Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Herman Tappan Perfume Company

Herman Tappan Perfume Company of New York. The Tappan Company was one of the major American perfume companies during the Victorian era.

Herman Tappan of 112 Duane Street, New York. Established 1873 by Herman Tappan, who was the successor to Corning and Tappan.



Most of Tappan's perfumes & colognes were aimed at the middle class and their prices were affordable. Tappan was very fond of figural perfume bottles and many of the colognes of the era were packaged and sold in these little glass novelties. Some of the more notable figural bottles from Tappan are baseball bats, ladies boots, legs, hands, slippers, and street lamps. In the 1890s Tappan held two patents on figural perfume bottles.

Tappan perfumes are increasingly hard to find nowadays as original labels are sometimes lost and all we are left with are empty bottles. The early non-figural bottles are cylindrical in shape and sometimes have the Tappan name embossed along the sides, usually the molded glass stoppers are in the shape of a large letter T. The bottles are generally light aqua color, clear or have turned a sun purple color. A special souvenir bottle was issued for the four hundredth anniversary of Columbus' discovery of America. This limited edition bottle was called the American Discoverer Perfume.

I have looked everywhere for perfumes and colognes by Tappan, I was only able to find a few, if you know of more, please let me know and I will update the guide. I have placed estimated guesses on some of the circa dates for some of the perfumes and colognes, the others I was able to pinpoint from references.

Many of the Tappan fragrances were issued under individual lines such as : Blue Ribbon, Preciosa Extract, Golden Drops, Bijou Extract, Idolora, Favorita Extracts, XXX Handkerchief Extracts, Fineto Extracts, Grandiosa Extract, Tappan's Beacon Perfumes, Faultless Perfumes,The Little Hollanders, Fire Fly Perfume.


The perfumes of Tappan:

  • 1880 Ball Room Bouquet
  • 1881 Sweet Bye & Bye
  • 1880s Ylang Ylang
  • 1880s Dime Cologne
  • 1880s Aromia Cologne
  • 1890s Little Casino Cologne
  • 1890s Bouquet Cologne
  • 1890s The League Bat Cologne
  • 1892 Beacon
  • 1893 Castles in the Air
  • 1893 Blue Ribbon - Jockey Club
  • 1893 Stephanotis
  • 1893 Bijou Extract - West End
  • 1893 Golden Drops - Jockey Club
  • 1893 Preciosa Extract - Jockey Club
  • 1893 Idolora - Jockey Club
  • 1893 Idolora - White Rose
  • 1893 Marie Stuart
  • 1893 Fire Fly - White Rose
  • 1893 Favorita - Ylang Ylang
  • 1893 Favorita - Heliotrope
  • 1893 Favorita - Stephanotis
  • 1893 Fineto Extract - White Rose
  • 1893 Grandiosa Extract - White Heliotrope
  • 1893 Grandiosa Extract - Marie Stuart
  • 1893 Grandiosa Extract - Musk
  • 1893 1492 -1892 Columbus - Ylang Ylang
  • 1893 Aroma
  • 1893 Faultless - Crab Apple
  • 1898 Army-Navy "Remember the Maine"
  • 1909 White Rose
  • 1909 Jockey Club
  • 1909 Home Sweet Home
  • 1909 Crab Apple
  • 1909 The Little Hollanders


The images below are from an 1893 Marshall Field's catalog.




















Images from an advertisement from a 1909 Shure publication.









Images below are from an 1894-1895 Marshall Field catalog:


















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This is not your average perfume blog. In each post, I present perfumes or companies as encyclopedic entries with as much facts and photos as I can add for easy reading and researching without all the extraneous fluff or puffery.

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