Eric started the meeting off with a talk on the history of United Dairies and showed us some of his milk bottles.
Mick announced that our forthcoming bottle fayre, on 20th November, is fully booked with a fair number of potential stallholders waiting in hope of a cancellation.
Not a lot of members present at the meeting but still a few finds of note to mention. First up is the STEDMAN & POTTER, WINE & SPIRIT MERCHANTS, GODALMING flagon. Not a name that anyone had heard of before but no doubt someone in the Surrey club could enlighten us. Godalming stuff is not that easy to come by, but Steve managed to find this one at a car boot sale.
Chris has been dealing and digging. A couple of brass barrel bungs (not pictured) - MAY & CO, BASINGSTOKE and DYMORE BROWN, READING (someone probably collects them). He also brought along a large size EIFFEL TOWER FRUIT JUICE plus a full HARDENS STAR fire grenade. The RADCLIFFS RHEUMATIC & GOUT TINCTURE bottle was very interesting (sorry about image quality) - A bottle which must be of interest to early cure collectors. His local hamilton bottle in sparkling condition is embossed JUNIOR ARMY & NAVY STORES LTD, MINERAL WATER FACTORY, FARNBOROUGH.
NOVEMBER 2011
Darren brought along 3 ginger beers AYLWARDS WINCHESTER (with repaired top), SYDNEY FRAMPTON WINCHESTER and HOME BREWED GINGER BEER, SHANKLIN IW. The interesting thing about the Shanklin one is the 2 daggers pictured on back. He has been doing a bit of digging recently and found the 3 lids. He also managed to acquire this BATCHELOR, HIGH CLASS TABLE WATERS, ALRESFORD AND ALTON flagon. A real beauty that he has been after for ages. Finally the DUMFRIESSHIRE DAIRY CO, FINEST FRESH CREAM, EDINURGH AND LOCKERBIE cream pot which he bought on Ebay.
Dave bought up a collection which included the 2 gingers - WEST SURREY MINERAL WATER WORKS GODALMING and the scarce GEO T COX & SONS HOME BREWED GINGER BEER, LONDON, ALDERSHOT AND DUBLIN.
Images of some of Erics milk bottles that he brought along for his talk.
The evenings competition for 2 sample bottles only had the one entrant and that was Micks, with his BLACKWELLS CLUB SAUCE and ink with FREE SAMPLE embossed on side
Micky's contribution for the evening was a cream pot with picture of milkmaid on a bottle and worded THICK RICH CREAM, DELIVERED FRESH DAILY, IDEAL DAIRY CO, 222 KENSAL ROAD LONDON W. He also brought along this brown pottery item which was thought to be a spill vase. There is no pottery mark on it.
Johnny has been digging up in the London area. His finds included the MRS ELLEN HALES CELEBRATED HEAL-ALL OINTMENT lid and base. This should be a real stunner after a bit of TLC. He also found this small pot base with the wording CREME IMPERATRICE PREPAREE PAR CHARLES FAY PARFUM, 9 RUE DE LA PAUX, PARIS, plus a bakelite ashtray WATNEY'S ALES AND REID'S STOUT.
