A Barrel of Hutchinson History? Like it? It’s really a big (and empty) load of old bottle caps By Ralph Finch
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ffered recently by the A-OK Auction Gallery of Abingdon, Va., was Lot 0108, a 7-Up Wooden Bottle Cap Barrel described (edited) as “Manufactured By W.H. Hutchinson & Son, Chicago, Barrel Holds 100 Gross Bottle Caps, Hand Painted 7-Up Logo For John G. Epping Bottle Co.,” in good condition and 23 1/2 inches tall.” It required a starting bid of $10, plus a buyer’s premium of 13 to 20 percent, although the auction house estimated its value at $600-$800. Other similar barrels have been known, but rarely (if ever) in such good condition. Interesting. For those of you who haven’t had a math class since 1907, a “gross,” as explained by Wikipedia, means “a group of 144 items (a dozen dozen or a square dozen, 122). A great gross refers to a group of 1,728 items (a dozen gross or a cubic dozen, 123). A small gross or a great hundred refers to a group of 120 items.”
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Antique Bottle & Glass Collector
100 gross is 14,400 bottle caps. Now, don’t you feel smarter? My little brain is completely exhausted. My question is: Years ago I knew many collectors of Hutchinson items — remember the great Bob (and Barbara) Harms of Chicago? Bob was president of the 1st Chicago Bottle Club back in 1986. Are there Hutchinson collectors still out there? Email me at rfinch@twmi. rr.com and let me know. The A-OK barrel sold for $577 plus $42 shipping. Wow! To me! What luck. This barrel of bottle caps had been on my bucket list for, well, a few days anyway. However, once I received the barrel I realized that with all our other wooden boxes — for ketchup, and even one for old toilet paper — that there is no more room at the Finch inn, and decided to have John Pastor put this into one of his upcoming American Glass Gallery auctions. NOPE! We changed our minds (see the photo of our cluttered dining room next page).
Editor’s note 1: The internet states: ‘’In 1927, the John G. Epping Bottling Works of Louisville acquired the NuGrape Bottling Co. of Lexington, bottlers of NuGrape and Orange Crush. Their plant was located at 210 Clark St., with Hilary Bell the General Manager.” Also: “7 Up was created by Charles Leiper Grigg, who launched his St. Louis-based company, the Howdy Corp., in 1920. Grigg came up with the formula for a lemon-lime soft drink in 1929.” Noted Peachwood Glass: “Charles G. Hutchinson, the son of William H. Hutchinson, a long-time Chicago soda bottler and equipment manufacturer, patented his ‘Hutchinson’s Patent Spring Stopper’ April 8, 1879. This stopper gained widespread popularity with bottlers and consumers, rendering other closures obsolete, and revolutionizing the soda bottling industry. Several factors combined to prompt bottlers to shift to crown seal bottling equipment by World War I.”
