# Common or scarce torpedo bottles?



## olivegreen (Dec 8, 2009)

I have two Soyers torpedos in aqua

 "Soyers Soda Water" in diagonal banner on body.  Applied blob top

 "Soyer's Lemonade" also in diagonal writing.  this is a very skinny torpedo, definitely an odd shape.  Applied blob top

 Are these common or scarce, thanks for help.


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## olivegreen (Dec 12, 2009)

I would appreciate some help with scarcity and/or value on these.  Thanks very much.

 Finally got some photos:


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## olivegreen (Dec 12, 2009)

photo of the other.  this is a particularly skinny torpedo.

 Can anyone help with value or scarcity?  thanks.


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## cyberdigger (Dec 12, 2009)

While we wait for an expert opinion, let me tell you those look pretty darn good to me, probably rare and definitely valuable..


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## Indianabottledigger (Dec 12, 2009)

I really like the first one! I Honestly dont know anything about them but i wouldn't mind having the first one. Let me know your plans for them!


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## Staunton Dan (Dec 12, 2009)

I have dug many round bottoms but never a torpedo. How RARE would they be to me...VERY.


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## TROG (Dec 13, 2009)

Hi,

 These torpedo bottle are English and the top one would date from the 1870,s and the Lemonade version from the 1850,s and is the scarcer of the 2 bottles.


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## TROG (Dec 13, 2009)

There is also another version of the longer one which has Soyers Nectar embossed  and also has a bulge near the neck of the bottle


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## surfaceone (Dec 13, 2009)

Greetings Wyn Koop,

 Welcome to this forum. Thank you for posting these wonderful bottles for us. How did you come upon them? Are you in the UK? Do tell us more, please.

 I have never seen either of your bottles before. They caught my fancy, so I started looking around. I didn't find much of anything, so I searched some more, and came upon this blog:

 "Why I love Alexis Soyer
 Buzz up!
 Digg it
 Pete May
 The Guardian,	 Tuesday 3 May 2005
 It was thanks to Thames Water digging up a water main in Ambler Rd, London N4, that I encountered Alexis Soyer. There among the Victorian crockery beneath the tarmac was a beautiful lemonade bottle, which instead of having a flat bottom was oval-shaped. Ornate writing on the side read "Soyer and Co Lemonade".
 A quick Google proved that Alexis Soyer (1810-1858) was not any old lemonade-maker. This man was the first celebrity chef - a kind of Anglo/French Jamie Oliver. His celebrity mates included Florence Nightingale, Dickens, Thackeray, Disraeli and Palmerston.
 He published 10 books with marvellous titles such as The Pantropheon: Or a History of Food and Its Preparation in Ancient Times. There was even a Fifteen-style restaurant, the snappily named Soyer's Universal Symposium To all Nations. Lavishly designed and intended to feed what should have been termed Soyer-protein to 5,000 people a day, including the poor, his nosherie ended up losing the equivalent of Â£440,000.
 If only there had been a TV deal to subsidise it. But that loss didn't sink Soyer, he just invented his famous Soyer's lemonade. It became the Coke of its day and was sold at 3,000 stalls on London street corners.
 According to Ruth Cowen's forthcoming biography, Soyer was also a secret alcoholic and womaniser. But that's all part of the job description for Victorian superheroes. After all, not being satisfied with merely bringing sauces to the English, he built the kitchens at the Reform Club and pioneered gas stoves and steam lifts. During the Irish potato famine he set up the first properly designed soup kitchen. And in the Crimean War he visited the front line and invented the field kitchen, saving the lives of thousands of soldiers.
 Food for thought, perhaps, if Jamie Oliver's looking for a new challenge..."  Found here.






 Alexis Soyer in 1849

 Alexis Soyer was born in France in 1809. He moved to Paris and became a chef along with his older brother Phillipe. He Fled France during the Revolution, and rejoined his brother in the kitchen of the Duke of Cambridge. He went on th become chef de cuisine at The Reform Club in London.
 He was arguably the first Celebrity Chef. He was a prolific author, innovator and inventer, humanitarian, and patriot. You can read the distilled version of his life on the Wikimobile.

 There's a photo of his c.1850 'Magic Stove'  @ this UK Science & Society site. Sorry, I couldn't get it to show here.

 You might gather further information from http://www.soyer.co.uk/.

 He set up a soup kitchen in Dublin during the Great Irish Potato Famine. "Soyer set up a pavilion on the Dublin esplanade which, equipped with 300-gallon soup boilers, fed 8,750 people a day. When this was replicated around the country, the death rate immediately plummeted."

 "He also took up with a couple of successful young entrepreneurs called Edmund Crosse and Thomas Blackwell who made him and, even more so, themselves a heap of money from Soyer's bottled sauces - notably his garlic-based Relish - all featuring the distinctive image of Soyer in his red beret." 

 Has anyone seen any of these sauce bottles? They may not have the sex appeal of the torpedoes, but might be pretty cool, as well.

 "By 1854 Soyer was looking for a new challenge, and he got one in spades when harrowing reports began to appear in the London newspapers of conditions at Scutari, the army hospital in Constantinople. The British Army was in a pitiable state in the Crimea, and its care of the wounded was woeful. Its kitchens were in no better shape.
 Soon Soyer was sailing to the rescue in Miss Nightingale's wake, stopping en route to examine the Bonaparte family kitchen in Corsica. The job of kitchen reorganisation that he hoped would take a few weeks lasted for many months, and took him close to the action at Balaclava, where, such was his persuasive charm, he got Miss Nightingale to pose atop a cannon.
 Soyer's greatest service was to persuade the military to train soldiers as cooks, and to make use of the specially designed Soyer stove. The stove was light enough for a pair to be carried by a mule, while two men could feed a regiment of 600 from just 12 such cookers, and they remained standard issue in the Army until the last batch was sunk in the Falklands War 130 years later.
 The Crimean War was the pinnacle of Soyer's career, but the fever he caught there hastened his death three years after his return, at the age of 48. Florence Nightingale called his death 'a great disaster', yet his name was forgotten within a generation." The above 3 quotes are from The Telegraph.

 Today, Alexis Soyer House continues the legacy that Soyer began during the Crimean War.


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## cyberdigger (Dec 13, 2009)

Nice work, great info!!! []


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## Indianabottledigger (Dec 13, 2009)

Wow thats some great Info! Thanks Surfaceone you da man. []

 Olivegreen, it sounds like you have acouple of great bottles with some nice history. I love finding out the history of bottles it make it even better!


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## crackpot (Dec 13, 2009)

Hi,
 Alexis Soyer as already established is a famous Victorian Chef and Philanthropist.
 There are several bottles that bear his name and these torpedos are amongst those.
 The banded torpedo is the rarer of the two. The most sought after and most valuable is the the Soyer's Saltana Sauce bottle that was manufactured by F & R Pratt which has the portrait of Alexis Soyer on one panel.
 There is also a number of other Torpedo shapes including a bulb neck Soyer's Nectar, Cobalt Blue ribbed torpedo and a scrolled amber glass sauce in the shape of a Violin body with intertwined scrolls.
 I don't believe your bottles are very valuable but nevertheless lovely bottles to have


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## lpellegrini (Dec 13, 2009)

Here is a photo of a Soyer Sauce that I purchased from Charlie Gardeners Auction back in 1974.


 http://picasaweb.google.com/louiepellegrini/NewAlbum121309405PM?pli=1#5414876598022188130


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## surfaceone (Dec 13, 2009)

Hello Louie,

*That is one beautiful sauce!*






 I've taken the liberty of direct linking it. I hope this is ok with you. Is yours a Pratt or C&B? Do you have more pictures? That is a most unusual (to me) form for a sauce. Thanks for putting it up.


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## cyberdigger (Dec 13, 2009)

I would love to see more of your collection, Louie! Looks like this exquisite sauce bottle is in good company!!


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## lpellegrini (Dec 13, 2009)

Here is a photo of my early colored food collection, (please go ahead and embed,haven't got that figured out) , There is no other embossing on the Soyer Sauce hadn't heard of the other variants, this one has a pontil in the day it was thought to be American Betty Zumwalt in her food book tagged as American known it was English for years haven't see any others over the years. Sorry can't take more photo's, collection is secured behind glass major undertaking to take out- some day


 http://lh6.ggpht.com/_JNiBQWUAJEI/SyW3k7Y187I/AAAAAAAAAMo/0pHfhCNrlX8/s512/IMG_0001.JPG


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## annie44 (Dec 14, 2009)

Amazing collection!  What else do you have in there????


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## surfaceone (Dec 14, 2009)

Heya Louie,






 Man, it looks like you've got some great bottles in there. What's the story on the Petal Jars bracketing your Soyer's Sauce? When you have a minute, can you give us a tour of your cabinet, please. They really need some color commentary, say I.


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## lpellegrini (Dec 14, 2009)

I will take some close ups in the next couple of days. One quart pedal jar that I purchased in 1976 at the first national show in St Louis and the half gallon I got a few years later. I have close to 40 years putting this collection together not adding to much lately.


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## surfaceone (Dec 14, 2009)

Thank you, Wyn Koop, for starting this topic. I've become intrigued with Alexis Soyer. I revved up the googler and started looking for more information. Found some, too.

 Louie, this one's for you. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 I gotta ask if your bottle has a portrait of Soyer embossed in the glass? I can't quite see the detail of it's mid-section.

 There's a large catalog of viands from early Montreal with a listing for Soyer's Sauce in the Sauce Section of this page. Interestingly, it is 5 cents less than Lea and Perrins.

 Soyer and his sauces were apparently popular in the US, as well. There's a large ad with a portrait of Soyer in the copy in lower right hand column of this New York paper.

 There's another front page listing for The Emporium of Good Things, featuring Soyer's Sultana Sauce in this January 29, 1859 edition of The Syracuse Journal.






 An ad from Soyer's Shilling Cookery._http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/booksforcooks/1800s/crossef/blackwell.html_

 "With the Reform Club now a closed chapter in his life, Alexis decided to become an entrepreneur and cash in on his name. He signed a contract with Crosse & Blackwell on 22 August 1850, which would make and sell in his name a line of bottled foods such as Soyer's Nectar, Spoyer's Relish and Soyer's Sauce, with his pictures on the bottles." From here.

 "C. and B. are also agents for the following, made by Monsieur SOYER:-

 'Soyer's Aromatic Mustard.' - A most exquisite combination of the genuine Mustard seed with various aromatic substances; infinitely superior to all other preparations of Mustard.



 Soyer's New Sauces.- One of a mild description for the ladies, and yet another of the same flavour, but warmer, for gentlemen.



 Soyer's Relish. - With reference to this sauce, the observer remarks:-

 'M. Soyer is a culinary artist as profound as he is versatile; nothing comes amiss to him. No foreign cuisinier ever tickled the Saxon palate so successfully. He is a great man; and the ill-cooked mutton chops that lost Napoleon the battle of Leipsic, would have produced a very different effect if Soyer had dished them up in his Magic Stove, and rendered them thoroughly light and digestible by his appetizing Relish.'



 C. and B. consider it important to state, that the whole of their manufacures are prepared withe utmost scrupulous attention to cleanliness and purity. The utmost precaution is taken in every instance to prevent contact with copper, or any other pernicious metal; and to this end, they have at great expense fitted their factory at Soho Square with a number of Earthenware Steam-pans, and in addition have alarge Silver pan made, in which to prepare the most delicate of their productions.



 WHOLESALE WAREHOUSE -

 21, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON" Found here.

 Alexis Soyer seems to be enjoying a revival in popularity now. There are a couple of recent biographies, and a current West End play, _Relish_ on his life and times.

 "Incidentally, the illustrious London chef Alexis Soyer marketed a blue soft drink in the mid 19th century. The drink, called Soyerâ€™s Nectar, was hugely popular. The fact that soft drinks were considered de facto health drinks at the time helped its popularity further. Soyerâ€™s Nectar even saw use as a cocktail ingredient during the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Soyerâ€™s Nectar Cobbler was rather popular, being simultaneously nutritious, boozy, and blue. If blue drinks were good enough for Alexis Soyer then critics of the genre, before expressing their views, should consider whether they are willing to enter a toe to toe culinary debate with an impassioned Frenchman. Personally Iâ€™d just enjoy the blue drink." Found at Mixology Monday.












 Sultana sauce, a pair of his kitchen nippers, and a drawing of Soyer next to the campaign stove he invented for the British Army. Foundalong with several of the other illustrations @ this excellent site.

 "SOYER'S RELISH.

 To describe the Sauce would be to make our readers hungry,Ã¢â‚¬â€rich, savoury, exotic, it infuses an ambrosial flavour into the substance on which it is poured.Ã¢â‚¬ÂÃ¢â‚¬â€Bell's Life.

 THIS JUSTLY CELEBRATED SAUCE is now in universal use throughout the world. The great renown acquired by M. SOYER, having induced the introduction of several imitations of his Relish, purchasers are requested particularly to observe that every genuine bottle bears his portrait on the label, accompanied by the names of his wholesale Agents,

 CROSSE AND BLACKWELL, 21, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, 
 of whom also may be had his Original Sauces for Ladies and Gentlemen.

 GORE HOUSE, KENSINGTON."  An ad found in the early edition of Dickens' _Bleak House_.

 "Balaklava Nectar.
 (For a party of fifteen. Recipe by Soyer.)
 Take 2 bottles of Claret.
 1 bottle of Champagne.
 2 bottles of soda-water.
 2 table-spoonfuls of powdered sugar.
 2 lemons.
 Â½ a small cucumber.

 Peel and shred fine the rind of half a lemon; add the sugar, the juice of both the lemons, and the cucumber
 sliced thin, with the peel on. Toss it up several times, and add the Claret, Champagne, and soda-water. Stir well together and serve." Found here.

 I hope I've not over done the Soyer story for you all. I've pared and edited my findings somewhat, in the failed interest of brevity.

 Lastly, a question for crackpot: Is that F&R Pratt bottle creamware a la 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




?


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## lpellegrini (Dec 14, 2009)

No portrait just Soyer Sauce , didn't know they advertised that much in US . Where did all the bottles go ? Don't think they are common in the UK from what I have heard previously, Thanks for all your research, as I stated in an earlier post Zumwalt tagged it as American . How Google has made so much easier .


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## olivegreen (Dec 18, 2009)

Wow - thanks for all the info.  Amazing where these posts end up.

 Any ballpark range for the value of either of the torpedos?  Cheers


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## Lordbud (Dec 19, 2009)

Hmmm, I've heard of Louie Pellegrini somewhere...[8D] I'd be happy to see some of your local Bay Area bottles. You must have some pretty amazing examples. Jakes? Patent Medis? Any B.B. Thayer items? Glad you're on the forum.


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## deepbluedigger (Dec 20, 2009)

The Soyers Sauce is a great bottle, and a rare one even here in the UK. They turn up with smooth hinge mold bases, and with pontils. The pontil versions are very sought after.

 The two torps are good bottles, both very collected in the UK and Australia. The bulb neck type was a holy-grail for UK soda collectors back in the '70s and '80s, but a few turned up during the '90s and now they are a bit easier to get hold of, but still very desirable. Imagine the skinny example of the two olivegreen posted, with a bulb in the neck similar to the bulb in the top one of these two, which dates roughly 1850s :


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## sandchip (Dec 20, 2009)

Louie, is that a Baker & Cutting at the left on the middle shelf?  Fantastic grouping!


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