Here is a classic early 19th century medicine bottle with unusual serifed embossed text. Marked “Dr. McMunn’s Elixir of Opium” What a great photograph!
View Dr. McMunn’s bottle at auction on ebay
Update:
Another plain, smooth based Dr. McMunns Elixir of Opium bottle sold on ebay for a surprising price. The auction closed at $54 on 01/24/10
Here is the picture for that auction – clear and crisp. Quite the above average price for an average specimin! That’s the nature of auctions – some times the prices are average, some things die at auction and every once in a while two or more bidders drive a price up to unusually high numbers.
The Addicted
Caroline Rance tells the story of McMunn’s Elixir and some who did not survive strong doses.
what are these bottles really worth?
According to the books $150.00 I dug one up in NH,
That’s probably a bit over-optimistic, but occasionally they do soar above $100 at auction, esp. if they have the original paper wrapper and tax stamp.
I just sent an email to Mr. Norman Heckler- from a link on your site- as we live in RI.
I have what appears to be a more than unusual bottle, as it is wrapped in thick brown paper with (2) signatures, one that appears to be “John B. and then assumed to be “McMunn”- It is Dr. McMunn’s elixir of opium and the paper appears to be the instructions on usage. The other signature isn’t readily legible. It is also stamped “E. Ferret, Agt.-[?agent] 32 Pearl St. It still has the cork in it. -Will try to send photos to you
Intriguing, yes. However, they are fairly common. Several caches of these have been found in walls of buildings in the past 20 years. I am aware of 3 such finds, each of which yielded hundreds of bottles.