Old aqua bottle i purchased off a private collector
The embossing reads : THE PROPERTY OF GF SCHOLLER 215 N 4TH ST. PHILADA. TO SELL OR FILL THIS BOTTLE IS A CRIME. I only found two other bottles online that read the same as this one and is the exact same style however they have a Frederick schlich wire closure and that is basically what they talk about, my question is being from Phila. Pa. I can not find any existence of any company or any of these names at the location that is embossed on the bottle so did this company exist in phila. and if so who was or were GF SCHOLLER ? Thank you for any info you can provide.
Comments
1. Some person put the stopper on the bottle some years after the business closed. Despite the language on the bottle that it cannot be reused, bottles were reused.
2. Perhaps Schlich bought out Scholler at some point and kept using his bottles.
Regarding info. on the business itself - Tod von Mechow has documented over 1600 Philadelphia brewers so we know there were lots of small brewers. The important thing to note is *small* family operations /tiny proprietorships.
If you are lucky, you can dig into City Directories of the era and hope to find a listing for the business and use this to date when Scholler operated. If luckier still, you can find an advertisement in a directory or newspaper that might shed light on what they produced.
What most researchers find is that many small businesses of the 19th century were indeed quite small and did not produce much, if anything, in the way of printed materials. Only the bigger firms like Drake's Plantation or H.H. Warner and the like leave us with printed materials.