# Koken Barbers Supply Co. St. Louis



## Ohio Rob (Feb 25, 2012)

The name on the bottle is the same company that makes the famous barber chairs.   I don't know exactly what was in the bottle, but my main question is whether the milk glass stopper is standard with these?  I bought the bottle with the stopper in it and will eventually sell it the same way.  The bottle stands 9 1/2 " without the stopper.  Any ideas?


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## epackage (Feb 25, 2012)

I'm 99% sure the answer is no, since the inside lip isn't ground for a glass stopper I'm gonna say it's just missing a plain old cork...[]


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## surfaceone (Feb 25, 2012)

Hey Rob,

 The stopper looks like it's ground portion is sitting very low in that bottle. If it contained their Tonique de Luxe, that appears to be the wrong stopper:  






  Perhaps it was their Shampoo Liquor:









 "The Koken name started in 1874 with Ernest Koken selling custom-decorated china shaving mugs.  In the late 19th century, Koken began selling chairs to barbers as a sideline...

 Ernest and partner Louis Boppert began making tonsorial chairs and in 1881 the company received a patent for the first Koken chair that reclined for shaving.  The first hydraulic-lift chair was patented in 1892.

 When Ernest died in 1907 his son, Walter, eventually took over.  The company continued to refine it's top of the line chairs, adding patents for improvements and creating some of the most magnificent marvels of comfort and engineering imaginable." From.

 It looks like it might be a bottle that would refill the decorative guys, or perhaps all prettied up with label and contents, it was indeed one of them...


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## epackage (Feb 25, 2012)

> ORIGINAL:  surfaceone
> 
> Hey Rob,
> 
> ...


 Surf good find, I believe it's a pewter crown attached to a cork just like on this Paterson bottle...


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## CarltonHendricks (Feb 27, 2012)

Interesting post...good looking bottle. I remember Koken barber chairs...My dad was a barber and my dad's barber chairs were Kokens...





*Fifteenth Convention of the Journeymen Barbers International Union of America 
 45 3/4" wide x 16 3/4" tall - Dated Sept 11th 1924*

 Not a bottle but barber related...The presence doesn't come thru very well but...above is an extra large 45 3/4" x 16 3/4" panoramic photo of barbers who attended the fifteenth convention of the Journeymen Barbers International Union of America. They are standing in Monument Square in Indianapolis and the photo is Dated Sept 11th 1924....I picked this up in 2008 at the Alameda Point Antiques Fair....it now hangs in the dining area of my kitchen....I don't usually buy a lot of non sports antiques to keep for myself...but I'm big on American Beaux-Arts era public sculpture..and the photo was so iconic American....it had me...I think there's about 800-1000 people in the photo...The frame appears original from the period...with the all important wavy glass!













> ORIGINAL:  Ohio Rob
> 
> The name on the bottle is the same company that makes the famous barber chairs.Â Â  I don't know exactly what was in the bottle, but my main question is whether the milk glass stopper is standard with these?Â  I bought the bottle with the stopper in it and will eventually sell it the same way.Â  The bottle stands 9 1/2 " without the stopper.Â  Any ideas?


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