Wheat Bitters – Wheat Bitters Company
19 Park Place, New York
27 September 2013
Today we will look at what most bitters collectors consider a common bottle. I am speaking of Wheat Bitters, put out by the Wheat Bitters Co., 19 Park Place in New York from about 1883 to 1885.
You see the wonderfully illustrated trade cards often and I have examples of most of them in my collection. The illustrations typically show Victorian people interacting with an enlarged bottle of Wheat Bitters whether they be two lovers in a boat with a Wheat Bitters, people joyously dancing around a bottle of Wheat Bitters, a cherub driving in a dog cart and bottle with cherubs chasing, a couple enjoying Wheat Bitters at a table in the countryside or an ailing man being served Wheat Bitters. You really do not see the actual bottle much at all. If you do, snatch it up.
The trade card marketing phrases are pretty cool too…
The Great Blood, Brain and Muscle Food
A Royal Appetizer – Health For The Nation
A True Temperance Tonic is Found, Hurrah!
The Best Blood and Nerve Food Tonic Known
Take it – Thy Aches and Ills Shall Vanish!
The Carlyn Ring and W. C. Ham listing in Bitters Bottles is as follows:
W 81 WHEAT BITTERS
f // WHEAT // sp // BITTERS //
Wheat Bitters Co. Proprietors 19 Park Place New York
9 1/2 x 3 1/2 x 2 1/8 (7 3/4)
Rectangular, SCM, Applied mouth, 3 sp, Amber – Common; Aqua – Very rare
The Connecticut Courant (Hartford) October 1882
Note: Drug Catalogs: 1883 Schieffelin, 1883-4 M & R, 1885 Goodwin
Wheat Bitters Co., 19 Park pl, 1883, 1884 NYC Directory
Wheat Bitters Co., Office in New York. In liquidation 1884. Obsolete American Securities and Corporations, Illustrated with Photographs of Important Repudiated Bonds
Wheat Bitters, New York, 13.6 percent alcohol, Boston Medical and Surgical Journal.
On the back of one trade card:
Wheat Bitters are compounded under the personal supervision of Prof. N. F. Rider, graduate of “The Massachusetts College of Pharmacy” after a formula recommended by leading physicians.
On another card, grand testimonials and statements from:
Eminent German Chemist, Prof. J. V. Liebig.
M. F. Anderson, M.D., of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburg.
Chossat, Boussingault, Smith on Foods, and every physiological writer on alimentation and diet.
E. W. Robertson, M.D., E. B. Davis, M.D.
Golden amber Wheat Bitters – Meyer Collection
Labeled Wheat Bitters – Antique Bottles.com
