Geo. H. Rundle Co. Piqua Ohio 1910s Patent Medicine Order Form For Sale

This document is a “COPY OF ORDER” form issued by The Geo. H. Rundle Co. of Piqua, Ohio, a manufacturer of proprietary medicines in the early twentieth century. The form, printed on a single sheet of paper, was designed to be filled out by a traveling agent or a retail customer to facilitate the direct shipment of patent medicines from the company’s laboratories. The paper exhibits significant age-related toning and browning, with several dark liquid stains and a prominent vertical crease from folding, consistent with its use as a commercial record that was likely mailed or carried in a ledger.The printed text reveals a standardized ordering system for a line of popular nostrums, including “Porter’s Pain King,” “Porter’s None Such Laxatives,” and a generic “Salve,” each with blank spaces for quantity and price. The header includes a date line reading “191.....” and the delivery instructions allow for a window between two dates in “19......”, situating this artifact squarely within the 1910s or 1920s, the heyday of the patent medicine trade. The form’s verso or reverse side is not visible, but the recto includes a detailed payment instruction: “We ask all patrons to use our medicine left in their possession, and to pay for what they have used when our agent calls. But should anyone not be able to pay then, kindly send whatever is due us within 30 days after our agent calls, by Post Office Money Order or Check to The Geo. H. Rundle Co., Piqua, Ohio.” This language documents the consignment-based business model and the reliance on postal money orders for remote transactions, a common practice before widespread banking access in rural America.The typography is utilitarian, with a bold serif font for the company name and a mix of larger and smaller typefaces for the product listings and instructions. The form includes blank fields for the agent’s name, town, county, and state, as well as the customer’s address. The mention of “Porter’s Pain King” and “Porter’s None Such Laxatives” points to the era’s fascination with branded, often secret-formula remedies that promised relief from common ailments. As a piece of commercial ephemera from Miami County, Ohio, this order form is a tangible record of the distribution networks and marketing strategies that fueled the proprietary medicine industry before federal regulation tightened in the late 1930s. The lack of any handwritten entries suggests this is an unused specimen, preserving the pristine layout of the original printing for collectors of advertising history, business documents, and patent medicine memorabilia.