REVIER
Well-known member
I knew what it was, a cool little bottle, it was a metal detecting find because I only found it due to the fact it still had a piece of the more than rusted away metal top still screwed on.
Thought it was an ink bottle but thanks to a few clues, 2 words I could still make out on that top, and some help from another member on a different forum tracking down the history was easy...and what a history it is.
I love finding and digging great things...sometimes reading about the history of these finds, mundane or great, is even better.
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This is probably a salve bottle from a company called Sayman's Products owned by Dr. Thomas M. Sayman...but he wasn't really a doctor of any kind.
There are still some products on the market with his name on it.
Quite a character, colorful and unique.
Born in the 1850's in Texas, left home at 9 or 10 when he joined PT Barnum's circus and by 11 he had a wagon and started hawking his own tonics, elixers and other products and traveled extensively throughout Kansas and Missouri.
His shows grew beyond simple wagons into huge tent type affairs with sideshows and animals.
Over the years he grew big, added soaps and lotions and some info says he built a factory to manufacture his products in 1892 in St. Louis, other info says he moved into a pre-existing one but that building is probably where this bottle came from.
I found this in an area with other 1900-1940's relics so it fits.
It says, "Sayman's Products are Supreme", on tops in good shape and I found a pic of a similar one below.
His loyal horse Dolly that had pulled his wagon mile after mile in all their travels together through dusty rural roads was stuffed and put on display in the entrance of this 8 story factory.
This guy was cool...he supposedly was good to his large army of employees over the years and gave plenty to charities.
He bought 2400 acres of property on the courthouse steps in Missouri for $105,000 because he wanted a place to fish and it had a nice river running through it.
He went fishing one time and evidently he caught very few or no trout so he just deeded the land over to the state of Missouri and now it is known as the Roaring River State Park.
At first the state had no money to develop the property the way he wanted so he asked them to give it back...but they wouldn't.
He got divorced from his first wife in 1910, scandalous at the time and even more so because his wife claimed he threatened to kill her.
He was a big fan of head butting contests, even a bigger fan of owning and waving around loaded guns in public...a lot.
He ended up in court many times for doing this but won every case and got his guns returned every time.
He was loud, blustery and condescending to any and all opponents in court and really loved to put on a show.
The only case he ever lost was one that was about the misrepresentation of three of his products and he eventually grew that product line to about 160 over time and as I mentioned there are still a few out there on the market today.
Said he wanted to live to the age of 125 but only made it to 84 and died in 1937
Thought it was an ink bottle but thanks to a few clues, 2 words I could still make out on that top, and some help from another member on a different forum tracking down the history was easy...and what a history it is.
I love finding and digging great things...sometimes reading about the history of these finds, mundane or great, is even better.
------------------------
This is probably a salve bottle from a company called Sayman's Products owned by Dr. Thomas M. Sayman...but he wasn't really a doctor of any kind.
There are still some products on the market with his name on it.
Quite a character, colorful and unique.
Born in the 1850's in Texas, left home at 9 or 10 when he joined PT Barnum's circus and by 11 he had a wagon and started hawking his own tonics, elixers and other products and traveled extensively throughout Kansas and Missouri.
His shows grew beyond simple wagons into huge tent type affairs with sideshows and animals.
Over the years he grew big, added soaps and lotions and some info says he built a factory to manufacture his products in 1892 in St. Louis, other info says he moved into a pre-existing one but that building is probably where this bottle came from.
I found this in an area with other 1900-1940's relics so it fits.
It says, "Sayman's Products are Supreme", on tops in good shape and I found a pic of a similar one below.
His loyal horse Dolly that had pulled his wagon mile after mile in all their travels together through dusty rural roads was stuffed and put on display in the entrance of this 8 story factory.
This guy was cool...he supposedly was good to his large army of employees over the years and gave plenty to charities.
He bought 2400 acres of property on the courthouse steps in Missouri for $105,000 because he wanted a place to fish and it had a nice river running through it.
He went fishing one time and evidently he caught very few or no trout so he just deeded the land over to the state of Missouri and now it is known as the Roaring River State Park.
At first the state had no money to develop the property the way he wanted so he asked them to give it back...but they wouldn't.
He got divorced from his first wife in 1910, scandalous at the time and even more so because his wife claimed he threatened to kill her.
He was a big fan of head butting contests, even a bigger fan of owning and waving around loaded guns in public...a lot.
He ended up in court many times for doing this but won every case and got his guns returned every time.
He was loud, blustery and condescending to any and all opponents in court and really loved to put on a show.
The only case he ever lost was one that was about the misrepresentation of three of his products and he eventually grew that product line to about 160 over time and as I mentioned there are still a few out there on the market today.
Said he wanted to live to the age of 125 but only made it to 84 and died in 1937