Sunday, December 27, 2009

S.T.Suits



I believe that the bottle use to sell the Suits products were the shoulder embossed bottle that just says S.T.Suits. There has been a few of these found in Northern California.
Posted by at 2:48 PM
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8 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.
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  2. Richard;

    Many thanks for sharing the amazing trade cards. The shoulder embossing makes sense. Although it's been years since I've seen one, if memory serves, they appear similar to the Chenery Souther, Lilienthal, etc. shoulder variants.

    I located the firm of W.W. Dodge @ the N. W. corner of Clay and Front in 1872. Sadly, the database that we were using to research the Sanborn maps is either down or hacked so am unable to access the maps in order to research it any further.

    Bruce
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  3. W.W.Dodge & Booth also used an aqua medicinal or sarsaparilla shaped bottle to sell ST Suits in the West. I have dug several of them in Ca. They are embossed on all sides except the back with something to the effect of ST Suits Bourbon Jefferson Co KY (I dont have one available to look at right now). These bottles come out of mid to late 1860s pits, so they pre-date the 1/5's. I saw a fully labeled, full unopened example at a show yrs ago, and the label had W.W Dodge, Booth Co. on it, so I'm fairly sure this was the container they used during the 1860s. As far as the 1870s goes, I dont know of anyone that has dug any of the shoulder embossed bottles out West. I have lots of ads for them in the 70s promoting the Suit's brand. Too bad they didnt step-up like the Walker Bros and make a real bottle !
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  4. Makes one wonder if somehow they weren't somehow linked to the Warner's shoulder embossed globbies; "Wine of Life" and "Aromatic Brandy".

    Both have been dug with some frequency in Salt Lake City and surrounding areas in the west (including Nevada) along the transcontinental railroad route, although we attribute them to eastern manufacture and distribution.

    Here we go again with the fish or fowl debate in regards to what truly designates a "western whiskey"...
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  5. Like Columbo used to say; "err, just one more question?".

    What is the correct spelling? S.T. Suit (singular) or S.T. Suits (plural)? The newspaper ad states "Suit", as does Richards trade cards. Thomas lists the bottle as Suits (which incidentally is how I spelled it in my first draft), as does Wilson. To complicate things worse yet, Barnett in WWB 4th edition lists both spellings depending on variants. Problem is, there are no photos of an actual bottle in any of the texts. Anyone out there in western globby-land care to post photos of the real deals?

    Pleeeez?
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  6. K.G.
    The correct spelling should be (Suit) singular, as in S.T. Suit & Co. The Walker Bros. bottle is embossed S.T.Suits/Kentucky Bourbon. Mold maker should have put an apostophe in there!! Makes for more confusion about Samuel T. Suit and his bourbon.
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  7. Ahhhhhh, Good to see these cards again. I found 2 of the exact same cards some years ago in an antique store. They are quite rare. I believe there is 4 in the set, I believe the "Congress" and "Senate" refer to the strengh of the drink. I read something on that years ago. I sold one of the cards to Tom C. in Bishop and the other went to some guy named Roger. Love that paper stuff and Go-Withs. DB
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  8. We have a post from Jun 1,2009 "EASTERN SUIT'S???" that shows the two bottles. I have seen a couple of these Suit 'sixth's' for sale at western bottle shows, but not sure if any had actually been dug in the west. Notice that there is a comment from a bottle digger/diver that has found one. Unknown where it was found.
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