DirtStalker
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Hoyt's 10¢ Cologne from the Watermelon Patch
Todd "Patch" Lipe twisted my arm for another trip to the Watermelon Patch Saturday. One of the first things I Kicked out of the ground (new digging technique) was this Hoyt's 10¢ Cologne bottle from the early 1900's. Seems it was widely used in the black community as a lucky potion for gambling. Well being Superstitious Ole Patch filled it with some Watermelon juice shook the little bottle and poured it on both of us. Well I can testify this Really worked for us Saturday as we had a Really nice dig. Coins,Buttons, and other goodies were jumping out of the WP all-day but that's another story.



The following is an excerpt of story about Hoyt's 10¢ Cologne I found online.
Lee Marx, was a pharmacist whose dry goods and drug store served primarily African-American customers. In addition to medicines and cosmetics, the elder Mr. Marx also stocked a small line of curios, mostly the raw makings for root work formulas such as Goofer Dust and the like. One of the products that crossed the thin line between conventional cosmetics, so-called "lucky" cosmetics and a lucky hoodoo curio was Hoyt's Cologne. It was a cheap perfume that sold for ten cents per bottle, as shown in this trade card from the 1910s. (Two other old-fashioned commercial colognes with magical reputations are Florida Water and Kananga Water.)
hoyts-cologne-bottle
LeRue told me that his first introduction to hoodoo came when he was still a child. He used to help out in the drug store after school, and as he recalled, people who got their weekly pay checks on Friday and planned to spend the evening gambling would often come into the pharmacy near closing time to buy a bottle of Hoyt's Cologne. "Sales of Hoyt's Cologne were higher on Friday than any other day of the week," he said.
"I remember one incident very well," he said. "I was about ten years old." This would have been in 1922. "I was working in the pharmacy and a very large, well-built, middle-aged coloured woman came in and she wanted a ten cent bottle of Hoyt's Cologne. So i got it for her and she put down her ten cents on the counter and then she just opened the bottle up, right there in the aisle, and she poured the entire contents on her head and all over her body and she was laughing and shaking herself and she said, 'I'm gonna get lucky tonight!' And she just left the empty bottle sitting there on the counter and went out. I'll never forget that. I was astonished. I asked my father about it and he told me that Hoyt's Cologne was thought to be lucky for gamblers."
Todd "Patch" Lipe twisted my arm for another trip to the Watermelon Patch Saturday. One of the first things I Kicked out of the ground (new digging technique) was this Hoyt's 10¢ Cologne bottle from the early 1900's. Seems it was widely used in the black community as a lucky potion for gambling. Well being Superstitious Ole Patch filled it with some Watermelon juice shook the little bottle and poured it on both of us. Well I can testify this Really worked for us Saturday as we had a Really nice dig. Coins,Buttons, and other goodies were jumping out of the WP all-day but that's another story.



The following is an excerpt of story about Hoyt's 10¢ Cologne I found online.
Lee Marx, was a pharmacist whose dry goods and drug store served primarily African-American customers. In addition to medicines and cosmetics, the elder Mr. Marx also stocked a small line of curios, mostly the raw makings for root work formulas such as Goofer Dust and the like. One of the products that crossed the thin line between conventional cosmetics, so-called "lucky" cosmetics and a lucky hoodoo curio was Hoyt's Cologne. It was a cheap perfume that sold for ten cents per bottle, as shown in this trade card from the 1910s. (Two other old-fashioned commercial colognes with magical reputations are Florida Water and Kananga Water.)
hoyts-cologne-bottle
LeRue told me that his first introduction to hoodoo came when he was still a child. He used to help out in the drug store after school, and as he recalled, people who got their weekly pay checks on Friday and planned to spend the evening gambling would often come into the pharmacy near closing time to buy a bottle of Hoyt's Cologne. "Sales of Hoyt's Cologne were higher on Friday than any other day of the week," he said.
"I remember one incident very well," he said. "I was about ten years old." This would have been in 1922. "I was working in the pharmacy and a very large, well-built, middle-aged coloured woman came in and she wanted a ten cent bottle of Hoyt's Cologne. So i got it for her and she put down her ten cents on the counter and then she just opened the bottle up, right there in the aisle, and she poured the entire contents on her head and all over her body and she was laughing and shaking herself and she said, 'I'm gonna get lucky tonight!' And she just left the empty bottle sitting there on the counter and went out. I'll never forget that. I was astonished. I asked my father about it and he told me that Hoyt's Cologne was thought to be lucky for gamblers."
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