Laurie Elks’ Bottle Label Collection
Laurie Elks is celebrated in Hackney as the custodian of St Augustine’s Tower, but before he arose to these lofty heights he practised the art of stewardship by amassing this magnificent collection of bottle labels, organised with loving care in a scrap book that he has cherished through the years.
“When I was a boy I collected all sorts of things and I think I acquired my bottle label collection when I was eleven or twelve, so the labels come from early sixties. I wrote off in my schoolboy handwriting to all the breweries I could think of, telling them I was collecting beer bottle labels and most of them wrote back with a little packet of labels which I stuck in my album with Gloy gum. I doubt whether they would write back today. I must have looked up the addresses of the breweries in the London phone book as I cannot think of any other search strategies that would have been available to me at the time.” – Laurie Elks
If any other readers have ephemera collections I could publish please get in touch
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Well done, Laurie Elks, to collect these analog graphic icons. Who of today’s children collects something like this…? — I also love these labels, especially their graphic changes over the years.
Love & Peace
ACHIM
What a tremendous collection. I love the picture Laurie creates of his young self writing off to the breweries and then carefully pasting his treasures in his scrapbook. What a thrill it must have been when a packet arrived in the post. In our digital age there is a particular pleasure in this kind of ephemera and the memories which it evokes. Now I am lost in the image of Truman’s huge shire horses clopping up Putney High Street: I loved their great feet and the sound they made: a glimpse of the past amongst the traffic that never failed to thrill me.
Lovely colours and amazing detail work on some of the labels. For example, the vista and the shading of the cow on the last one, milk stout.
It’s lovely that Laurie didn’t have to soak the labels off bottles–pristine ‘art.’
I look forward to whatever splendid collections are scanned and sent to you, G.A.
Ephemera Lovers, rejoice! Treasured scrapbooks like this one are such unique social documents; and just-plain-great visual legacies. The time spent chasing down the labels, writing to the source, placing items on a page one-by-one, and notating — it all becomes a personal reverie, visible and tangible. So often these books are lost, waylaid, discarded,
overlooked. Luckily, this one has survived in fine style, and we are so fortunate to
see it.
Surely, in each reader’s life, there is some similar relic? A diary, a clutch of photos, postcards in a drawer, glitter-encrusted dance cards, cigar bands? Oh, to have it all BACK for a day to look through.
Thank you, GA. You always shine a light.
A great collection. If they are not in an archive already, he could offer them to the Museum of Brands in North Kensington: https://museumofbrands.com/
An interesting mix of very plain, and uncompromising (Mackesons black and white label on its carb laden stout, and highly imaginative of alleged properties (Allsopps fine cow on their milk stout).
And I still know what a Double Diamond does.
It works wonders……….
Top collection!
Lager in the early sixties, how exotic.
Tastier than that Ind Coope rubbish anyways…..
I myself, collect beer mats (coasters) for their artistic merit and very much appreciate the time that it takes to build a collection. I love the how design trends and rebranding show the evolution of labels and packaging. Thanks for sharing.