# Help on a Drakes Plantation Bitters Bottle



## sscokebottles (Jul 23, 2012)

This bottle is really stumping me. I recently found this bottle at an antique shop, and I'm not sure if it's the real deal or not, I included some crappy cell phone pictures, and hopefully a good description will give you a good idea of the bottle. Alright, so it looks to be hand blown, just from the general crudeness, base, and various impurities. It looks like it has a crude (very uneven if might add) applied top, and the mold line stops just before the lip. It reads on the front "S T / Drake's / 1860 / Plantation / X / Bitters" on the three tier roof top. On the back on the second tier it has "Patented / 1860" all on the same tier of roof. This is the part that has me concerned, on the examples I've seen, usually the date "1860" is the lower tier, interrupting the roof pattern. The other concern I have is that the glass seems to light or thin. Its still a heavy bottle, but not heavy enough to feel like an 1870's bottle. And the last concern is that has two open areas, I forgot if there was supposed to be two or one on these bottles. But other then that, the base looks right compared to other drake bottles, the embossing quality is fair, has 6 logs above where the label goes on both sides, and 17 logs on the other areas (including base) and it has a nice honey amber color to it. Now, I know it's not a thousand dollar bottle, maybe it's a 75-100 dollar bottle even of its real. But it would be a nice addition to my collection because I dont have a log cabin bitters yet. Anyway, if it turns out to be repro, I didn't loose much, but if it turns out real, I scored. I actually found it amongst a lot of Avon and Reproduction bottles, but this one had an applied top and looked hand blown, so it stood out to me. Below are the pictures (hopefully not oversized this time), I wish for the best... Have a nice week everybody!


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## div2roty (Jul 23, 2012)

It is old.


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## epackage (Jul 23, 2012)

Looks right as rain to me....[]


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## GLOPTOP (Jul 23, 2012)

They do not reproduce these Drakes cabin bottles, so your's is the real McCoy. No need to be concerned, there were a number of mold variations. And, you are about right on the 75-100 price range. Good find for a box of repro bottles!


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## div2roty (Jul 23, 2012)

Yes it is supposed to have two areas for labels.  There is a rarer variant that has label panels on all 4 sides.


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## botlguy (Jul 24, 2012)

It's the real deal, I collected Bitters for 40+ years. The others are correct with their comments but I believe it could be worth a little more than $100 but then I haven't been watching ebay for them. Color is everything and even a small difference can make a difference. Congratulations, that's a wonderful bottle.


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## andy volkerts (Jul 24, 2012)

[] Yes its real, known as a six log St Drakes bitters worth about  $135.00 give or take a few. welcome to the forum, nice bottle to start your bitters collection with. the rarest is the five log variety and the fancy scrolled version. the logs are counted up from the label side and there are four five and six log versions.........


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## sscokebottles (Jul 24, 2012)

Thank you everybody for the help! Glad to here its the real deal. I was waiting to tell how much I paid for it, not knowing if it was real or not, but I paid around 6 dollars for the bottle. Thanks again!


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## beendiggin (Jul 24, 2012)

What???   You paid 6 bucks for a Drakes?   WAY TO GO.   That's an incredibly good score. You earned bragging rights on that one!


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## VTdigger (Jul 24, 2012)

Yeah that's real. I got mine ( very simular to that one in the first post.) for $1.29 at the local Goodwill I thought it was to good to be true and had to be a repro but they didn't reproduce the drakes as someone said plus I saw one at the antique store for $135.


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## GLOPTOP (Jul 24, 2012)

A great bottle for 6 bucks! I found one with a light puce tone for 12 bucks in a local antique shop about a year ago. A rare find for Southern California. As for pricing, I will stick with my 75-100 dollar statement. The standard amber 4 or 6 log Drakes sell all day long for 60-100 on ebay; of course, shipping fees can add to that price.


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