My understanding of my own exhaustive web search (and Herman Melville, of course) is that a distinction was made between sperm oil and whale oil, the former derived from the "spermacetti" in the head cavity of the sperm whale; the latter from the blubber (insulating body fat). Perhaps by the time Brownell had this put up in their can, the distinction was purely historic. From Doug's post, I gather that adulteration or substitution under a "generic" name might be a possibility. Testing for the identity of the thing contained may be in order, jOE, at which time the contents could also be decanted into a Mason jar and the original container also tested for its ability to attract money on eBay.
jack
