FOOD DRINK Early catalog and price list for the Anheuser

Sale 2600 - Lot 114

Price Realized: $ 1,250

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200

(FOOD & DRINK.) Early catalog and price list for the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association. 16 pages. Large 8vo, 10 x 6 3/4 inches, original illustrated wrappers, minor wear including light chipping at edges, light vertical fold; minimal wear to contents. St. Louis, MO, circa 1884

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This is the earliest known Anheuser-Busch catalog. The front wrapper shows the brewery's trademark eagle on a shield bearing the stars and stripes perched upon the brewery's "A." It bears the title "Price List and Trade Circular, Anheuser, Busch Brewing Assn." The rear wrapper is a full-page view of the main brewery complex, with a table of annual sales showing rapid growth from 1874 through 1882. The rounded 1883-1884 number, 350,000 barrels, appears to be projected. The contents are lively: a "Message to our Patrons," a display of counterfeit labels, illustrations of satellite breweries in Arkansas, Wyoming and Texas; a centerfold spread of their 1883 gold medal certificate; and a 3-page price list for their various brews: Anheuser-Busch Standard, Liebotschaner, Erlanger, Pale Lager, Faust Beer, and "the Budweiser beer," offered by the bottle or keg. Souvenir traveling cases, beer glasses, and corkscrews are also offered. Romaine, American Trade Catalogs, lists the earliest known American brewery catalog as being a price list and trade circular from Anheuser Busch in 1885 (page 21). One example of the present issue in OCLC, at the Missouri Historical Museum, and none traced at auction.