CONNELL'S MOONPLANT !

 

 

Now here’s a bottle that has always intrigued me. Just the name alone is strange, CONNELL’S BRAHMINICAL MOONPLANT EAST INDIAN REMEDIES, and the embossing with a pair of feet with stars surrounding them about takes the cake as far as interesting and quirky embossing goes in my book.

 

And how about the lettering font on this bottle!

The R in “BRAHMINICAL” is your basic straight leg R, however, the R in “REMEDIES” and “TRADEMARK” are the curved leg R associated with western glass houses. Could be the mold for this bottle was reworked and the “EAST INDIAN REMEDIES” and “TRADEMARK” added at a later date however I do not have any concrete proof that this was the case.

Was this a bitters, well it certainly was supposed to cure the same ailments as bitters, The definition of BRAHMINICAL is:  A member of a cultural and social elite, especially of that formed by descendants of old New England families. Hmm... Trying to find the definition of MOONPLANT led me to moonbeam (nickname for California's governor ) and moonflower which is defined as: Any of several unrelated vines which bloom at night. Even the name of this product has me baffled; was it an extract of some sort of climbing vine that was intended to be used by wealthy Boston socialites in the moonlight? 
 
I have heard that there are two variants of this bottle, one an eastern made product and the other western manufactured. What’s the difference?

The earliest and one of the only advertisements that I could find for the Moonplant was listed in the May 1873 Sacramento Daily Union and was repeated for a week or so, that’s it.

 

Thanks to Jeff Wichmann for the pictures

From Eric McGuire

 

Rick,

Please accept this as an answer to some of the Moonplant questions. 

I see two questions within this post. The first is, are there two different variants of the Moonplant bottle. The answer is yes, there are, but not as you might expect. The earliest variant has no signature embossed on the base. It is true that this version was only made in San Francisco, however, Connell's signature was soon added to the base so the later variants made in San Francisco will also have this feature.

When Connell moved to Boston, by the Spring of 1874, he took the Moonplant bottle mold with him, and the bottles blown there are virtually identical to those made in San Francisco. The only difference then became the color of the glass, which is not a rock solid differentiator. It is true that the New England versions I have seen do have a bit more red in the amber color but we all know that each batch of glass can vary somewhat, leaving positive identification out the window. So, only those specimens without the cursive signature on the base can be positively identified as a western made bottle. There are still a good number of olive amber specimens known that were very likely blown in the west and have the magic feel of western glass.

The other question is, why the feet? Connell spent an amount of time in the Indian subcontinent. While there he developed his moonplant medicine and also picked up some knowledge of Buddhism. He created sort of a radical mysticism based upon this religion and in his advertising literature Connell used the two feet surrounded by ten stars that he claimed was a symbol found at the  entrance of the Gates of Haimagaree. I don't believe this is an actual physical place but part of a Buddhist story. See the advertisement page from his brochure and the use of the two feet.

After Connell ended up in a legal battle over a trade mark dispute in Australia, which was centered around the use of an elephant, he decided to move to San Francisco in 1872 where he fully developed his Moonplant medicine. His first agent in San Francisco was the Murphy Bros., which didn't last very long. Most interesting is his second agent, J.F. Snow, who was a cleaner and dyer of gloves and other fine leather goods. After Connell left San Francisco, if you recall, Snow even entered the patent medicine business with his "Victory", which was a hair coloring product. There is lots more on Connell, but this answers just a couple of questions.

Eric