Dr. Boerhaave's Stomach Bitters in dark lime green, applied top. Two differing sized, blank sunken panel square slug plates are on the reverse. 8 3/4" tall, 2 1/2" across. B133 in Ring, listed as "extremely rare." Listed by Wichmann (1999) as "probably less than 6 known." This is an exceptionally rare Western Bitters bottle of which little is known. Of the five or six known, most have been located in collections over the past 30 years. Prior to that, the bottle was either considered unique, or two known. Wichmann shows a dark green and amber specimens on page 35. Ring lists a yellow-olive example. This is quite probably the only known dark lime green example.The advent of the modern-day digitization of newspapers has greatly helped unravel some of the history of this bottle. The Boerhaave name may have been licensed by a western merchant for use and ultimate manufacture of this product. Advertisements for this bottle are only found in four places (so far): Sacramento, Los Angeles, Portland, Oregon and San Francisco. Both the Portland and Los Angeles advertisements list an "agent," one for "southern California," and the other for "Oregon." The San Francisco advertisements do not use the word "agent" suggesting the merchant listed, S. Wertheimber, might be the manufacturer, which is a correct assumption. Wertheimber was in partnership with Louis Waterman, though most ads make no reference to this partnership. The only reference to that partnership, as well as a direct reference to them as manufacturer and wholesaler of the product, is in the Sacramento ads. The first ad for San Francisco was placed March 7, 1868 in the San Francisco Chronicle. Ads placed for the other three cities followed shortly thereafter, all ending in early 1869.In September, 1868, Wertheimber and Walters got sued by Udolpho Wolfe. The suit claimed the pair was manufacturing a product belonging to Wolfe for which they had no rights. We did not look further into the matter, but it would appear Wolfe was successful, and Wertheimber had to stop production of the bitters.This bottle has a crack in the applied top, visible in the photographs. Its cleanliness and overall eye appeal is outstanding. The bottle was found June 6, 1971 in the Chinatown section of Delamar, Idaho. It was the proud possession of Howard Whittig since that time.Date: Country: State: CaliforniaCity: Provenance: