M&B Stock No. 38 "Horses"

General
In the realm of stock trays (and brewery trays in general), horses are pretty prevalent. Over time, Meek & Beach/Meek/AAW produced a dozen or so trays featuring a horse or horses. Beach had already introduced horses (Beach No. 7 and No. 11), so it should be no surprise that’ Meek & Beach’s No. 38 (probably introduced at about the same time) features horses as well. The average American in the early 20th century was probably more familiar and had more personal experience with horses than automobiles. This design is not included in any of the catalogs available to us but was listed in the 1903 M&B price list as “Horses”.

Shape & Rim & Ad Text
All examples of this design that we have seen are oval trays with the low pie shaped rim and rolled edge. Almost all sport a faux marble rim design; there are not examples with simpler solid color rims like some designs, with the sole exception of John Wagner Sons sporting a highly unusual pale green rim with gold text. The Kennedy tray added text references X-mas 1904, so it was probably available into 1905. Advertising text appears with both rim and face placements, usually in black text

Hager & Price
This image is mentioned in Hager, although he surmises that it is a Beach tray “as it has the same style as 6-B and 7_B with the plain rims.” However, he does not include it in his catalog of pictures, perhaps because he hadn’t encountered an example with a stock number on it. There are a number of different brewery issuers with this design and prices tend to be fairly robust. Prices for non-breweries, with certain exceptions, tend to be fairly weak.