Author: Various
Title: A Collection of Quack Products' Labels
Description: Various places, Various publishers, 1890. One hundred labels, ca 1890s to 1930s; various sizes - from tiny 1 3/4 x 1 to 5 x 3 1/2; some of them illustrated with photographs, engravings, drawings, and chromolithographs; condition varies from fine - with no defects - to good - several of them with chips, splits, and ink-bleeding due to exposure to moisture. A beautiful collection, the largest we have seen, it encompassed decades and reflected people's fascination with patent medicines and the breadth of quack products in the late 19th- and early 20th centuries. With manufacturers spanning the entire United States - from Natchez through Davenport to Chicago and from Albany to Tacoma and San Francisco, the labels advertised remedies, potions, pomades, and salves and included innocuous mustache wax and rose hair oil, the amusing "Spray-A-Cow," which made satisfied cows, the dubious "Claro-Derm" depilatory (to be aplied and then scraped off with a silver knife), the bombastic "Red Hot Heave-Bouncer" for coughs in horses and the "Gypsy Wonder Salve" and the "Brain Duster", the horrid "Blumer's Requi Salve," containing turpentine and carbolic acid and designed to be applied to unmentionable places, and the dangerous "FixiT," which was supposed to be a non-poisonous restorer of meats, ie it made spoiled meat edible once again. The largest number of labels belonged to products manufactured by Lincoln Chemical Works - established in 1886 in Chicago, remembered for their astoundingly-massive line of quack products, and known for encouraging every-day people to distribute the company's fares in their spare time. Other names included Geo. Waldman in Iowa, also famous for their straight razors, Boyston's Pharmacy in San Francisco, Leavitt & Smith Pharmacists in Hudson, NY, and many others. Very good .

Keywords: Labels, Advertisement


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