M&B Stock: 66 "A Showdown"

General
No. 66 is a seldom seen monk and older gentleman playing a game of cards entitled "A Showdown." We cannot find either literary or artistic reference for this design, although it resembles a number of other designs used in advertising of this period that were based on paintings acquired in Europe. We have not encountered an example with any sort of artist signature. Perhaps we are reaching to speculate that it may be an allusion to the struggle between church and state and may simply be a representation of two typical tropes of the era.

Shape & Rim & Ad Text
All of the examples we have seen are oval trays, with the low pie shaped rim and a rolled edge. All sport a solid blue/gray rim design, with advertising text (and sometime symbols or logos) mostly on the rim of the tray (Thurston & Kingsbury appears on the back side).

Hager & Price
No. 66 is not included in Hager’s catalog nor discussed, probably because he hadn’t encountered any or positively identified with the design as being Meek. To our knowledge there are no brewery examples which seems surprising given the subject matter. Aside from unmarked stock samples and a lone Thurston & Kingsbury (grocers), all the ones we’ve seen have either been saloons or liquor dealers, with Edwin Schiele & Co, maker of Autocrat Whiskey occurring most frequently. Prices are solid but not spectacular for the liquor examples; unmarked stock samples tend to be fairly low.