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c.1895–1898 Anheuser-Busch St. Louis Lager Beer Bottle – Original Paper Label – A.B.G.M. Co.
Exceptional original labeled Anheuser-Busch beer bottle dating to the 1890s, standing approximately 9 3/4" tall. Mouth-blown in beautiful pale aqua glass and retaining its large, colorful original lithographed St. Louis Lager Beer paper label and an old, possibly original cork.
Base is clearly embossed:
A B G M CO
for the Adolphus Busch Glass Manufacturing Company, the glassmaking concern closely associated with Adolphus Busch and the rapidly expanding Anheuser-Busch brewing operation.
CONDITION
Excellent glass condition.
No chips. No cracks. No haze. No staining. No interior ghosting.
Glass is bright, clean and exceptionally attractive, with the bubbles, waviness and manufacturing irregularities expected of a mouth-blown bottle of this age.
The original paper label shows age-related rubbing, edge wear and areas of paper loss, but remains remarkably complete for approximately 130 years old. The primary graphics, Eagle-A trademark, medal imagery and the overwhelming majority of the lettering remain clearly visible.
The bottle retains an old cork that appears entirely appropriate to the period and may be original. It has been left undisturbed.
Please see all photographs for exact condition.
THE ORIGINAL LABEL
The label is what makes this bottle particularly special.
While unmarked and unlabeled A.B.G.M. Co. beer bottles survive in some numbers, original paper labels were inherently fragile and disposable. Finding an early mouth-blown Anheuser-Busch bottle still wearing such a large and substantially intact Victorian lithographed label is considerably more difficult.
The label reads in substantial part:
GOLD MEDALS
ST. LOUIS LAGER BEER
“WE ARE PREPARED TO KEEP IN ANY CLIMATE”
TRADE MARK
NUMBER 4633
with the famous early Eagle-A trademark, featuring the eagle perched upon the large red letter A above an American shield.
Below appears:
ADOLPHUS BUSCH
The lower medal banner references major international exhibitions and awards, including:
PHILA 1876
PARIS 1878
AMST. – Amsterdam
At the extreme bottom survives the tiny lithographer's credit:
THE MILWAUKEE LITHO. & ENGR. CO.
The survival of that minute printer's line is particularly nice.
“WE ARE PREPARED TO KEEP IN ANY CLIMATE”
This wonderful line of 19th-century advertising tells an important part of the Anheuser-Busch story.
Beer had traditionally been an overwhelmingly local product. Lager was particularly difficult to transport long distances because maintaining proper temperature and preventing spoilage presented enormous challenges.
Adolphus Busch was among the great industrial innovators of American brewing. Anheuser-Busch embraced pasteurization, mechanical refrigeration and refrigerated railroad transportation, allowing bottled lager brewed in St. Louis to travel enormous distances while remaining stable.
Thus the boast:
“WE ARE PREPARED TO KEEP IN ANY CLIMATE.”
To a customer in the 1890s, this wasn't simply a catchy slogan. It advertised a genuine technological achievement.
A.B.G.M. CO. – ADOLPHUS BUSCH MADE HIS OWN BOTTLES
The base marking adds another fascinating dimension.
A.B.G.M. CO. identifies the Adolphus Busch Glass Manufacturing Company.
Anheuser-Busch's explosive growth required tremendous numbers of bottles. Rather than remaining entirely dependent upon outside glasshouses, Busch became directly involved in bottle production, with glassmaking operations in the St. Louis, Missouri / Belleville, Illinois area.
It was a remarkably modern example of vertical integration:
Brew the beer.
Make the bottles.
Pasteurize it.
Refrigerate it.
Ship it by rail.
Sell it throughout America and abroad.
This ability to control production and distribution helped turn Anheuser-Busch from a St. Louis brewery into an industrial giant.
HAND-BLOWN CONSTRUCTION
This is a mouth-blown bottle, predating automatic bottle-machine manufacture.
The mold seam rises only approximately 75% of the way up the neck, disappearing before reaching the finish. The upper neck and lip were therefore completed by the glassworker after the bottle was removed from the mold.
The heavy beer finish is noticeably crude and irregular and appears to be a tooled finish rather than a separately applied lip.
The pale aqua glass contains attractive bubbles and other subtle irregularities characteristic of hand-manufactured late-19th-century glass.
The base also carries a prominent “10” together with additional letters/symbols. These appear to be mold/shop identification marks, not a date code. The “10” should not be interpreted as 1910.
Taken together, the A.B.G.M. Co. mark, mouth-blown manufacture, tooled finish and early label style strongly support an 1890s date, with approximately 1895–1898 being the best estimate.
LIFE IN AMERICA WHEN THIS BOTTLE WAS MADE
This bottle comes from an extraordinary period of American history.
Around 1895–1898, America was transitioning from the presidency of Grover Cleveland to William McKinley and recovering from the severe economic depression following the Panic of 1893.
The 1896 presidential election between McKinley and William Jennings Bryan was dominated by industrialization, tariffs and the famous battle over the gold standard versus free silver.
By 1898, America was fighting the Spanish-American War and rapidly emerging as an international power.
Everyday life, however, remained remarkably different from today.
There were no airplanes, commercial radio or television.
Automobiles existed experimentally but had not yet transformed American transportation.
Most people traveled locally by foot, horse, carriage or streetcar, while railroads connected the country.
Telephones existed but were far from universal.
Many American homes were still illuminated by gas or kerosene, with household electrification only beginning to spread.
Yet Anheuser-Busch already possessed the technology and transportation network to brew lager in St. Louis, Missouri, preserve it, refrigerate it and send it across the country and around the world.
That makes the label's boast about keeping its beer “IN ANY CLIMATE” especially meaningful.
MEDICINE IN THE 1890s
Medicine was undergoing an equally remarkable transition.
Germ theory and antiseptic surgical practices were becoming established, finally giving physicians a scientific understanding of many infections.
At the same time, there were:
No antibiotics.
No penicillin.
No insulin.
No modern blood transfusion system.
Tuberculosis, pneumonia, diphtheria and other infectious diseases remained major killers.
In 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays. This bottle may therefore have been filled at almost exactly the moment physicians first discovered that they could see structures inside the living human body without surgery.
Patent medicines containing enormous quantities of alcohol and, in some cases, substances such as opium or cocaine were still openly marketed and sold.
RARITY
The A.B.G.M. Co. bottle itself is not exceptionally rare.
The remarkable survival here is the original label.
Paper beer labels were expected to be discarded, damaged by moisture, lost during handling or destroyed when bottles were returned and reused. More than a century later, the majority of surviving bottles from this period are consequently found completely unlabeled.
This example retains a large portion of its elaborate original label, including:
- St. Louis Lager Beer identification
- Early Eagle-A trademark
- Trade Mark No. 4633
- “We Are Prepared to Keep in Any Climate” slogan
- International Gold Medal advertising
- Philadelphia 1876 reference
- Paris 1878 reference
- Amsterdam reference
- Adolphus Busch name
- Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association identification
- Milwaukee Litho. & Engr. Co. printer's credit
Combined with the mouth-blown aqua bottle, A.B.G.M. Co. base mark, crude tooled finish and old cork, it makes for a scarce and unusually complete piece of early Anheuser-Busch breweriana.
Condition
Glass is in exceptionally nice condition for its age. No chips, no cracks, no haze, no staining and no interior ghosting. The pale aqua glass is bright, clean and lovely throughout, with attractive bubbles, waviness and crude manufacturing characteristics consistent with a mouth-blown bottle of the period.
The original paper label remains remarkably well preserved considering its approximately 125–130 years of age. It shows expected age-related wear, including rubbing, edge losses, small areas of paper loss, discoloration and general surface wear, but the majority of the elaborate graphics, lettering, medal imagery and vivid colors remain intact and readily legible. Please see photos closely for exact label condition.
The crude beer finish is intact with no damage. The bottle retains an old, heavily aged cork that appears period-correct and may be original.
Overall, a beautifully clean, damage-free example with an unusually substantial surviving original label.
Measures approximately 9 3/4" tall.
