# Early Canadian paper label meds/poison



## teamballsout (May 22, 2019)

Just a few bottles I thought I would share. Picked up over the winter and since the thaw.




R.M. MITCHELL DRUGGIST AND STATIONER WEYBURN N.W.T.
(pre. 1905 Saskatchewan)

THE BOLE DRUG CO.,WINNIPEG 

NATIONAL DRUG & CHEMICAL COMPANY OF CANADA. LIMITED. LABORATORIES MONTREAL.

A.D. FERGUSON, CHEMIST & OPTICIAN WOLSELEY. SASK.

VANILLA EXTRACT TORONTO.


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## CanadianBottles (May 22, 2019)

Some really nice ones there!  That Mitchell bottle looks like it could be pretty old.  I love labeled pharmacy bottles, I always pick them up when I can.


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## RCO (May 23, 2019)

some neat stuff , anything paper label is pretty hard to find in good condition , especially if its from smaller towns or cities . the use of NWT instead of Sask does seem to date that one to be pretty early

I'd imagine that extract from Toronto is common but there is extracts from smaller towns which are pretty rare


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## nhpharm (May 23, 2019)

Those are really cool...I love labeled bottles.  Here is a Canadian one (Hamilton, Ontario) that I have had since I was a kid.


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## Raypadua (May 23, 2019)

David Bole founded The Bole Drug Company in 1898 so the Winnipeg bottle is likely between 1898 and 1905.  After 1905, David Bole founded the National Drug and Chemical Company of Canada.

Nice piece of Winnipeg history


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## teamballsout (May 24, 2019)

Nice med nhpharm also looks like a nice paper label collection u have as well!
also thanks for the info Raypadua knew it was an early bottle but didn’t think it was that early. Think I was going off the dates from the second company founded.


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## mctaggart67 (Jun 26, 2019)

That's a good haul you've got there. Any N.W.T. is prized (including by me, here in Calgary). David Wesley Bole was an interesting fellow who had a "bit-above-rags" to riches life story. He started as a retail druggist in small towns in Ontario during the 1870s. His movement from place to place suggests he desired better success. By 1887, he was in Regina as partner in Dawson, Bole & Co. In Regina he found success for two interrelated reasons. One, he and his partner appeared early in Regina (established in 1882, but not really settled until a few years later) so they benefitted from being the only real game in town. Two, the firm set up branches in other newly established places, such as Moose Jaw, Calgary, Banff, etc., so Dawson, Bole & Co. could be the first in such places. Undoubtedly, running branches taught Bole the value of proper supply logistics. Clearly he learned his lessons well and within not even a decade, Bole had moved almost exclusively into drug wholesaling to supply the growing Canadian Prairie market (over a million settled the Prairies during the twenty-five years from 1887 onward). Essentially, wholesaling/proper supply logistics were the reasons behind the formation, in 1905, of the National Drug & Chemical Co. of Canada Ltd. Bole and dozens of other drug wholesalers believed that merging their firms together into one giant corporate entity would give them greater profits because of gained purchasing and distribution advantages and because of remarkably reduced competition within Canada's wholesale drug trade. It worked, and Bole ended life as the equivalent of a multi-millionaire in today's terms.

Here's a portrait of David Welsey Bole, likely from when he sat as National Drug & Chemical's president:


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## dgirardin (Jul 3, 2019)

Love old medicine bottles and tins


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