Antique Shoe Polish Bottles
FRANK MILLER’S CROWN DRESSING. Frank Miller & Company began operation in Warsaw, New York in 1838. Some years later, Miller had moved to New York City, NY. By the year 1867, according to an ad in the Hudson Evening Register, the company was located at 19 & 20 Cedar Street in New York City.
By the 1880s, the company name had been changed slightly to “Frank Miller & Sons”. Miller & Sons manufactured a wide line of shoe dressings (shoe polish) , blackings, leather/harness/saddle dressings, and similar products.
The most popular product they manufactured and sold was their “Frank Miller’s Crown Dressing” which was specifically advertised as “For Ladies’ and Childrens’ Boots and Shoes”. This product was widely advertised across the country in newspapers and magazines of the late Victorian era, and many colorful trade cards were printed and distributed to promote their products.
Bottles marked with “FRANK / MILLER’S / CROWN [Graphic representation of a king’s crown] / DRESSING / NEW YORK / U.S.A.” are found rather frequently and most of them appear to date from the 1875 to 1895 period.
Many different molds were made to produce these bottles, and a close comparison of different examples show the lettering and crown graphic design, from mold to mold, is never exactly the same, but slight details in the engraving can easily be noted. The embossing on the bottles results from the painstakingly hand-chiseled engraving done to the inside of the bottle mold, and so it was virtually impossible to make each engraved design absolutely identical.
Although I don’t believe there is any proof (at the present time) for a particular glass house having made these bottles, it seems very likely that many of them were made in Brooklyn, NY by the Brookfield Glass Company (Bushwick Glass Works), as that factory was nearby, operating during that correct time period, and many of their other products, especially their glass electrical insulators, are found in a very typical light to medium blue-aqua colored glass.
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Most of the bottles have a mold identifying number on the base, which served to identify different iron or steel molds from which they were made.
Sometime before 1885 the business offices had moved to 349 & 351 West 26th Street in New York City, as mentioned in the accompanying article in “New York’s Great Industries”. Miller’s products were widely distributed throughout the United States, as well as other countries including Great Britain and Australia.
The Crown Dressing bottles are square in shape, handblown with a tooled lip, usually in light to medium aqua or bluish-aqua glass. There were many competing brands of shoe polish (shoe dressing), harness and boot blacking and similar products that were packaged in bottles of that same size and shape throughout that time period. For instance, another brand which is found occasionally is the “SARATOGA DRESSING” bottle. In general, these bottles measure about 5 inches in height, and 1 and 5/8″ in diameter at the base.
For an extensive list of glass manufacturers’ marks seen on bottles, fruit jars, insulators, tableware and other items, please click here to go to the GLASS BOTTLE MARKS pages, page one.
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