Hartford, CT
S.W. Freeman Liquor Dist.
Hartford, CT
Hartford, CT
S.W. Freeman (Back)
Hartford, CT
San Francisco, CA
Albany Brewery
San Francisco, CA
Glencoe, MN
Glencoe Brewing Co.
Glencoe, MN
Hutchison, MN
Hutchinson Brewery
Hutchison, MN
Jefferson, WI
Jefferson Brewing & Malting Co.
Jefferson, WI
Racine, WI
Ernst Klinkert Brewing Co.
Racine, WI

The 'Stock' Exchange
Meek & Beach Co.  No. 45  "Good Friends"
Date:  1903 - 1905
Size:  
13"
Type: 
Inverted Pie
Scarcity:  Common
Value:  $$$ to $$$$
Condition & Brewer Dependent
General
If trays in the catalogue came out in sequence (and we have no evidence that they did not), then No. 45 would likely have come out in 1903, as the Teddy Roosevelt tray (No. 47) was mentioned by J.F. Meek in his Printer’s Ink interview in 1903.  Although it could be argued that Tuscarora/M&B had ventured into designs that implied some sort of backstory, this is the first one where it is clearly implied there is “something going on.”  The design is based on a work by Czech artist Constantin Stoitzner, who was known as a landscape and figure painter.  He often captured alpine village residents of which the gentlemen in this design are likely representative of.  This design likely represents one of examples of artwork J.F. Meek bought the rights to on one of his Europe buying tours.  Often Meek bought the actual work and brought it back to Coshocton, which is revealed in an 1895 article in the Coshocton Age following a fire at the main Tuscarora plant where among the losses were “…a large stack of German lithographs Meek had recently purchased on a buying trip to Europe.”

To our knowledge all examples are the same; there are not variations of the image.   However, in reviewing examples in our position, we did note a minor difference with the stock number and company symbol—on one example there is no company symbol and the stock number appears as “No. 45”, whereas on the second example the Meek symbol appears and the stock number is conveyed simply as “45”.  We believe this might indicate that the first example was created before the name change from Meek & Beach to Meek and the second example after the name change.

Shape & Rim & Ad Text
No. 45 introduces a new size/shape into the M&B catalogue—the convex pie, a 13” dish that is lower than later concave pie shapes, but somewhat higher profile than the early “flat pie” shapes.  The vast majority of examples sport a solid dark red rim with black or gold text, although Mathie has white text and Claussen uses a gold rim with red text.  Most only feature advertising text on the rim, with the exception of some minor text on the newspaper one of the gentlemen is holding.  Providence Brewing does have some gold text on the main image.

Perhaps most of note is the existence of a tip tray sized version (Brewers Local No. 5) suggesting this design was in the catalog into the timeframe in which M&B had perfected the process of producing different size images from the same design.

There are several TOC sign versions with a round image surrounded by faux woodgrain.  These feature gold advertising text.  In our notes we also record an unmarked SFT sign version, but lack a picture to confirm this.

Hager & Price
Hager doesn’t mention this tray specifically, but says that round trays were introduced in 1905.   We believe this tray was introduced in 1904 (see above), but would agree that 1905 is when they started to “regularly” be included in the catalogue.  He does include this in his version of the catalog.  The vast majority of issuers were breweries and prices tend to be comparatively reasonable for most breweries, with certain exceptions.  The prices for the few non-breweries are generally much lower.

Confirmed Brewer used Stock Trays


Non-Beer Related & Non-Tray Uses

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