Phipps & Phipps v Sachs

Bottle Tickets or Wine Labels?

“When the labelling of wine was an elegant craft.”

The history of bottle tickets provides a fascinating insight into English eating, drinking and personal habits. Contemporary gazettes begin to refer to 'labels for bottles' in the 1770s but it was not until the 1790s that they were established as wine or decanter labels. Their function was to identify the contents of a bottle or decanter, which might alternatively contain spirits, sauces, toilet waters or cordials. These tickets also illustrate in miniature, the skills of the silversmith over the last two hundred years. While the variety of styles and materials were enormous, silver bottle tickets tended to reflect fashionable designs in metalware generally. Makers were quick to adapt the many technical advances of the 18th and 19th centuries.

When planning this blog, I came across the apt sub-heading above,

“When the labelling of wine was an elegant craft.”

I have taken this quote from another blog, The Regency Redingote; perhaps on another occasion you can find that page for a detailed history of wine labels.

Perhaps more succinct is the paragraph above that I have taken from the V & A, this is the introduction to the remarkable collection of wine labels that are on display at the museum.

For this first attempt at blogging about “wine labels” I thought I would write a few notes about two labels that I have recently acquired. They were made by the final two members of the longstanding Phipps and Robinson partnership, Thomas and his son James.

The Phipps/Robinson labels were synonymous with excellent design and fine quality workmanship, many having particularly fine cutting and elaborate designs to the borders of their labels.

I wrote this note after recalling that His Honour Sir Edward Sachs, had contributed several *papers to the Wine Label Circle journal over a twenty-year period between 1956 – 76. Befitting a High Court Judge the papers were scholarly, thoughtful and were very useful contributions about the wine labels of the Phipps-Robinson family.

Perhaps the most important work that Sir Edward had undertaken was to ensure that many wine labels, attributed to Joseph Preedy, were in fact, the work of James Phipps. The particular comments that I had remembered was a rather critical appraisal of the work done during the last seven years of the partnership,(1816-23), between Thomas Phipps and his son James, (the Younger). Sir Edward Sachs thought that their work was coarse and lacked the distinction of the period when Edward Robinson was a partner, (1783-1815).

To give a brief background of the Phipps/Robinson family James Phipps had entered his first mark in 1767 and within two or three years his son, Thomas, became his apprentice. Edward Robinson, another apprentice to James Phipps became free of his master and in 1783 he joined Thomas Phipps to create the partnership that lasted until 1815.

In 1800, Thomas Phipps son, James was apprentice to his father and he joined the partnership in 1811. (See the mark of the three partners below.)

Edward Robinson died in 1816 leaving the father and son to continue working together in partnership until 1823 and their mark is shown below.

Returning now to the criticism of Sir Edward Sachs of this final partnership I recently bought a label, (below), that perhaps proved this point? It certainly is very plain, without any of the crispness of the simplest Phipps/Robinson labels. 

Is it simply time and wear that has taken its toll? Or is it coarse as Sachs thought of the Phipps/Phipps final partnership and work.

If you wonder why I bought the label it was precisely perhaps to illustrate that perhaps a celebrated dynasty could produce such a disappointment, at least to my mind!

However only a few weeks later I came across another example by Thomas & James, (below), a cast label weighing 22g that I certainly think is a comparatively original and stylish design. This label certainly questions the assertion of Sachs.

Thinking about this issue prompted me to thoroughly sort through my collection of Phipps/Robinson labels and I realised that I already had thirteen by the Phipps/Phipps partnership so all fifteen are displayed below.

The No.1 and No.2 Sherry labels were bought from different dealers, so I was pleased to reunite the pair, the sherry escutcheon was perhaps made to replace a lost label? The three labels on the right are a set, on the back of each is EMS, cast, they each weigh between 28 and 30 grammes.

Returning to the Phipps family, Thomas died in 1823 and for some quite unknown reason James, his son, did not enter his own mark and apparently stopped working as a Silversmith. I have spent some time researching genealogical websites but have not been able to establish when he died.

Future blogs.

I have in mind to write a number of articles that may be of interest to other label collectors, indeed some collectors may be wanting to see specific makers featured, some collectors may even want to put forward some articles for publication.

I will try to cover what labels are on offer from the Auction houses, at present they are fairly quiet during the summer holidays. During the last year or so there have been several significant collections come onto the market and this has had considerable effect on prices. Good quality labels are now quite reasonable in price, it has certainly been noticeable on Ebay; last week a Phipps-Robinson label, a 1792 Port, (below), not remarkable but it only managed twenty-four pounds. 

Another label, Hock, by Rawling and Summers, 1846, managed thirty-eight pounds.  

To view the UK list of wine labels that have been listed in the past few weeks click on the under-lined note below – there have not been many sales, it is only those marked green that indicate a sale.
Ebay wine label prices 

How-ever there were five sauce labels on Ebay that were attracting serious attention. The labels were circa 1840-50, all by Rawlings & Summers and fetched between £110 and £205.
Ebay sauce label prices 

Before closing I will suggest to any readers who are looking at this blog and have an interest in wine labels, you should seriously consider joining the Wine Label Circle. It is only a thirty-pound annual subscription, there is a useful website, http://winelabelcircle.org/, here you can access all the *digitized journals of the Wine Label Circle, (these date back to 1952).  Perhaps best of all, there are two meetings annually where you can meet others with similar interests. 

A recent meeting at Goldsmiths Hall in London gave members the opportunity to hear and discuss the important subject of silver forgery, I hope to write a blog about that subject soon.

Meanwhile happy collecting!