly 1870-72. Has anyone found any advertising for this bottle? They are pretty rare, with maybe 3 squares known, and possibly one or two of the flask version. Overall this has to be one of the rarest of all western bitters, and a great piece of San Francisco history.
Dale,
ReplyDeleteI believe Eric McGuire found an advertisement for this product in the 1877 issue of the Fresno Republican newspaper.
Dale,
ReplyDeleteJ.L. Lange & Co were sole agents of this product. Located at 412 Commercial Street, between Sansome and Battery Sts, San Francisco.
Rumor has it two mint examples are known. One dug by San Jose's Puffy P, and another dug in Sacramento. Is that true ?
ReplyDeleteAs far as I am aware of, yes. Peck had the first compliments of yours truly. A broken Hausemman flask also came from the capital city.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I know there are 3 examples, the Paisano collection, the Siri collection and now the Mlasko collection. I posted the first two comments, the only newspaper advertisement to be found came from the Fresno Republican paper by the S.F. firm of Lang & Co. in the March 24th, 1877 and May 12th, 1877 issues.
ReplyDeletecould someone post a pic of the flask ? one would think the flask and square are the same age.
ReplyDeleteA picture of both the flask and square example are pictured on page 164 of the Ring/Ham Bitters Supplement book. Both bottles exhibit the same large lettering and font style.
ReplyDeleteMike, do you remember what was in the layer next to your example?
ReplyDeleteThat was so long ago that it has dropped off of my memory. All I can think of is a green Alex at the moment, plus a few early meds. It was a small hole, but deep and in the front yard of an existing 1890s house. The original building was tiny and right on the street on the bird's eye. The busted Houseman flask was across the street and down two lots. Who'da thunk that such bottles were in this town? You just never know about Sackamenna, it has a few surprises now and then.
ReplyDeleteI dug my example with a broken gold dust
ReplyDelete