Private Label from near home, Elgin 17s, and a great stroll through the insane world of patent medicine.... this was just too good and allot of fun!
This is Elgin #488112. 7 jewels, 17 size, model 1 marked for Kennedy & Co. It cleaned up really well, still has the Hunter Patent Mainspring, looks great inside and lives in an Elgin N.W.Co coin silver case.
So Kennedy & Co obtained the rights to Dr. Radcliffe's 7 Seven Seals or Golden Wonder in 1869, and immediately began advertising all over the country for product sales and for local agents. Prior to this they are listed as a stationary store. Here is a trade card recently added to my collection for this watch.
How do we know it is the same company that is on the watch? From the beginning, Kennedy and Co offered watches to new agents as an incentive. This is from an 1869 issue of American Farmer, courtesy of google books.
One of their full column ads is attached to this post, its a pdf, sorry I couldn't find a better way to show it so it was readable.
Feb 1st, 1876 Bossier Banner (Bellevue, La) courtesy of Library of Congress. I guess it should be in the attachments section below. You will see they are still offering watches as an incentive to be an agent in 1876.
The patent medicine, or nostrum, scene was a mess of awesome advertising, hype and some crazy chemicals legally distributed all over the U.S. Dr. Radcliffe's medication is noted to cure.... just about anything. After finding out what is actually in this miracle cure I can definitely say it is not a cure, but if you took a few nips from the bottle you certainly wouldn't care if you were sick or not! This was a mixture of 90% Alchohol, Capsicum, Peppermint oil, Camphor, CHLOROFORM and ETHER!!!!! This lovely concoction came in a couple different sizes. Check out these awesome bottles. Each one marked Kennedy& Co Pittsburgh with Seven seals or golden wonder on the front. The smaller bottle is in exceptionally good condition.
I told you we had allot of fun with this one! These bottles are 146ish years old! I couldn't imagine how strong this concoction is. Sophie sniffed the empty bottle and look what happened!! hahaha
Sorry about the dog joke, i assure you no Labs were harmed in researching this company. She's just goofy and sleeps like that... and yes, those are all her blankets.
Anyways.... Kennedy & Co was located at 28 Wood St in downtown Pittsburgh. Today it is Gateway Tower, so unfortunately there is no picture of their building except for exaggerated advertisements. It is the corner building on 5th ave and Wood St, so this was a pretty prominent location at the time. 5th Ave was the place to be!
This post is started separately from the Elgin private label thread because Kennedy & Co advertised watches for their agents for years. I would imagine there could be any number of makes and models of watches out there marked for them and would like to ask anyone to please share if you know of any.
Thanks for reading and have a good day!
This is Elgin #488112. 7 jewels, 17 size, model 1 marked for Kennedy & Co. It cleaned up really well, still has the Hunter Patent Mainspring, looks great inside and lives in an Elgin N.W.Co coin silver case.
So Kennedy & Co obtained the rights to Dr. Radcliffe's 7 Seven Seals or Golden Wonder in 1869, and immediately began advertising all over the country for product sales and for local agents. Prior to this they are listed as a stationary store. Here is a trade card recently added to my collection for this watch.
How do we know it is the same company that is on the watch? From the beginning, Kennedy and Co offered watches to new agents as an incentive. This is from an 1869 issue of American Farmer, courtesy of google books.
One of their full column ads is attached to this post, its a pdf, sorry I couldn't find a better way to show it so it was readable.
Feb 1st, 1876 Bossier Banner (Bellevue, La) courtesy of Library of Congress. I guess it should be in the attachments section below. You will see they are still offering watches as an incentive to be an agent in 1876.
The patent medicine, or nostrum, scene was a mess of awesome advertising, hype and some crazy chemicals legally distributed all over the U.S. Dr. Radcliffe's medication is noted to cure.... just about anything. After finding out what is actually in this miracle cure I can definitely say it is not a cure, but if you took a few nips from the bottle you certainly wouldn't care if you were sick or not! This was a mixture of 90% Alchohol, Capsicum, Peppermint oil, Camphor, CHLOROFORM and ETHER!!!!! This lovely concoction came in a couple different sizes. Check out these awesome bottles. Each one marked Kennedy& Co Pittsburgh with Seven seals or golden wonder on the front. The smaller bottle is in exceptionally good condition.
I told you we had allot of fun with this one! These bottles are 146ish years old! I couldn't imagine how strong this concoction is. Sophie sniffed the empty bottle and look what happened!! hahaha
Sorry about the dog joke, i assure you no Labs were harmed in researching this company. She's just goofy and sleeps like that... and yes, those are all her blankets.
Anyways.... Kennedy & Co was located at 28 Wood St in downtown Pittsburgh. Today it is Gateway Tower, so unfortunately there is no picture of their building except for exaggerated advertisements. It is the corner building on 5th ave and Wood St, so this was a pretty prominent location at the time. 5th Ave was the place to be!
This post is started separately from the Elgin private label thread because Kennedy & Co advertised watches for their agents for years. I would imagine there could be any number of makes and models of watches out there marked for them and would like to ask anyone to please share if you know of any.
Thanks for reading and have a good day!
