Warner’s Safe Cure: Labelled Safe Cure Free Samples

Recently, thanks to Mike Seeliger and Dan Cowman, I was privileged to get some photos of some exceptionally rare Warner’s Safe Cures. In this case, they were Warner’s Safe Cure Free Samples. Back in May, 2008, I devoted a post to Free Samples and included several photographs of a labelled Safe Remedy sample in my collection that includes not only the labelled sample, but also the cardboard mailer in which it was shipped.

Although the Safe Cure samples from Rochester are fairly common, the Safe Remedy Samples are scarce and to find one that also has a label is downright rare. Mike and his wife, Alice, were visiting with Mike and Kathie Craig, who have a very nice Warner’s collection. That collection includes a labelled Safe Remedy sample of which, Mike provided a picture.

As the label reveals, this particular bottle was distributed after the enactment of the Pure Food & Drugs Act in 1906 by the Warner’s Safe Remedies Company. For whatever reason, there just seem to be fewer Safe Remedy samples out there for collectors. It may simply be the result of the fact that when H. H. Warner ran the business, he made sure that the market was saturated with free samples. His successors, after 1893, may not have considered that a priority.

Yet another rare sample comes to us courtesy of Dan Cowman. Dan has, perhaps, one of the best collections of labelled Warner’s in existence. He has been kind enought to share one of his recent acquisitions with me – a labelled London Safe Cure sample. As many of you know, the London sample bears no resemblence to its American counterpart and actually looks like a tiny bottle of Safe Cure. The London samples fetch a nice price by themselves and Dan’s is the first example of a labelled London sample that I have seen. It may be one of a kind.

Thanks to Mike Seeliger and Dan Cowman for the photographs and to Mike and Kathie Craig for a peak at their impressive Warner’s Safe Cure collection.