Vintage Pharmacy & Apothecary Bottles: Squibb and More
Long before childproof caps and plastic bottles, American pharmacies dispensed their remedies in glass built to last, and often built in colors chosen for a reason. Cobalt blue and periwinkle bottles lined drugstore shelves and medicine cabinets across the country, and decades later, some of those same bottles are turning up along New York City's historic shorelines. This piece looks at one of the most storied names in that history, E.R. Squibb and Sons, alongside a few other pharmacy brands that show up regularly in our collection.
E.R. Squibb and Sons: A Brooklyn-Born Pharmacy
Squibb has a New York story before it was ever a national one. The company was founded in Brooklyn in 1858 by Dr. Edward Robinson Squibb, a naval surgeon who left the military to build a pharmaceutical operation focused on quality control at a time when that was far from guaranteed. Squibb went on to become one of the most established names in American pharmacy, and its bottles, embossed with the company name front and back, are still turning up in the same borough where the brand began.
Two Squibb bottles currently in our collection show the range the brand worked in. The large Squibb bottle in soft periwinkle blue stands 6 inches tall and was likely used for bulk pharmacy or hospital dispensing, its base embossed BOTTLE MADE IN USA. The small cobalt blue Squibb bottle is a more compact, household-scale example of the same embossed design, just over 4 inches tall. Seeing them together is a good introduction to how much a single pharmacy brand's glassware could vary by use.
Reading Pharmacy-Era Glass: Color and Embossing
Cobalt and periwinkle weren't just decorative choices. Deep-colored glass blocks light, which mattered for medicines and chemical preparations that degraded when exposed to sun, so pharmacy and chemical bottles reached for blue and amber far more often than clear glass. Cobalt in particular became closely associated with the pharmacy trade, to the point that a cobalt bottle on a shelf reads as "medicine" almost instinctively, even before you can make out the embossing.
Embossing is the other tell. Pharmacy-era bottles were typically embossed directly into the mold rather than labeled, since paper labels didn't survive handling, moisture, or time the way sunk lettering does. Companies embossed their name on the front and back panels, and often added manufacturing information to the base, like the BOTTLE MADE IN USA mark found on both Squibb bottles above. That base information can help narrow down an approximate era, while the front-and-back embossing is usually the fastest way to identify the brand at a glance.
More Pharmacy Names in the Collection
Squibb isn't the only pharmacy brand represented. A few others worth knowing if you're building out a collection:
Listerine, first compounded in 1879 by Dr. Joseph Lawrence and licensed to the Lambert Pharmacal Company, is represented by both a clear embossed Lambert Pharmacal bottle and a 1952 example that's spent enough time in the water to develop genuine sea glass frosting. Sloan's Liniment, originally formulated by Dr. Earl S. Sloan as a treatment for horses before it crossed over into a household muscle and joint remedy, shows up in a 1940s embossed clear glass bottle. Omega Oil, a topical preparation from the Omega Chemical Company of Jersey City, appears in a 1940s clear glass bottle. And Phillips' Milk of Magnesia, developed by British chemist Charles Henry Phillips and one of the most widely used home remedies of the 20th century, appears in several sizes of its signature cobalt blue glass.
What Makes These Bottles Collectible
A handful of things push a pharmacy bottle from "old glass" into genuinely collectible territory: color, condition, and a name you can actually research. Cobalt and periwinkle glass reads as a statement piece on a shelf in a way clear glass rarely does, crisp embossing tells a real, verifiable brand story, and good condition, no chips or cracks, keeps a piece display-ready. Bottles tied to a documented brand history, like Squibb's roots in 1858 Brooklyn, add a layer that a generic "vintage bottle" simply can't offer.
Each of these bottles was recovered from New York City's historic shorelines and landfill sites, the same ground where they were likely discarded decades ago. There's something special about displaying beautiful materials that would otherwise have been lost to time.
Browse the full Antique Apothecary & Medicine Bottles collection for more pharmacy-era finds, or explore our Cobalt Glass collection for additional cobalt and periwinkle pieces beyond the ones featured here.