Monday, September 10, 2012
N.B. Jacobs , San Francisco
Here is another western "bitters" that remains a bit of a mystery to me and others which I have discussed it with over the years. Supposedly this container contained "Carlos O'Donnell's Bitters", yet I have not seen a label nor advertising for the product. It is a pretty scarce square which only comes in an olive toned green and has a tapered collar without a lower ring. The base does not have a "dot" in the center. I can account for 8 or so of these in collections yet there are obviously more, not less known. Most I have seen have some minor damage, and come out of the ground in need of some level of cleaning. It would seem that they were blown in the east, but I am not certain of this.
The embossing has two fonts or styles...one which very closely resembles the R-94 "small" western blown Rosenbaums, and the other side being a more fancy type lettering indicative of the embossing on the "large R-93 Rosenbaums. I have compared the embossing on both examples of Rosenbaums and the N.B. Jacobs bottles seem to borrow from each. I do not understand why this would be so, nor am I positive which product they actually contained. Bill Ham's exhaustive research on the seemingly ficticious "Dr. Rosenbaum" is interesting in that he can find absolutely no evidence in any directory for Philadelphia during the time frame which this phantom doctor was to be in practice, and the original Rosenbaums Bitters produced. He also has determined that the brand "Old Wheat Whiskey" was being produced between 1864, and May of 1865. Could this square have contained this product?Wilson's Western Bitters book indicates a date of 1868-9. I do not believe it was a generic product bottle as there should be many more in collections. it is my understanding that the majority of known specimens came from one hole in Benicia. I know that Rosenbaums were distributed heavily in the Bay Area, Nevada, and Oregon but I would be curious to know if the N.B. Jacobs square was as widely distributed, and where examples have been dug. After 40 years of collecting western glass, it seems the more I learn, the less I seem to know!Dale M.
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Dale,
ReplyDeleteThis bottle has always fascinated me as well. I had an example that I acquired from the Elmer Smith collection when I had my first collection of western bitters/glass. I've also studied this bottle quite closely as well as the variant 1 and 2 Rosenbaums Bitters bottles. When pointing out the similarities and disimilarities between the three embossed bottles, my opinion is that the variant 1 Rosenbaums bottle (small letter/large size bottle)and the N.B. JACOBS product bottle were both initially manufactured back East. I believe that the molds were made and the bottles initially blown at an eastern glassworks. One of the most telling signs of this besides the bottles blown in colors typical of eastern glass is the upper body of the bottles exhibit a typical roundness where the beveled corners meet the shoulder of the bottle. This character trait is very common among squares of eastern manufacture. Most other large squares of western origin do not have this characteristic. However there is no doubt in my mind that at some point the variant 1 Rosenbaums Bitters' bottles were blown by either P.G.W. or S.F.G.W. as I have several broken examples that are quite crude in their making and absolutely blown in western glass colors as well as using a different style of top that is typical of western bottles. The bottle above though does not exhibit these western traits to me and I believe it to be of eastern manufacture, but I am puzzled as to the age of it, and whether it indeed was the product of Carlos O'Donnell's Wild Cherry Bitters and Iron Tonic. Jacobs was prolific in his advertising of Rosenbaums Bitters from its inception around March of 1858 up to the last 6 advertisements for this product in early 1868. All of his advertisements always showed N.B.Jacobs & Co. However the last 6 advertisements which ran from May through November of 1868 did not list him or his agency in the advertisements for Rosenbaums Bitters. The advertisements for the C.O.D product were first marketed and advertised in the March, April 1869 time frame, many months after the last Rosenbaum's ads appeared while Jacobs was still living. Another interesting tidbit of information is that William Reynolds while working for N. B. Jacobs actually trademarked the Carlos O'Donnell product in February 1869. N.B.Jacobs died in December 1869 and for a brief period of time in April through June of 1870 William Reynolds now the proprietor of Jacobs' business did advertise Rosenbaums Bitters in the S.F. paper. He had sold a portion of this old established business to a partner. However none of this really gets us any closer to uncovering this mystery container doe it?
I personally have very little information on the Jacob's bottle. If my memory serves me Dan and Max Bell dug an N.B. Jacob's in dark amber somewhere in the Sierra foothills, possibly Dutch Flat or the surrounding area. I am not sure what happened to the bottle but maybe Max would be willing to give us more information on the Jacob's
ReplyDeleters
Now that I am thinking about this I remember a broken in place N.B. Jacob's that was discovered in the settlement of little York in Nevada County.
ReplyDeleters
Dale;
ReplyDeleteI purchased a "matching pair of bookend" N. B. Jacop's at the Santa Rosa Show in late August of 1978. Both were identical in color; a semi transparent olive black glass with a hint of light yellow amber. If memory serves, the seller had three and stated that they (along with a third) were dug in that general vicinity. Amazing what you could get for $100~ apiece back then...
I don't have much info on the N. B. Jacob's but I can tell you that I dug broken in place examples of this bottle right along side of Rosenbaums in the same layer in the Comstock area of Nevada.
ReplyDeleteMy neighbor and I, back in 1977, helped Frank W. dig the hole that these bottles were dug in. I think we pulled 7 intact examples out of that giant muddy 12' deep privy ! My brother and I went back a yr later and redug the pit, because we thought maybe some of it was missed, due to the water in it at the time, and length of it (it was about 10' long x 6' wide). We were right, there were undug pockets, but we didnt get any more NB Jacob's bottles. We did however, find a real nice London Jockey Gin in forest green foaming with bubbles !
ReplyDeleteA little over 20 yrs later, we located a pit inside of a planter box area for another bldg not too far down the road. After getting down about 3 feet we determined it was ABD (already been dug). Since it appeared to be late 1860's -early 1870's on the top, and the fact that we'd gotten bottles out of other ABD's in the area, we decided to go ahead and redig it to its entirety. Well, this time we did get another NB Jacobs, a nice mint one !
AP
I have dug both the N.B. Jacobs and Rosenbaum's in Mountain sites. The N.B.Jacob's only bottle seems to be quite a few years earlier, as they were dug along a road that was no longer in use by 1862. It was the old Johnson Pass Toll Road that was used as the Pony Express route over what is now known as Echo Summit. We also dug a nice green variant 2 Rosenbaum's at the site of the old Lincoln School.
ReplyDeleteA few years ago when our Sierra cabin was burglarized they stole all of the bottles that lined the top of the interior framing. Gone were several nice colored knife edge flasks and a foamy "old amber" N. B. Jacobs with a 3' crack down one corner. All of the generic bottles that we had dug from several toll stations also disappeared and will likely never surface.