Rare Jergens Ben Hur mini perfume bottle with box.

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Rare Jergens Ben Hur mini perfume bottle with box. :
$95.00

Ben Hur was a fragrance introduced by the Andrew Jergens Company of Cincinnatti, Ohio,in 1904. The fragrance name was inspired by the best-selling book by Lew Wallace from the 1800s.

Jergens produced Ben Hur bottles in several styles. This one seems to be one of the rarest, asI have never seen another Ben Hur bottle like it, either online or in person. It is a graceful bottle with a long, slender stem and a round, flat base. Itcomes witha beautiful box covered with textured red paper that has subtle gold glints in it. The bottle rests in a cardboard insert with cut-out shapes to hold the bottle steady, and there is some crumpled, yellowed packing papertucked into the box lid to help prevent movement.

The box measures3.5 inches X 1& 3/8ths inches X 7/8ths inches. There area few small stains on it, but it is still gorgeous and highly presentable. The bottle is just as beautiful. There is a tiny bit of dried perfume residue in the foot of the bottle, but not so much that it detracts from its beauty.

The bottle is 2.75 inches tall. Alas, it is missing its stopper. I don\'t know what the stopper would have looked like, but considering the amount of room remaining in the box when the bottle is resting inside the cardboard insert, I don\'t think the stopper could have added more than an extra 0.25 inch of height, or the bottle would not have been able to fit inside the insert and the lid would not have come down over the top

Interestingly, Ben Hur was the subject of a very successful stage play, a 1907silent short film, a 1925 blockbuster full-length filmby Metro Goldwyn-Mayer, and several other film and television adaptations since then, most notably the 1959 film starring Charlton Heston.

In conjunction with the 1925 movie, Jergens took advantage of the renewed public interest in Ben Hur with print ads for the fragrance featuring endorsements by May McAvoy, who played Esther in the movie:

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Actress Clara Bow also endorsed the Ben Hur fragrance in a 1920s ad, though she was not part of the movie:

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Neither of these ads depicts the bottle design shown here in this listing, and I have yet to find any ad that enables me to date this bottle design to a specific year, though I intend to keep searching as my time allows.

This is a very special find for anyone who collects antique perfume bottles and for anyone who collects memorabilia related to the Ben Hur cultural phenomenon.

Please see my other listings for more new and used fragrances and collectible vintage bottles. If you purchase more than one item from me within a short span of time, I will gladly package them together and pass the shipping savings on to you via a Paypal refund after all your items have been paid for. Even items that already have free shipping will qualify for a combined shipping discount!

Just do me a small favor: if you have purchased (or intend to purchase) more than one item, kindly send me an email so that I don’t ship the first item prematurely. Thanks!

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