BRYANT'S STOMACH BITTERS

If only they could talk what a tale would be told....... The year was 1862, a Union merchant ship named the “Sea Lark” on route from New York via Cape Horn to California. Its cargo contained supplies including two cases of Bryant's Bitters likely destined to reach the Gold Fields in Northern California. It was anchored off the continent during the Civil War and attacked by the Confederate ship, the C.S.S, Alabama, it was one of 60 ships destroyed by the notorious raider ship.

The Alabama, built in Britain for the Confederacy and crewed by British mercenaries, proved to be the most successful commerce raider of all time. Alabama had 60 kills notched up before she was at last intercepted by a federal cruiser and sunk in the English Channel. The revenge angle was played up by Northern papers in the States; but the damage done to Union commerce was extensive. Three score of whalers, grain clippers, colliers burnt with all their cargos ...

Fast forward 150 years later and a group of divers discover the wreck of the ship in South America off the Eastern Shore of the continent.

The photographs are truly amazing and you see exactly what the divers did staring down at two cases of Bryant’s bitters in 20 feet of water.

  They were able to salvage 18 intact specimens that were all immediately scooped up by collectors. Prior to this discovery these bottles were very rare and their still quite rare with about 30 being known in any condition. After sitting on the bottom of the ocean for 150 years the surfaces of these bottles had become stained or etched, some very etched & eroded. All of them were fairly crude and many had issues: fractured potstones, open bubbles, chips, cracks, etc.  and almost all had very eroded surfaces. Attempts were made to clean the majority of these with some being destroyed in the process and others polished to death. 

This was one of the better examples of the group with no damage and a fairly decent surface. It’s kind of neat how the top couple inches of this bottle has some wear from ocean exposure as you can see in the picture the necks sticking out of the sand. A 12-1/2” tall lady’s leg shaped bottle that was hand blown into a two part mold in a green colored glass, circa 1859. Has an applied collar top and is nicely crude with great character. The base is concave with a sticky ball pontil which is the earliest for these bottles. The embossing on three of the eight panels reads”BRYANT’S / STOMACH / BITTERS” in big bold letters. The owner felt it was more important to leave in its original condition as a genuine Civil War shipwreck artifact rather than altering its charm & character by polishing and we couldn’t agree more.  Only a couple of these were spared from attempts by bottle polishers and remain in this original  as found state of condition.  

This beautiful rare & historic bitters bottle has NO damage and no restoration. It’s a 150 year old shipwreck artifact and an extremely rare find. 

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