B&e 5septoct2010r

Vol. 21 No. 5

September - October, 2010

Marble Beads

“The Myriad Hues of New Hampshire Glass”

John Henry Winkle ~ Baker and Soda Water Maker

Vol. 21 No. 5

September - October, 2010

FOHBC Officer Listing 2010 - 2012 .... 2 President’s Message .............................. 3 Shards of Wisdom ................................. 4 Paper Trail ............................................. 6 A Book in Review ................................. 8 Regional Reports ................................. 10

Table of Contents

FOHBC National Bottle Show Report Marianne Dow .............................. 26 “The Myriad Hues of New Hampshire Glass” Michael George .......................... 28 A Brief History of Bottle Collecting in Minnesota Steve Ketcham ............................. 30

FOHBC Honor Roll ............................... 18

Marble Beads Lee Linne ...................................... 32

The Exploding World of Target Balls Ralph Finch ................................. 20

Never Say Never Bobby Vaughn ............................... 36

John Henry Winkle Baker and Soda Water Maker Eric McGuire ............................... 21

George W. Swett Root Beer 1845 - 1952 ~ Boston, Mass.

Don Yates ..................................... 38

No. 191 Isn’t That Dandy The life and times of James Gilberds Joe Terry ............................................ 42 The Dating Game: Tracking the HobbleSkirt Coca-Cola Bottle Bill Lockhart and Bill Porter ............ 46 Classified Ads & Ad Rate Information ... 62 Show Biz ............................................. 66 Membership Additions and Changes... 69 Membership Application ..................... 71 Membership Benefits .......................... 72

Don’t miss an issue - Please check your label for expiration information.

Fair use notice: Some material above has been submitted for publication in this magazine and/or was originally published by the authors and is copyrighted. We, as a non-profit organization, offer it here as an educational tool to increase further understanding and discussion of bottle collecting and related history. We believe this constitutes “fair use” of the copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this material for purposes of your own that go beyond “fair use”, you must obtain permission from the copyrighted owner(s).

WHO DO I CONTACT ABOUT THE MAGAZINE? CHANGE OF ADDRESS, MISSING ISSUES, etc., contact the Business Manager June Lowry, 401 Johnston Ct., Raymore, MO 64083; Phone: (816) 318-0160 or email: OSUBuckeyes71@aol.com To ADVERTISE, SUBSCRIBE or RENEW a subscription, see pages 63 and 71 for details.

To SUBMIT A STORY, send a LETTER TO THE EDITOR, or have COMMENTS and concerns, Contact: Jesse Sailer, 136 Jefferson Street, East Greenville, PA 18041 Phone: (215) 715-2611 or email: jsailerbotmags@verizon.net BOTTLES AND EXTRAS © (ISSN 1050-5598) is published bi-monthly (6 issues per year) by the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors, Inc. (a non-profit IRS C3 educational organization) at 401 Johnston Ct., Raymore, MO 64083; Phone: (816) 318-0160; Website: http://www. fohbc.com. Non-profit periodicals postage paid at Raymore, MO 64083 and additional mailing office, Pub. #005062.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Bottles and Extras, FOHBC, 401 Johnston Court, Raymore, MO 64083; ph: (816) 318-0160. Annual subscription rate is $30 or $45 for First Class, $50 Canada and $65 other foreign in U.S. funds. The Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors, Inc. assumes no responsibility for products and services advertised in this publication.

The names: Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors, Inc., and Bottles and Extras©, are registered ® names of the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors, Inc., and no use of either, other than as references, may be used without expressed written consent from the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors., Inc. Certain material contained in this publication is copyrighted by, and remains the sole property of, the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors, Inc., while others remain property of the submitting authors. Detailed information concerning a particular article may be obtained from the Editor. Printed by Modernlitho, Jefferson City, MO 65101

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September - October, 2010

Bottles and Extras

Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors Business & News The Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors is a non-profit organization for collectors of historical bottles and related collectible items. Our primary goal is educational as it relates to the history and manufacture of historical bottles and related artifacts.

FOHBC Officers 2010 - 2012

President: Gene Bradberry, PO Box 341062, Memphis, TN 38184; phone: (901) 372-8428; e-mail: Genebsa@comcast.net First Vice-President: Bob Ferraro, 515 Northridge Dr, Boulder City, NV 89005; phone: (702) 293-3114; e-mail: mayorferraro@aol.com.

Second Vice-President: Ferdinand Meyer V, 101 Crawford, Studio 1A, Houston, TX 77002; phone: (713) 222-7979; e-mail: fmeyer@fmgdesign.com.

Secretary: Randy Driskill, PO Box 2146, Vista, CA 92085; phone: (760) 415-6549, e-mail: randy@bottleauction.com.

Treasurer: Tom Lines, PO Box 382831, Birmingham, AL 35238; phone (205) 987-0650, e-mail: bluecrab1949@hotmail.com.

Historian: Richard Watson, 10 S Wendover Rd, Medford, NJ 08055; phone: (856) 983-1364; e-mail: crwatsonnj@verizon.net Editor: Jesse Sailer, 136 Jefferson St, East Greenville, PA 18041; phone: (215) 715-2611, e-mail: jsailerbotmags@verizon.net.

Merchandising Director: Kent Williams, 1835 Oak Ter, Newcastle, CA 95658; phone: (916) 663-1265; e-mail: KentW@ppoa.org Membership Director: Ed Herrold, 65 Laurel Loop, Maggie Valley, NC 28751; phone: (828) 926-2513; e-mail: drbitters@mindspring.com Conventions Director: R Wayne Lowry, 401 Johnston Ct, Raymore, MO 64083; phone: (816) 318-0161; e-mail: JarDoctor@aol.com

Business Manager: June Lowry, 401 Johnston Ct, Raymore, MO 64083; phone: (816) 318-0160; e-mail: OSUBuckeyes71@aol.com Director-at-Large: Carl Sturm, 88 Sweetbriar Branch, Longwood, FL 32750; phone: (407) 332-7689; e-mail: glassmancarl@sprintmail.com Director-at-Large: Sheldon Baugh, 252 W Valley Dr, Russellville, KY 42276; phone: (270) 726-2712; e-mail: shel6943@bellsouth.net Director-at-Large: John Pastor, PO Box 227, New Hudson, MI 48165; phone: (248) 486-0530; e-mail: jpastor@americanglassgallery.com Midwest Region Director: Martin Van Zant, 208 Urban St, Danville, IN 46122; phone: (812) 841-9495; e-mail: MDVanzant@yahoo.com.

Northeast Region Director: Ed Kuskie, 352 Pineview Dr, Elizabeth, PA 15037; phone: (412) 405-9061; e-mail: bottlewizard@comcast.net.

Southern Region Director: Jack Hewitt, 1765 Potomac Ct, Lawrenceville, GA 30043; phone: (770) 856-6062, e-mail: hewittja@bellsouth.net.

Western Region Director: Cecil Munsey, 13541 Willow Run Rd, Poway, CA 92064; phone: (858) 487-7036; e-mail: cecilmunsey@cox.net Public Relations Director: James Berry, 200 Fort Plain Watershed Rd, St. Johnsville, NY 13452; phone: (518) 568-5683; e-mail: jhberry10@yahoo.com

Bottles and Extras

September - October, 2010

Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors

President’s Message I would like to thank everyone for their support in electing me president of the FOHBC for the next two years. I find that there are many challenges and opportunities awaiting us in the near future.

To bring everyone up to date, the following action has been taken: I have appointed Tom Lines, of Birmingham, Ala., as our new treasurer. He was approved unanimously on a conference call to the board of directors. Tom comes from a banking background and has served as Southern Region director for the federation. He also has served as president of the Birmingham club as well as perennial show chairman for the Birmingham show.

He is a longtime collector and friend of bottle collecting as well as a personal friend. Welcome aboard, Tom! I would like to thank Alan DeMaison, our retiring treasurer, for his longtime dedication and service to the federation. Alan and Tom will be working together to make for a smooth transition.

Also a hearty thanks to Richard Siri’s granddaughter, Stacey LaFave, for her efforts to bring our website up to date over the past several months. We will be making further changes to that as we go along and Ferd Meyer, our new second vice president, will be working to redesign the website which we hope to have functioning in two or three months. Ferd also is coordinating our efforts for a virtual museum and you will be hearing much more about that in the months to come.

I would like to welcome the new officers just elected and say on their behalf that we look forward to working together for the betterment of the hobby and the federation. A listing of these new officers is in this issue of the magazine, as well as the election results. I really appreciate the response we had to our “GET OUT THE VOTE” campaign.

A special thanks goes to Jim Bender for heading up the election committee and to the folks who volunteered to do the counting.

The count was conducted at the open membership meeting by nonboard members of the federation. Thanks for a job well done.

A special thanks to the Findlay Bottle Club, especially chairman Jamie Houdeshell and co-chairman Joe Hardin, for chairing the national show. They did a fabulous job. Jamie got sick with a virus the last couple of weeks before the show and Joe filled in admirably. We wish Jamie a speedy recovery The show was a resounding success and the Wilmington, Ohio facility was just marvelous. I can see us going back there in the future. There were so many great bottles and great fellowship.

More details on the show later.

Our national show and convention is set for next year on June 24-25-26 (Friday, Saturday, Sunday), using the same meeting and

3 President: Gene Bradberry PO Box 341062 Memphis, TN 38184 (901) 372-8428 Genebsa@comcast.net

show format we used this year. Put that on your calendar as you won’t want to miss this one. It will be held at the Memphis (Tenn.)

Cook Convention Center at the same site as the 2004 EXPO and the same host hotel, the Marriott. More details will be carried in the next issue. We moved it back a month to help those who have kids in school as well as those who teach.

There is so much happening, I could type on for three or four more pages, but I will close with this: A special thanks to our outgoing president, Richard Siri, for his efforts over the past two years. I look forward to utilizing his talent over the next two. Thanks, Richard.

I look forward to serving the hobby through the federation’s efforts to make collecting more fun. As always, LET’S KEEP THE FUN IN BOTTLE COLLECTING! Sincerely, Gene Bradberry, President, FOHBC

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September - October, 2010

Pastor Purchases Antique Bottle & Glass Collector Life is starting anew for 50-year-old John Pastor, who is adding publishing to his resume as the new owner of 26-yearold Antique Bottle & Glass Collector magazine. “I thought it would be an interesting challenge,” said Pastor.

The acquisition was announced at the Federation of Historic Bottle Collectors National Show in Wilmington, Ohio last August. Jim Hagenbuch, the magazine’s founder and Federation Hall of Famer, will retain his Glass Works auction

business. “He had made the decision to pursue other interests and felt that we would be the best fit to carry on the magazine. I certainly feel honored that Jim has chosen to pass the torch to us.

Although my professional or academic background is in business and finance, although I worked my way through college at the Battle Creek (Mich.)

Enquirer newspaper.

“Jesse Sailer, who has been employed

by Jim for the past 21 years, will stay on with him, but has volunteered his expertise to assist with the transition. The December magazine will be our first issue.”

At the FOHBC National Show in Wilmington, Ohio, longtime publisher Jim Hagenbuch (left) turns over the reins of 20-year-old Antique Bottle & Glass Collector to John Pastor of American Glass Gallery of New Hudson, Mich. (Photo by Janet Finch)

Bottles and Extras

Pastor said he has contacted and received commitments from experts in the various fields of collecting to write columns for the magazine. These include Mark Vuono, who has agreed to write a quarterly column on historical flasks. “There’s no doubt that there will be a few hiccups during the transition phase, but we will endeavor to correct any errors as soon as possible. I envision the magazine being used as a platform to enhance our hobby and bring more collectors into the hobby,” he said. “I also welcome contributions and input.”

Pastor is no stranger to the bottle collecting world. He has been a collector, dealer, auctioneer and appraiser of antique bottles, flasks and related glass for more than 35 years. John is a life member of the FOHBC and served as its president from 2004 to 2006, director-at-large from 2006 to 2008 and second vice president from 2008 to the present. He also served as chairman and coordinator for the 2005 FOHBC National Show in Grand Rapids, Mich. In addition to the magazine, he will continue to run his auction house, American Glass Gallery. “I feel that the magazine will be a great adjunct to my current business.”

He is a member of the Ohio Bottle Club, the Saratoga-type Bottle Collectors Society, the West Michigan Antique Bottle Club and the Kalamazoo Antique Bottle Club where he has served since 1984 as show chairman for the largest antique bottle show in the state.

Bottles and Extras

His interest in old bottles began at a very young age when he and his father began exploring the fields and woods along the Kalamazoo River in Battle Creek, Michigan. A Buffalo Lithia Water was one of the first bottles found and it remains in John’s collection. He and his dad also spent many weekends digging old dumps, attending local auctions, searching antiques shops and eventually traveling to many regional bottle shows. Before long, as he puts it, it became his passion.

You can contact John through his website at www.americanglassgallery.com Bill Baab Southern Region Editor Thomas W. McCandless, 86 Thomas W. McCandless, 86, died peacefully, Sunday, August 1, 2010 at Compassionate Care Hospice at St. Francis Medical Center in Trenton, N.J. Born in Hopewell, N.J., Mr. McCandless was a lifelong resident.

He served his country in the United States Army and owned and operated Tom’s Auto repair on Broad St. in Hopewell until his retirement in 1992.

Mr. McCandless was an avid collector and dealer in antiques and was active in several clubs associated with the collecting hobby. Over the years he established many friendships within the collecting community and he will be missed dearly. Mr. McCandless is predeceased by his parents George and Lillian McCandless and his wife C. Marion McCandless and is survived by three sons, Jeff McCandless and wife Veronica, George McCandless and wife Susan, David McCandless, his grandchildren Kristen, Pablo, Amy, Carolina, Caitlin, Riley and greatgranddaughter Ella. He is also survived by his brother Harry McCandless and wife Margaret, brother-in-law Donald, and numerous nieces and nephews A Memorial service was held 11 AM Saturday, Aug 7, 2010 at the Calvary Baptist Church, 3 W. Broad St., Hopewell, N.J. 08525. Interment and committal services followed

September - October, 2010

in Highland Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Compassionate Care Hospice, 601 Hamilton Ave., Trenton, N.J. 08629 or Calvary Baptist Church, 3 W. Broad St., Hopewell, N.J. 08033 Larry D. Williams The stoneware, pottery, bottle and trap shooters and tool collecting world

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lost a true collecting and member with the passing of Larry D. Williams of Peoria, Illinois on July 2, 2010 after a fierce battle with leukemia.

Larry was a true friend and collector buddy that we will miss forever.

His membership in the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors was published in his obituary.

Jim Searle

2010 FOHBC Contest Winners: Show Posters (7 entries): 1. Huron Valley Bottle & Insulator Club 2. Minnesota’s First/North Star Bottle Club (dual poster) #2 3. Antique Bottle Club of San Diego Club Newsletter Awards (9 entries): 1. The Whittlemark, Los Angeles Historical Bottle Club 2. The Ohio Swirl, Ohio Bottle Club 3. The Bottleneck, San Diego Antique Bottles and Collectible Club Writers’ Research Articles (10 entries): 1. Jack Sullivan, Naughty, Naughty Cincinnati (in The Ohio Swirl, April 2010) 2. Phyllis Koch, The Larkin Soap Company (in The Ohio Swirl, August 2009) 3. Jack Sullivan, Toledo’s Woolson, the Father of the Trade Card (in The Ohio Swirl, July 2009) Original True Stories (12 entries): 1, Johnnie Fletcher, Digging the Big Pit, Oklahoma Territory News 2. Ed Stewart, Case of the Masquerading Privy, Oklahoma Territory News 3. Bill Koster, The Coldest Dig, The Ohio Swirl, March 2010 Fiction Award (2 entries) 1. Bobby Vaughn, Never Say Never

2010 FOHBC Election Results President: Gene Bradberry - 432 votes Richard Siri - 234 votes

Midwest Region Director: Martin VanZant - 101 votes Joe Hardin - 77 votes

Secretary: Randy Driskill - 373 votes Warren Friedrich - 282 votes

Western Region Director: Cecil Munsey - 120 votes Bill Ham - 93 votes

Business Manager: June Lowry - 448 votes Patty Elwood - 211 votes

Remaining officers for 2010 - 2012 are (all ran unopposed):

Conventions Director: Wayne Lowry - 430 votes Jamie Houdeshell - 229 votes Northeast Region Director: Ed Kuskie - 76 votes James Bender - 70 votes

1st Vice President - Bob Ferraro 2nd Vice President - Ferdinand Meyer V Membership Director - Ed Herrold Public Relations Director - Jim Berry Historian - Richard Watson Merchandising Director - Kent Williams Southern Region Director - Jack Hewitt Director-at-Large - Carl Sturm Director-at-Large - Sheldon Baugh Director-at-Large - John Pastor

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September - October, 2010

Dana’s Sarsaparilla Company In his book “American Sarsaparilla Bottles,” John DeGrafft lists Dana’s Sarsaparilla as being very common. Shown here are some uncommon pieces of Dana’s ephemera employed by Dana Sarsaparilla Company in the pursuit of new vendors for the

Bottles and Extras

company’s various products. They provide some insight into the business practices of the patent medicine industry.

The full-sized piece of stationery, complete with a wellillustrated letterhead featuring an image of the package, carries a form letter sent by the company to a Wm. M. Carr of Bradford, New Hampshire. The letter urges Mr. Carr to consider selling the products offered by the Dana Sarsaparilla Company under the “…liberal terms we offer to those accepting the agency for our widely advertised, well known, and quick selling preparations.”

The half-size flyer suggests that Dana’s Sarsaparilla is “The Kind that Cures.” It goes on to detail the liberal terms mentioned in the letter, and on the reverse of the flyer a list of prices for the various Dana products (Sarsaparilla, Cough Syrup, Pills, and Plasters) is found.

A Dana’s Sarsaparilla business envelope, postmarked on both July 3 (obverse) and 4 (reverse), 1895.

Dana’s business stationery with letter promoting the products to a druggist in Bradford, New Hampshire.

Side one of an enclosure sent with the promotional letter. It outlines the details of how the retailer will benefit from the sale of Dana’s products.

Bottles and Extras

September - October, 2010

Side two of enclosure with listing of wholesale prices and details of a special allowance to successful agents. Notice the handwritten price mark ups of Dana’s Pills and Dana’s Plasters.

The envelope shown here was found with the letter and flyer intact within it. The same image featured on the letterhead is repeated in smaller scale on the envelope. Below the words “Belfast, Me,” however, the envelope bears a rubber stamp that states the company has “Removed to Boston, Mass.” This particular envelope carries a Boston, Massachusetts, July 3, 1895, postmark. The reverse bears a Bradford, New Hampshire, July 4, 1895, postmark (a surprising postmark date until we recall that Congress did not actually declare July 4 a national holiday until 1941).

Submitted by Steve Ketcham “Paper Trail” is a regular feature which showcases the wide world of bottle-related ephemera, from trade cards and post cards to letterheads and blotters. Readers are encouraged to submit items for publication. Simply scan or photograph your item (JPG please), add a short paragraph or two about the item, and include a photo of the bottle to which it relates.

E-mail your contribution to: s.ketcham@unique-software.com or Ph: (952) 920-4205 or mail it to: Steve Ketcham, PO Box 24114,Edina, MN 55424

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September - October, 2010

The Antique Bottles of Iowa, 1846 – 1915 (2010 Update)

By Bill Baab Southern Region Editor This massive, 586-page volume has been a work in progress for author Mike Burggraaf since he and good friend and fellow Iowa Antique Bottleer member Tom Southard published The Antique Bottles of Iowa back in 1998.

While Southard’s name appears on the cover of the present volume, Burggraaf said a bookbinder’s error had left it on, but that the latest volume was his alone.

First of all, this 2010 update to The Antique Bottles of Iowa, 1846-1915, was designed to be a companion to the first volume. The author points out that all the bottles covered were either unlisted or not shown in that first book. A limited number of hard- and softbound reprints remain available and can be ordered direct from the author at the address listed at the end of this review.

Like the contents of the first volume, there are no crown tops or milk bottles listed in the update, Burggraaf pointing out that either category is worth a book of its own.

Not only are the glass containers utilized by Iowa merchants featured, but stoneware containers are included as well.

Burggraaf points out that among the unlisted bottles “are a number of new cures, various bitters, two different cobalt blue sodas with iron pontils and a fantastic 1850s black glass ale from Dubuque.” One of those blue sodas and the black glass gem are shown among the color plates at the front of the book.

The author’s listings are in alphabetical order, with the town or city name followed by the county name. Line drawings of the bottles listed are included and historical sketches – some long, some

Bottles and Extras

the 69-year time frame of the book. He also lists the marks of the glass factories that produced Iowa’s bottles and color plates show the various base and applied top finishes in use during the times.

So the book is a primer for beginning collectors and a reminder for the more advanced.

This reviewer purchased No. 12 of 350 updated hardcover books published and also has ordered a hardcover reprint of the first volume. Collectors living in Iowa and adjacent states will find the books invaluable and of great help in dating Iowa bottles in their own collections, not to mention historical backgrounds.

Price of the hardbound books, either the reprint or the update, is $88, plus $5 media mail charges. Price for the softbound version, either the reprint or the update, is $58, plus $5 media mail postage. Orders may be sent to Mike Burggraaf, 305 E. Burlington Ave., Fairfield, Iowa 52556.

The Man Behind The Bottle

By Bill Baab, Southern Region Editor

short, depending upon what his research uncovered – are included. Reproductions of historic advertising, photos of principals and drug store interiors all help make this an interesting read.

In addition, he has taken the time and done the research to show readers the various drug store bottle shapes and the various closures that were in use within

When the Coca-Cola Company held a contest in 1915 for a design of a new and distinctive bottle for their product, the winner was Alexander Samuelson who, at that time, was employed by the Root Glass Company of Terre Haute, Indiana: From Edward Hamlin Everett, “The Bottle King. ”William Samuelson, the son of Alex Samuelson, a man who helped achieve the triumph of the design of the bottle, presented this heirloom (an example of the original design) to the Coca-Cola Company a few years ago: From Coca-Cola, An Illustrated History, by Pat Watters.

For the history of any subject to be worthwhile, it has to be factually correct, and those book excerpts dealing with the design of the classic contour Coca-Cola bottle are not, according

Bottles and Extras

September - October, 2010

Norman L. Dean, author of The Man Behind the Bottle, scans the same encylopedia his father, Earl R. Dean, used in his research. (Courtesy of Norman L. Dean)

to Norman L. Dean. It was his father, Earl R. Dean, he says, who designed the bottle today’s collectors sometime call the “hobbleskirt,” and Alexander Samuelson had little to do with it.

Those and previous writings all contained “one error of omission – the complete and accurate story about the famous bottle and the impact it has made in the world,” said Norman Dean. He has set the record as straight as it could be with a book of his own, The Man Behind the Bottle. The subtitle further explains: The Origin and History of the Classic Contour Coca-Cola Bottle As Told by the Son of its Creator.

“It has been my objective for this book to be the most complete and honest documentation ever written solely about the classic contour bottle,” the author said. It has been a long time coming because his father figuratively shrugged his shoulders when previous historians chose to ignore the fact that he and he alone had designed what later became the most recognized bottle shape in the world.

“All my life I had lived with the knowledge that my father designed the contour Coca-Cola bottle,” Norman Dean said, “yet this man Samuelson kept getting the credit. . .I made the decision that I would not rest until the record was set straight. . .”

Starting in 1996, he set out to get as much documentation as possible,

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have been given credit for designing the contour bottle.

The only addition to the text that I would liked to have seen is an index that would help steer readers to certain characters, facts and pages within the book. As it is, Norman L. Dean not only has set history straight, but provided an invaluable source to future researchers of Coca-Cola and its glass containers.

The book is available in hardcover ($29.99), softcover ($19.99) and EBook ($9.99) from Xlibris Publishing 1-888-795-4264 or Order@Xlibris. com), www.amazon.com or www.

BarnesandNoble.com. More information is available from the website at www.

TheManBehindTheBottle.com.

including earlier taped and written recollections of his father. The result is this book, which sheds much light on the question of who designed the contour bottle. How the shape evolved, where and when also are answered..

Collectors of Coca-Cola memorabilia, as well as members of the public, will find the book fascinating reading. And it leaves no doubts in the mind of this reviewer that it was indeed his father, Earl R. Dean, who years ago should

In an attempt to continually improve the publication and educate our readers, we are adding this new column dedicated to books that we or our readers feel would be of interest to our readers.

Please contact: Jesse Sailer 136 Jefferson Street, East Greenville, PA 18041 jsailerbotmags@verizon.net On the left is the prototype Coca-Cola bottle Earl R. Dean designed for the Root Glass Company of Terre Haute, Ind. On the right is the modified design.

(Courtesy of Norman L. Dean)

with any book that you feel would be of interest and should be included.

Thank You in advance for your contributions. The more participation, the better the magazine can become.

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September - October, 2010

The Bottle Worm Apple Valley Bottle Collectors Club Winchester, Va. The club meets during the summer months. The annual picnic was held in August. Show and tell continues to be a popular part of the meetings.

helped Trigger the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.” It was a series of articles published by the “Ladies Home Journal” on the dangers of patent medicine use that helped prompt the new law. In a 1906 article, the names of Adam and Eve Gnad of 25 Kossuth Ave. appeared at the top of the list of babies that had died. Quack medicines were written about in greater frequency in many of the periodicals of the time, resulting in greater public outrage.

Bottle show exhibit awards went to Howard Dean for his milk glass display, which won Best of Show. Dan Weed’s “Diving for Bottles” won Most Educational. There were about eight fine exhibits at the May show, ranging from inkwells to colorful Clevenger bottles to memory jugs.

A photo presentation on old Utica was given by Peter Bleiberg in July.

These types of programs are always a big hit.

Jim Berry and Jeff Ullman penned an article entitled “Gloversville Lithia Mineral Spring Company,” full of information on the springs discovered in 1872. Lithia water was promoted as a medicinal cure-all. The seldom-seen bottles, all pint sized and aqua in color, were also described. There are perhaps twelve known examples. The original price was only $2.00 -- a dozen!

A very helpful and educational article by the late Helen McKearin explained the use of the word “pontil” and how it should be used when describing a bottle.

The undated article was entiled, “My Bottle Has a Pontil.”

Bottles Along the Mohawk Mohawk Valley Antique Bottle Club Utica, N.Y. The club meets throughout the summer. A special note of thanks went to member Anthony Bastedo, who sold 80 bottle show raffle tickets! This certainly helped the show profit.

About a dozen club members participated in the May bottle dig. All went well, including the weather. The club picnic was held in June, with some really exciting show and tell action!

Some terrific items were brought in.

Editor Jon Landers provided yet another outstanding article, entitled “How the Death of Two Utica Infants

The Digger The Richmond Area Bottle Collectors Association, Richmond, Va. The club had its annual June picnic again this year in a local public park.

Although the temperature reached 90, there was enough of a breeze in the shade of the pavilion to keep everyone comfortable. There was a lot of “bottle talk” while the food was being prepared and the pot luck dishes to be assembled. The club was fortunate to have a professional bluegrass/gospel singer among the longtime members in the person of Jimmy Wooten. Jimmy provided an impromptu concert while everyone rested a bit after lunch. A

Northeast Regional News Chris Davis 522 Woodhill Newark, NY 14513 (315) 331-4078 cdavis016@rochester.rr.com

Traveler’s Companion Greater Buffalo Bottle Collectors Assoc., Buffalo, N.Y. Club programs have included Peter Jablonski’s “Buffalo Brewing History,” one of his great ones. The program has been revised and updated with new photos and bottles since the last time around. New examples continue to surface, one of the beauties of bottle collecting. Buffalo has no shortage of early beer bottles with interesting histories to match.

Member Craig Maefs, the newsletter editor, has created a Greater Buffalo Bottle Facebook page. As Craig stated, “It’s a place to share news and keep up on club news between meetings.” Facebook club pages are more and more popular and will help draw younger collectors.

The club met in August, but decided to take July off. Summer Finds were the topic of show and tell. The new website iswww.gbbca.bfn.org

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Union Clasped Hands flask was raffled, as were several bottle reference books.

The highlight of the meeting is always an auction, where members are allowed to offer up to ten lots, with the club receiving 10% of the receipts. This, and the raffle, cover the costs of the picnic.

There were 30 people this year and everyone had a good time.

The show on October 2nd is progressing well, with several dealers signed up already. A sellout is being anticipated. A club display is already in the works, as it went over so well last year.

Baltimore Bottle Digger Baltimore Antique Bottle Club Baltimore, Md. The club enjoyed a summer break following the June meeting. The showcase for the month (a show and tell given by a different member each month) was given by Ethel Benson on her collection of inks.

The club’s annual scholorships were presented at the Loch Raven High School in May. Two $500 awards were given to deserving students.

John Toft, Sr., club president, was featured in the monthly “Digging the Dirt On” column. John was 11 when he first attended his first BABC meeting. His interests include “anything Baltimore” and he appreciates the history behind each bottle.

Applied Seals Genesee Valley Bottle Collectors Association, Rochester, N.Y. The club held their annual picnic at their meeting site, a new lodge in a local park, in June. A very good crowd of 45 enjoyed the hot dogs (including Rochester’s own white hots!) and burgers, cooked by John DeVolder. It was a cloudy, somewhat rainy day, with temperatures about 55. Several people, noticing the club picnic information on the website, even stopped by the picnic with bottles to sell!

The club takes the summer months off. The speaker for September was wellknown bottle collector Don Keating, who spoke on and displayed aqua open pontil medicines. Don also displayed these at the Rochester show in April, to the delight of many admirers.

The club website, managed by editor and jack-of-all-trades, Jim Bartholomew,

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has been updated, with photos from the 41st Annual Show & Sale. The address is: www.gvbca.org Peter Jablonski’s program on “Privy Digging” in May was outstanding and was very well attended. A video was shown of actual privy digs in historic Lockport, N.Y., on the Erie Canal. It was narrated by the late Julian Sojda, a longtime GVBCA member.

Probe Pittsburgh Antique Bottle Club Pittsburgh, Pa. September’s speaker was Jim Flannery, author of “The Glass House Boys of Pittsburgh.” Four members told their “digging and acquisitions” stories.

There is some good, productive digging going on! The program in May was s

show and tell with the theme of “Your Favorite Bottle.” Nine members shared their favorites, with items including a rare barrel bitters, a crock, a cure, historical flask, perfume, whiskies, and more.

The newsletter included an interesting article on “Barbed Wire” collecting.

The first patent was in 1867. By 1897, over 600 types had been patented. A display was seen at the Los Angeles Historical Bottle Club Show. Barbed wire collecting is stronger in the west, it appears.

Bits and Pieces Empire State Bottle Collectors Assoc.

Syracuse, N.Y. The club takes the summer months off. June’s speaker was Mark Yates, who meeting. That was a familiar progression for many of us.

His early collection featured sodas from his home state of New York. Along the way, he accumulated a grouping of flasks, and a new direction was born. The flasks date to the 1830s and were utilitarian until they became decorative or commemorative flasks. Either way, their beauty is unique. The utilitarian flasks were carried (filled) by both men and women for a quick pick me up.

The flasks were grouped in categories of Portrait, Eagles, Cornucopias & Urns, Masonic Mason Movement, Railroads, Sunburst, Scroll and Miscellaneous featuring some with trees, Union Clasped Hands, Pictorial Wheat, Travelers Companion, and Lettered with only the name of the glass house on the flask. The most expensive flask to date is the Log Cabin Whiskey.

They say that one picture is worth a thousand words. Unfortunately, the pictures can’t begin to show the beauty of these flasks. For information on joining the ABCNI, you may contact: Dorothy Furman, 26287 W. Marie Ave., Antioch, IL 60002.

Midwest Regional News Joe Coulson 10515 Collingswood Lane Fishers, IN 46038 (317) 915-0665 jcoulson@leaderjar.com

Hello, bottle collectors! Welcome to another installment of the Midwest Region news report. It’s summer time, and bottle shows and activities are in full force! We love to hear from the Midwest bottle clubs – keep sending in those news items… please, please, please and thank you!

Antique Bottle Club of Illinois Dorothy Furman is newsletter editor and Jeff Dahlberg is president.

The club has been holding its meetings at the Antioch Senior Center, 817 Holbeck, Antioch, Ill. The June meeting program was given

by Jim Hall. He started out introducing himself as “Jim Hill” – a joking reference to a Tribune newspaper article in the Trib local section that referred to him correctly as Jim Hall, then proceeded to identify him as Jim Hill in the body of the article.

He good naturedly took it in stride.

His introduction to the bottle collection hobby came about when a friend and Jim took in the Old Milwaukee Avenue Flea Market. From there it was to a bottle show and then on to a bottle club

Circle City Antique Bottle Club Martin Van Zant is the newsletter editor. Here is his report in the club’s May newsletter: “Wow! is all I can say. What a wonderful auction we had. The club

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spoke on “Saratoga-type Spring Water Bottles.” Mark is very knowledgeable about this subject.

The club donated $1000 to the National Bottle Museum. John & Carol Spellman presented the check to Museum Director Jan Rutland at the Saratoga show in May. The generous donation was not only a show of support for the museum, but a celebration of the club’s 40th Annual Show & Sale, held in March.

The newsletter included a very helpful article on organizing your collection, with helpful information

by Norman C. Heckler & Co., among others. The article was originally posted on the Internet.

held their first annual auction last April 28th and what a success it was. We had around 15 people in attendance. The bids were flying high. Sonny Mallory was our auctioneer, with helpers Bill Granger and Dave Berry. Thanks go to them for doing such a great job – everyone really appreciated your help. The club raised about $120 off the event. The total for the event was around $1,200. Be sure to come to the next meeting for the full details. I am sure we will try and do this again.

“I have been wondering if it is ever going to stop raining. The ground is just soaking wet. Not very good digging weather. I can’t wait as I have several pits just waiting my arrival. Richard Long and I went out digging the other day. We started one hole only to run into water. Then we went across town to another pit, which wasn’t wet. However, the people were having a BBQ, and we entertained about 30 people. That’s 30 people who swore up and down we were crazy and weren’t going to find any bottles at all. Little did they know this wasn’t our first rodeo or group of doubters. Next time, we’re going to charge admission! The cool thing was that everyone got a bottle. There were so many slicks in that hole that we didn’t have enough dirt to fill it back in. We didn’t end up keeping any of the bottles at all. There were over 100 slicks, whiskeys, medicines, bitters (so we think), beers and even a slick milk.

Something for everyone, you might

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say. We still enjoyed it and even got fed afterward. The owner at one point even got into the hole. It was about 5 feet deep and a brick liner. If you are unfamiliar with a brick liner, the privies or outhouses were generally lined with wood or brick and sometimes they just stuck a barrel in the ground (resourceful). The privy we dug was 4 feet wide by 6 feet long and 5 feet deep. It was big and we were able to tunnel it a little bit. When we were finished, the owner gave us a beer and started filling in the hole himself. Then four or five family members started helping him. One of the easiest holes we’ve dug, I would say.

Martin Van Zant is drumming up support for this new bottle club in Indianapolis, Indiana. The club meets the last Thursday of the month at Ben Davis High School, 1200 N. Girl School Rd. (Door 17, Room U102). You may contact Martin by email at mdvanzant@ yahoo.com or by telephone at 812-8419495.

Jelly Jammers Margaret Shaw is editor of the Jelly Jammers Journal.

Just about a year ago I wrote an article in the Journal ( Issue 2, Vol. XXIV) in which I first told you about seeing the small glass jelly at the Greentown Glass Museum at Greentown, Indiana. I was so disappointed at the time that we were not allowed to take a picture to share with you. However, the Greentown Glass Book included a catalog page copy of the glass. At least it was proof that it was made by Indiana Tumbler & Goblet of Greentown. At that time, I learned that the glass in the case was the only one known.

Judy Horner, the owner of the jelly, was the lucky one that found this little prize. I was fortunate a few months later to meet her at an antiques show in Indianapolis. Then I learned the story of her find. Judy was at an auction in the area of Greentown when she spotted the glass. At the time, she did not know what it was, but recognized the lid as being the same as one on the sugar bowl of Opaque Glass in the Teardrop and Tassel pattern. She won the bid and later was able to identify that it was the covered jelly No. 102 of Greentown.

She made arrangements for a copy of the museum newsletter that had the picture in it that I used before in

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our previous article. However, being a copy of a copy, the details were not strong. When Pat Van Dyke, our president, made the arrangements for a tour of the Greentown Glass Museum on July 11, she mentioned that we would like to take a picture of this glass out of the case and thought we could. However, they have very strict rules and it was not possible without the owner being there as this is on loan for display at the museum. However, with the help of the president, Merrill Swisher, we called Judy, and her husband John agreed to come and help us take the pictures of the glass. Sadly we really couldn’t take the usual measurements but if one of us could be so lucky as to find one we can add that later. We appreciate so much the helpfulness of all who were involved.

With the pictures below we should be able to recognize this jelly if we were so lucky to discover one.

Ms. Shaw thanked Jim Teters for giving us the tour. He gave us a demonstration of how these tumblers were pressed with the hand press in the museum. We all enjoyed the beautiful displays of the Greentown Glass pieces.

It was an afternoon of what we all love doing best. We were sorry that more of our members couldn’t join us.

If you would like to learn more about the Jelly Jammers, you may contact Margaret Shaw by email: meshaw@ franklinisp.net Wabash Valley Antique Bottle & Pottery Club Martin Van Zant is editor of The Wabash Cannonball, the WVABPC’s monthly newsletter. Peggy Zimmer is president.

Martin gave a report on the Urbana show in the June newsletter: I was able to visit a show in Urbana, Ohio. This was the first time for the show and was held in conjunction with the flea market. I headed up there with Bill Gonterman about 6 in the morning on Saturday, July 3. We were hoping to get there early and maybe find a treasure or two. The show was a small one, probably 10 to 12 dealers. Before the end of the show I did see some familiar faces. Sonny Mallory was set up and had plenty of items to sell. Sonny always has an assortment of goods to choose from. The flea market had about 150 dealers and the entire thing was well

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attended. I hope they get a few more for next year. I also ran into Bill Granger, Dick Stringfellow, and Mike Shinkle, all Indiana club members.

Gonterman and I stopped at several antiques stores on the way back. However, we made a special trip to stop by bottle friend Marty Troxell’s antiques store in Cambridge City, Indiana on US-40.

It’s called the Double Head Trading Company. We went into several other antiques stores, but didn’t find anything even remotely interesting.

The WVABPC holds their monthly meeting at Shadows Auction Barn, 1517 Maple Ave., Terre Haute, IN. Club dues are $10/yr. For more information, please contact Gary Zimmer (treasurer), 10655 Atherton Rd., Rosedale, IN 47874.

Iowa Antique Bottleers Mark Wiseman (newsletter editor) and Mike Magee (secretary) do a wonderful job each month reporting the IAB happenings.

Show and tell highlights from the June meeting: The meeting was held at “Amber Acres,” Chuck Erb’s house near Garden Grove, and the theme was Sample Bottles and Amber Fruit Jars. Erb’s wonderful house is filled with amber fruit jars, great bottles and amazing antiques that you need to see to appreciate. Chuck had the meeting room set up with chairs and tables, and his “diner” and kitchen was perfect for our visit. What a great lunch his wife served us!

Additions to Chuck’s displays since last year included framed collections of tin snuff can labels, mixed knick-knacks and other collectibles, like Indian head pennies, and there were some new bottle shelves, and the shades of the fruit jars are beyond my description. I wanted Chuck to give us some show and tell item for the newsletter and he dug through boxes to find his favorite: the super amber jar embossed “The Magic (Star) Fruit Jar.” A great big Thank You to Chuck and his wife for the wonderful generous hospitality, and to top this all off Chuck gave away an amber pint globe jar to one of those in attendance through a drawing, and the winner was Bill’s wife who collects frogs and may now have one great jar that Bill will not be able to claim. Her secret to winning the drawing may have been that she kissed her half of the ticket before putting it into the jar for

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the drawing. It worked!

From the Davenport Daily Gazette, February 14, 1875: A Summer Drink in Profusion. There was a distribution of soda water along Fifth Street, yesterday, that was quite marvelous in the way of generosity. A team from Hill & Witt’s soda factory did it. This team was standing near corner of Fifth and Perry, when a locomotive gave a signal whistle to some other locomotive that was over the river, or down at the C.R.I.&P. yard, or out beyond Fillmore Street on the grade – at any rate the horses headed for the west, started towards the street last named. The two storied wagon was loaded with filled and unfilled soda bottles – several hundred in number, for “soda cocktails” are popular, even in winter. Only the north side of Fifth Street can be safely traveled by wheeled vehicles, the double track spoiling the long thoroughfare for teaming; but this soda establishment cared not for track – it swung this side and that – crossed and re-crossed tracks and created a great sensation. At Warren Street, several boys who were coasting had a narrow escape, one lad’s sled actually striking the wheels. At that point the wagon turned over, righted itself, was thrown on one side again, gained its wheels a second time – but the soda bottles were thick in the street, and the scores of boys took to diminishing them. Dozens of bottles were drank by the youngsters – the hill was black with them – before the drinking could be stopped. The team turned south on Warren, and was captured near Third Street, completely exhausted.

The IAB newsletters always contain wonderful digging stories by Mark Wiseman. He has a regular column, “The Digger’s Scoop,” that tells of his local digging adventures with his dog, the old truck, and various digging friends that join him. You can find out more about IAB membership ($15/yr.) from Tom Southard, 2815 Druid Hill, Des Moines, IA 50315.

Minnesota’s First Antique Bottle Club Barb Robertus is editor of the MFABC newsletter, “The Bottle Digger’s Dope.” Linda Sandell takes care of the printing and mailing. The club will not be publishing their next newsletter until September when meetings will resume.

In the May newsletter,it was reported that the American Swedish Institute

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in Minneapolis will be hosting a large Coca-Cola display from November 2010 through January 2011. It will feature many of the original artworks commissioned

by Coca-Cola for its various Christmasthemed ads, many of which featured Santa Claus. Why Coke at the Swedish Institute? Haddon Sundblom, the artist who created so many of the Coca-Cola Santa Claus ads, was Swedish. The American Swedish Institute will be working with the Coca-Cola archives in Atlanta as well as with Dick McChesney and the Minnesota chapter of the CocaCola Collectors Club to put it all together.

Dick will be asking local collectors to lend rare and interesting Coca-Cola items from their collections for use in the display. Contact Dick if you would like to participate. Christmas-related items are especially sought.

Membership in the MFABC is $10/ yr. For more information, please contact Linda Sandell, 7735 Silver Lake Road #208, Moundsview, MN 55112.

North Star Historical Bottle Club Doug Shilson is editor of the North Star Historical Bottle News. Doug does a great job each month reporting the club’s latest happenings. He puts a lot of effort into recording all the details that take place. Steve Ketcham is the club president.

“The first time I went to Stillwater was to dig! Back in the “early days” (60s), I could go anywhere with no one looking over my shoulder. Who ever heard of “digging for old bottles” As in, “You dig in garbage dumps?!” or “You’re looking for outhouse holes?!” were several comments I got many times over. And I was the first one to do so.

The next digging partner was Jerry Botts, then Jim Haase. So many garbage dumps and steep hills to climb. One time, local police came by and thought we were stealing the freshly planted trees. After looking inside my car, and seeing our piles of old dirty bottles, he just shook his head and left. One time I made contact with NSP as we found a terrific town dump. They gave us permission to dig but we had to stay away from their power poles.

We found this place by asking the oldest person that lived nearby.

He directed us to the exact spot. “Just follow the depression that was used by the old wagons that dumped their junk,”

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he said! Jerry and I dug there for several years when the digging was drying up in the cities. Then word leaked out and the “hoards” of wannabes decided to park on private land (like their driveway?) and upset the local public and that ended our little secret. The saying. “Loose lips sink ships” holds true in this case!

Many nice bottles were found and one super bitters in olive color was found by one of the Hoarders. It was a lady’s leg bitters. Several milk glass case gins, and many Stillwater beer bottles were found, but very few Hutch sodas. And plenty of patent medicines. The last time that I went digging in Stillwater was behind the Lowell Inn, on a steep hill. Many years before, I found that digging on hills was a good thing as when the people on the top of those hills would throw their garbage down before there was anyone living below. The bottles would find their way into many depressions on the hill. But because of where I was, I needed to do some night digging. Some of the loose gravel and dirt would roll down, and I didn’t want to upset the workers who came out the back door! It seemed like it occurred many times before. Those were the days, all to myself. Steve and I remembered the only antiques shop in Stillwater. It was up one of those steep hills. From this shop, I picked up my first (that was found somewhere in Stillwater) amber quart Southern flask with an embossed Palm Trees.

For more information on joining the NSHBA, please contact Doug Shilson: 3308 32 Ave. South, Minneapolis, MN 55406-2015.

Ohio Bottle Club Phyllis Koch (editor) and Dennis Peine (secretary) are doing a very nice job with The Ohio Swirl, the OBC’s newsletter. Terry Crislip is president.

In the May newsletter, it was reported that 70 volunteers showed up on April 24, 2010 to help clean up a bottle dump dating back to the Civil War era. Well off the beaten path, the Burton Wetlands Nature Preserve is managed by the Geauga Park District. John Kolar, park naturalist, planned the dig to clear off the top layer of the bottle and can dump to help participate in the Earth Day/Great American Cleanup event.

“I was blown away by the number of people who came,” he said. “We had seniors and children on their hands and

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knees intently digging beside young adults and middle-aged participants. Everyone was intently engaged in the activity.”

As Dennis Peine reported, there were hundreds of old beer and pop bottles, pottery shards and intact pottery that may have some historic value. Kolar said a good portion of the “treasure” will be recycled, but some of the rarer bottles and pottery will be archived by the park.

His plan is to display some items to the public in a glass case along with photos taken during the dig.

There is one item, a ceramic coffee creamer, produced at an Ohio pottery plant dating back to the 1800s. He plans to piece together a few other pieces he believes have some historic value. He also dabbles in preserving the history of the park properties. There was a jar of preserved fish that was unearthed, probably sold as fishing bait canned 50 to 60 years ago.

Kolar said this event was a pilot program that he hopes will lead to future digs. He already has a number of people ready for the next dig. He said he may have to take registrations to keep the number of volunteers to a more manageable level. Kolar cautioned would-be fortune hunters against digging on their own. The value of any items is more related to their local history.

At the June meeting, Crislip introduced John Bauer. John presented a talk and slide show showing which chemicals and minerals are used to give glass its colors. The company that John is employed with supplies the chemicals for their customers as well as manufacturers equipment used to make colored glass. The glass is used in various industries including cosmetic, tableware, pharmaceutical and architectural. John explained how adding different chemicals and minerals to glass produce the array of colors that are now available and that some colors are determined by the types of glass and at which temperatures the glass is processed. John also presented some Coke glasses in various colors which are being marketed in other countries for the World Cup Soccer Games. After the presentation John answered several questions from the audience.

For more information on joining the OBC, please contact Berny Baldwin (treasurer), 1931 Thorpe Circle, Brunswick, OH 44212. The club also

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has a new website which can be found at: http://www.ohiobottleclub.com. Details about their milk bottle book can be found there also.

Findlay Antique Bottle Club Tom Brown (newsletter editor) of the FABC submitted their newsletter (Whittle Marks). Tom typically reprints several articles for club members in their newsletter. In the June issue, Brown discussed Findlay’s past and present. He displayed a post card that dates pre-1920 and shows a large building that was the Ohio Hay & Grain Company. During the mid-1970s and into the early 1980s there was a lot of digging down at the Eagle Creek site. This dump was between the railroad tracks and Eagle Creek. Tom dug this site for 14 years on and off. It was owned at that time by the railroad who sold it to a local developer who filled it in with rip-rap and ended the digging at this site.

On the east side of the creek starting at the bridge and running north was a wall of some very large square stones ala a foundation of some kind. In the years we dug there this site was a car lot. On the old postcard this building was the Ohio Chemical Co. If you visited the Muncie Bottle Show web site, Jeff Klingler is shown holding a Happer Perfume and Extract Co. jar. This company was at one time in the building shown on the far right on the old postcard – before that time, a chimney and lamp works was there.

A number of years ago some type of digging was going on behind this building and a lot of very colorful glass shards were found – most were pieces of oil lamp containers. This will soon be gone as it is going to be torn down as is other buildings to the east of it. As part of the flood mediation survey these properties are being torn down as the flood plain is being revised. So a chance to find some shards and who knows what else will be made available to us.

The FABC has a good website with pictures from their annual shows. You should check it out: http://finbotclub. blogspot.com/.

Richard Elwood is president. Monthly club meetings are held at the University of Findlay.

Kalamazoo Bottle Club Al Holden is the newsletter editor.

Here is what he had to say in the June newsletter:

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My only antique bottle news to report is a little digging that I did on e-Bay. It was only a month or so back, and I was killing some time waiting for the time to close my store. I went to the e-Bay home page and typed the word ‘pontiled’ in their search engine bar.

Several auctions showed turned up in a list, so I started looking at a few. This wasn’t my first experience at doing this, and far too often there will be some junk posted that is simply meant to mislead buyers! Quite often it will be modern day reproductions, but usually they are so obvious that nobody has bid - the starting price is cheap and the color of the item is simply wrong.

One interesting auction item was a wide-brimmed shallow amber bowl that the seller referred to as a “Milk Pan.” It looked old in the pictures, and it was clearly open pontiled. But then again, what do I know? I did a quick Google Internet search and that brought up a similar image of what the seller was listing. The web site was called “At Home on the Fringes of the Prairie.” It was part of the Illinois State Museum web site. About the only difference was that their glass milk pan was clear glass and this one was amber.

The description on the web site read: “Shallow milk pans with flaring shoulders were common household items until the mid-1800s. Milk was allowed to sit until the cream had risen to the top and could be easily removed with a shallow spoon or skimmer. Glass pans were advertised as ‘preferable to all others’ because they were ‘non-conductors’ and therefore kept the milk ‘uninfluenced by storms or climate’.” It claimed that these items dated from 1800 to 1850! I cannot recall ever seeing one of these items before.

The starting bid was only around $5.00, and the shipping was very reasonable at only a couple dollars. What did I have to lose? The auction was about to end and there had been no bidders. Besides, I liked it so why not place a bid and see what happened. The auction ended with no other bidders and, the more I thought about it, the more I was pleased with my purchase.

Chuck Parker is president, and you can contact him for more information about their club at: 607 Crocket Ave., Portage, MI 49024 (ph: 616-3290853). The club meets regularly at the Kalamazoo Public Library, located at 315 S. Rose Street.

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The Suncoast Antique Bottle Collectors Association, commonly known as the “St. Pete club” in Florida, holds a raffle at each meeting. The July event featured an amber barrel Chapin & Gore Sour Mash Whiskey, an F. McKinney aqua Philadelphia soda, a J. Reitzel sauce-type in aqua and a Dr. Langley’s Root and Herb Bitters, 99 Union St., Boston, in aqua, the “99” backwards.

Linda Buttstead, editor of the club’s The Glass Bubble newsletter, noted that the club held a picnic in June in the clubhouse o a condom owned by one of its members. A swimming pool was available for those wishing to take a dip.

More conversation was about the club’s show next Jan. 7-8, more information to be revealed later.

One never knows what he’s going to find when he opens the Oklahoma Territory News, edited by FOHBC Hall of Famer Johnnie Fletcher for the Oklahoma Territory Bottle & Relic Club. He also is club president. And he is one of the few editors who receive enthusiastic support from members.

He attended the Tulsa Bottle Show and acquired two drug store bottles new to his collection. One was a previously unknown 8-ounce example of the Fred Beers / The Rexall Store / Perry, Okla.

The other is embossed F.M. Woods Drug Co. / Phone 90 / Muskogee, I.T. (Indian Territory). The show sported 21 sales tables, according to Richard Carr.

Inside the 18-page July issue was a series of Iowa digs reported by Mark Wiseman (with Elsie the Pup). Under Oklahoma bottles sold recently on eBay, a straight-sided bottle embossed CocaCola / Trade Mark / White Mfg. Co. / Cushing, Okla., brought $158.05 despite scratches and small bruises. A mini jug stenciled Compliments of / F.H. Nash / Ft. Gibson, I.T. netted $2,025..

The June issue featured a story written by Ed Stewart, of Paola, Kan., entitled, “Working off That Turkey,” and dated Nov. 28, 2009. And Fletcher authored another, “The First Bottle Dig of 2010.”

Fletcher was to attend the St. Joseph, Missouri Insulator and Bottle Show last March and rounded up some friends to dig after the show. Francis Wilz, Stewart, Mark Wiseman, Ed Tardy and Kenny Burbrink

Southern Regional News Bill Baab 2352 Devere Street Augusta, GA 30904 (706) 736-8097 riverswamper@comcast.net

If the Internet did not exist, many bottle club newsletter editors would be up the creek without a paddle when it came to putting together yet another issue.

Antique bottle club members are notorious for their lack of support of club editors who, like Melissa Milner, of the State of Franklin (Tenn.) Antique Bottle & Collectibles Association, has found a treasure trove of information on the world wide web. This is not to say all clubs, but many of them are guilty of non-support of editors.

Mrs. Milner and her family missed the club’s June meeting because of vacation, but she bounced back in the July issue of The Groundhog Gazette with an interesting story about the Whitall Tatum Company. This is the firm that manufactured most of the drug store bottles used by pharmacists all over the country. It operated from the early 1800s through 1938 from Millville, N.J. Most collectors are familiar with the embossed W.T. & Co., embossed on the bases of their drug store bottles. Not only did the company make that type of bottle, but jars and vials as well. An important element of their business was the ability to make bottles embossed with the names of the druggists, sometimes even the street address as well as the city in which they were located.

In 1922, Whitall Tatum entered the insulator market. All in all, Mrs. Milner provided a fascinating read about the company to her readers.

In her June issue, Robert Stanley brought in a one-of-a-kind Coke and a 24-ounce Mountain Dew bottle. Another member brought in a State Sales Company, Johnson City, Tenn., yardstick.

Her main feature was the Introduction to Milk Bottles which she found on the Internet under www.dairyantiques.com.

She always gives credit to the web site from which she gets her information. It’s the courteous and professional thing to do.

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and his son, Casey, were in the crowd.

The last dig was held March 17 in Atchison, Kansas with Kenny, Casey, Tardy and Fletcher. One of the first things found was a clear square jar embossed Wrightsmith’s Thunder & Lightning / St. Louis, Mo. Tardy said it was a snuff jar.

Must have been pretty potent stuff.

Other finds included a golden amber bottle embossed B.F. Sherman, which turned out to be Dr. B.F. Sherman’s Compound Prickly Ash Bitters, a rare St. Louis bottle, according to the Carlyn Ring-Bill Ham Bitters Bottles book.

Finally, Fletcher gave his patented WAHOO! yell when he unearthed a cobalt Caswell Mack & Co., medicine.

Stewart used the issue to show off his new bottle room, with shelves lined with spectacular sodas and medicines.

Raleigh (N.C.) Bottle Club member Dean Haley is known as “the Dean of the Flea Market” for making fabulous finds. His early morning trips to the local Raleigh flea market have netted him some gems time and again.

He’s featured on the cover and inside the May-June issue of Bottle Talk, the club newsletter, by editor Marshall Clements. On the cover, Haley holds an original 1919 Pepsi-Cola calendar front.

Inside, Haley holds a frame showing two metal Pepsi signs from yesteryear, both extremely rare.

The club’s Pepsi guru, Donnie Medlin, brought five Bradham drug store bottles. Bradham’s is where Pepsi was born in New Bern, N.C., and the bottles are super rare. Member David Bunn brought a select grouping of North Carolina dispensary flasks. Included were Oxford, Warrenton, Clayton and Pine Level flasks.

Clements always features great photographs in his Blast from the Past section of the newsletter. The Gay-Ola Bottling Works in Elk Park, N.C., circa 1905, is in this issue.

This regional editor has given up the post of secretary and Probe & Plunder newsletter editor for the Horse Creek Bottle Club in Warrenville, S.C. Succeeding him is member Brenda Baratto, of North Augusta, S.C. She has the computer skills necessary for such a job.

The July meeting program was presented by member Bob Riddick, of Lexington, S.C., who showed off his awesome bottle and artifact collection from his home town of Aiken, S.C. .

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green, cobalt, light blue, amber and puce. He had a rare pontiled Manzanita Oil, Sacramento; a very rare cobalt R.E. Gogans, Sacramento; a second rare R.E. Gogans in amber. There was a blue-green William Thunder medicine, Oregon; a cobalt poison, Turlock Drug; a lime green, Sweet & Boyd, Turlock and more. There are two great pictures of his display in the May 2010 issue of this club’s newsletter.

Frank Feher has been a dealer at the Forty-Niner Show for years. He shared the fact that he has been collecting insulators for 40 years and signs for 35 years. He gave the club a brief history of the evolution of porcelain signs. He said the process for making porcelain signs was discovered in China, and then Bavaria, England and eventually the process made its way to Beaver Falls, Pennslyvania. He explained that early signs were made with porcelain over cast iron. At Beaver Falls, the process of porcelain over steel was introduced.

Frank said that Beaver Falls became a major manufacturer of signs. Sadly, but true, Frank related that many signs were melted down for scrap during World War II. Some of us have seen Mike McKillop’s beer splits displays at various bottle shows.

A program was put on by Mike with 60 California beer splits out of his collection of over 109 splits. He categorizes his splits.

He has Baltimore, rings, applied tops and blob tops. He says sloped shoulders are another variant. He informed members that splits made between 1880 and 1890 can have blob tops, applied tops and slug plates. Further, picture splits are best to collect but hard to find. He said to look for bottles embossed with bears, eagles, shields and lions. He identified the rarest as the ones that have double eagles on them, D. Tweed from S.F. with a hand on it and the Red Lion brewery from S.F. with a lion embossed on it. These are considered the rarest splits.

Western Regional News Ken Lawler & “Dar” 6677 Oak Forest Drive Oak Park, CA 91377 (818) 889-5451 kenlawler@roadrunner.com

Bottle Bug Briefs Forty-Niner Historical Bottle Association At the April meeting, George Wagoner put on a neat program featuring the Steamboat Bertrand that sank in the Missouri River in 1865. George looked through his archives and found a video of the search, discovery, excavation and recovery of the contents of the ship’s hold.

The steamboat was discovered under 30 feet of mud on the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge. The steamboat’s hold contained in excess of 200,000 items that have been conserved, and are now on display in the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge Visitors Center. The Bertrand was traveling up the Missouri River to the gold fields of Montana. It was carrying an estimated 250 to 450 tons of cargo when it hit a snag and sank near Missouri Valley, Iowa. The cargo contained food containers, thousands of bottles, tools, hardware, cannon balls and shot, black powder, clothes and household goods. The Visitors Center contains a virtual time capsule of goods used on the Western Frontier in 1860. The steamboat has been described as a “Wal-Mart” from the 1860s.

Dar and I visited the museum a few years ago and it is an amazing place. At the time, we were digging in Los Angeles and finding 100 year old bottles with paper labels. The ground was wet where we were digging and when the bottles dried out, the labels flaked off like dandruff. The same situation happened when the bottles were removed from the hold of the Bertrand. We were hoping to acquire a magic cure from the conservation team. We spent about half a day talking to the crew of conservation specialists. They said they lost about 35% of all the items before they discovered the correct method of preservation. They were all friendly and very free with their hardwon knowledge. Their time spent with us was greatly appreciated.

Ken Edward presented a program during another month’s meeting. It covered 24 of his rare, small embossed pharmacy bottles. He showed such colors as 7-up

Las Vegas Antique Bottles and Collectibles Club If anyone is interested in collecting sterling silver spoons, you might appreciate knowing that Helen Foegsberg submitted some interesting information for publication in this club’s newsletter. Her article focused on sets of useful, decorative, and collectible spoons. Helen said that there are sets of the 12 months of the year and sets of the

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presidents of the U.S. She emphasized and explained that the most difficult and rare set of spoons to search for are the four sterling silver spoons depicting the four seasons.

She indicates that “Lucky is the collector who can find all four.”

The four seasons’spoons show classical maidens forming the handles of these sterling silver spoons. They have a detailed design both front and back and have the hallmark of the Watson Newell Company in a triangular banner. She adds that the maidenly-figured handles are almost nude.

“The one depicting spring shows the figure draped with a variety of blossoms, and her hair is drawn into a knot at the back of her head. The summer spoon figure is garlanded with roses and her hair hangs down her back in graceful wavy lines. The autumn figure wears Grecian drapery and is decorated with grapes and leaves, as depicts the temperature of winter.” She writes that the fourth figure is fully robed and twined with holly and mistletoe of the Christmas season. “Where the handles join the bowls of each spoon, both in front and back, there are small clusters of flowers appropriate to each season, while another cluster rests at the feet of each figure.” There is a picture at the bottom of her article that shows an example of the rare silver spoons depicting the “four seasons.”

The Whittlemark Los Angeles Historical Bottle Club Our first vice president, Dwayne Anthony, who is in charge of programs, arranged a free two-hour tour at the Nethercutt Museum in Sylmar, California for interested club members. They take up to 50 people at a time. Our small group just fit into that allowed number. A guide took us throughout the three floors of the museum. We viewed very elaborate and very expensive cars on the first floor. I noticed one car that was a 1901 model.

I was impressed with seeing something that would have been made in the year my mother was born. There were many colorful ones that ranged up to probably the mid-1900s. We decided that cars like this were made for the very wealthy and those people were probably chauffeured about in them.

The museum had something for everyone. There were various musical instruments, but what really got our attention was the huge concert organ with 5,000 pipes. We got to hear and feel it play.

A booming, vibrating experience took all

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of us by surprise. A different guide gave us a very detailed explanation of this gigantic music piece.

When we got on the second floor, our hobby interest started to kick in. They had glass objects in display cabinets. People were two deep for a few minutes for part of the free time in which to look and take pictures (without a flash). There was a collection of marbles for one thing and then a fascinating radiator mascot’s collection.

The mascots themselves made a statement about the designing effort that went into each vehicle that was produced.

Club President Dave Maryo took many pictures and made them available to club members who would like to access them. They turned out terrific. He got some personal shots. He found Dick Homme admiring one of the “oldies but goodies” and got a candid picture of him that ended up in one of our newsletters. Another personal shot that appeared in the newsletter was of a posed picture of Dwayne Anthony and his wife, Ofelia.

The tour found some of us utilizing the elaborate period furniture that was placed around the outside wall of each floor. We didn’t get to view the New Museum on the other side of the street that houses about 100 vehicles. That can be another time. I believe that building can be viewed without having a guided tour.

When the tour ended, our group decided that it was well worth seeing. Some of our members had to run off and do other things while a few of us decided to grab a little lunch and swap bottle collecting stories.

The Big Sky Glass Gazette Montana Bottle Collectors Association Have some of you heard of the amber flask embossed King & Lowry / Old Crow Whiskey / Butte. Mont.? I would think that most of you collectors are well aware of the half-pint and full pint sizes. You are probably also aware that these flasks are rather “pricey.” There was an interesting article, along with pictures, that appeared in this club’s May-June 2010 newsletter as the result of the courtesy of Henry Thies and club President Ray Thompson. In part, the article read that these flasks are the only known amber, strap-sided, embossed flasks from a Montana business. In addition, they are the only known inside screw-thread bottles from Montana. It was stated that Silas King and Thomas Lowry had joined in a business venture in 1879 and within a

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year had a thriving saloon. Also it was said, at that time, that the partnership of these men gave Butte a “cultured establishment.” It is believed that the flask was used between 1885 and 1906. That might be possible as the business was sold in 1906. Actually Ken and I saw the half-pint size at this year’s Aurora, Oregon show. The dealer let Ken take a couple of pictures of it. I think I remember that the dealer wanted $3,500 for it.

In the case of “old news is good news,” I would say that information on a dig that took place in 2008 is still interesting to read about. James Campiglia, MBCA vice president, wrote that both he and Ray Thompson proudly brought home an embossed J.D. Eastman & Co. Deer Lodge, Mont., bottle from a dig at the site of the historic mining town of Wickes. Their digging drew a crowd of onlookers of local kids who got invited to pull out some bottles that were within sight and poking out of the ground. James and Ray got as much kick out of watching the kids pulling the bottles out of the ground as the kids did. The article stated that both he and Ray thought that they had found a great find with the few R.S. Hale & Co. Druggists, Helena, M.T. they had unearthed. Those bottles came in second once two Montana Bitters were pulled out! James went on to mention the broken pieces of a Dr. J. Hostetters Stomach Bitters and the tons of other broken black glass ales. The way James estimated it; he felt they had found enough broken stuff to fill a pickup truck! Another winner was when James was scrapping with a threeprong trowel and out popped a whole, clear, Philadelphia squat whiskey with a big “glob seal.” It popped out of the top of the little tunnel he had been digging in. He said that club member Tom Brackman has a vast collection of bottles of this type that he has collected from all over the world. Ken and I remember having the tour of Tom’s home a few years ago and were in awe over his collection, as well. James remarked that his “tunnel find” had probably been buried in the ground for over 120 years!

The Glassblower Northwestern Bottle Collectors Association John Burton had an article in one of his newsletters that was written by Eric McGuire entitled, “The Other Cassin Bottle.” The first time that I really started to appreciate the Cassins was at the “Bitters Bottle Forum” at the 2009 National Show in Pomona, California. Warren Friedrich

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from Nevada City, California had some of his Cassins sitting up on the front table.

He talked about them and invited people to take a closer look at the close of the seminar.

Reading Eric’s article gives some history on the Cassin brothers and tells about that “other bottle.” The brothers were from Ireland and came to California during the gold rush era. They finally became partners and were most famous for their production of Wild Grape Root Bitters from 1867 to approximately 1872. Their first embossed bottle was for OK Plantation Whiskey in 1874. Eric followed the life of both brothers in his article. He also referenced a time in 1972 when he had written about the “curious rarity.” At that time he said there was virtually no information available “regarding its provenance.” He said that the brothers were famous for their bitters.

He also stated that collectors were avidly seeking their bottles for their collections.

He wrote that the bottles being sought after were the Grape Brandy Bitters, Old Plantation Whiskey in glass and stoneware, and a rare variant of the Mills Bitters. He said, “The soda water bottle was so rare and elusive that no one was sure if it was even a product of the San Francisco Cassins, especially since it had a decided British style, with its typical round bottom ‘torpedo’ shape.” Eric has a picture of “The first, and last, advertisement found for the Cassin’s English Aerated Waters (Wine Dealers’ Gazette, San Francisco, Calif., April 1872)” with his article.

The Stumptown Report Oregon Bottle Collectors Association The “Days of Sorrow” article that Tom Bostwich submitted for this club’s newsletter really hit a “nerve” for those who dig. It starts out that Jared Wicklund got permission from the property owners of the land to check out the site for bottles.

The site was where the Heppner GazetteTimes building had been demolished.

He put a lot of effort in digging by hand.

The job got tough so he excavated the lot with a mini-hoe to a depth of 9 ½ feet in some areas. Over a two-month period he recovered 750 bottles that consisted of whiskeys, patent medicines, Chinese items, shot glasses, preserves and ales. He was proud of his CONSER / AYERS DRUG CO., HEPPNER, a PATTERSON & SON DRUGGIST, HEPPNER, and a SLOCUM DRUG CO., HEPPNER bottle. Tom said he visited the site in the spring of 2010 and identified at least seven privies and a

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sunken cellar on the site between 1884 and 1922. Jared found most of his bottles in this area.

The above paragraph described the “happy” part of the story. This paragraph will partly describe the “sorrowful” ending to the story. The Oregon State Preservation Office and an assistant state archaeologist got involved. It escalated to the Heppner City Manager related to the ownership of the bottles. Even though Jared had permission from the owner of the land an Oregon law stood in the way.

Jared was not allowed to keep the bottles.

He drew up an inventory of what he had recovered and the entire collection was confiscated in 2006.

Digger’s Dirt Reno Antique Bottle Club Here is some “Digging News:” that appeared in a summer newsletter. It is always great to read about a digger’s finds, so here we go: “It has been a spectacular season for digging, at least on the West Coast. In fact, some of the better bottles have been dug in pairs. Whiskey collectors will be glad to know that two McKenna whiskies were dug together. Two F. Chevalier Whiskey Merchants and two J. Moore, E. Chielovich were also dug together.

A California digger also was extremely lucky and dug an aqua “Old Sachem Bitters” with a rough, open pontil. It is so good to learn that there are still good quality bottles out there to be found.

Locally, Marty Hall had some great digging, too and brought home a yellow, highly whittled Teakettle Whiskey along with a grass green G.P. Morrill soda.

In more digging news, two Bryant’s Stomach Bitters, one green and one brown were unearthed. These cone-shaped bitters are possibly the most elusive to obtain whole because of their shape and also because they were manufactured over a short period of time in the 1850s.

The two that were recently found were both damaged but have been repaired by Marty Hall, “The Glass Doctor.” Even repaired, they are highly collectible but a little pricey.

The Bottleneck San Diego Antique Bottle and Collectibles Club Club member Ken Gallo wrote a well-researched historical article on the origin of the name El Granito Springs and various bottling companies. The spring was originally part of El Cajon Rancho owned

by Issac Lankershim in 1868. It passed

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through many owners, mostly doctors who tried to turn it into health spas with little success.

In 1895, William Fisher bought the property to try his hand at making a huge health resort. Mr. Fisher told the story of how he named the springs to the San Diego Union Newspaper on January 1, 1907.

He said: “I was at work one day in my orange grove when an aged Indian wearily dragged himself along the road and, approaching me, said: ‘Me live here… oh…long ago. My people, they live on hilltop…drink medicine water, get well.

Me show.’ Leading back to the spring, he threw himself flat on the ground and drank to his full satisfaction. Then rising, he threw both hands high above his head and with face lifted toward the hilltops, he exclaimed, ‘El Granito, El Granito Medicine Water!’ Hence the name. From that day, my ranch has borne the name El Granito Rancho and the spring, the El Granito Spring.”

In 1919, Harry Painter and P.C. Langraf bought the property and started bottling “Soda Pop.” The crash of 1929 and the following depression sealed the doom of El Granito Springs. It lasted until 1934 when it was paved over to make Avocado Ave.

Honor Roll Honorees

Scott Grandstaff and Kitty Roach Twenty-one years ago, Scott Grandstaff and Kitty Roach worked up the first issue of their new magazine on the kitchen table of their Happy Camp, California home.

The 1989 issue of Bottles and Extras came about because of their love for antique bottles and the many “go-withs” that accompanies such collections. That’s where the “Extras” came into the picture.

It was a fun magazine to read and struck a happy chord with collectors nationwide. Success begats success and suddenly, the couple found the publication had grown too big So in 1995, they made the decision to turn over the magazine and its assets – the subscribers’ list – to the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors. The magazine today has become the Federation’s most tangible (and visible) asset.

Bill Baab, of Augusta, Ga., for nearly a dozen years the Federation’s Southern Region editor who acquired many of the early magazines, decided that the couple needed to be honored. So he nominated

them to the FOHBC Honor Roll and earlier this year the Federation Board of Directors concurred.

Scott and Kitty became the 34th and 35th Federation members to be so honored and the first couple since Neal and Mary Jane Ferguson, of Nashville, Tenn., in 2003.

Jeff Wichmann The 36th member of the FOHBC Honor Roll also hails from the West Coast and he, too, became a publisher.

Native Californian Jeff Wichmann has been a collector of antique bottles for more than 40 years. He’s since parlayed his incredible knowledge of the hobby by establishing Pacific Glass Auctions in 1990, changing its name to American Glass Auctions 11 years later.

His was the first antique bottle auction house to provide full-color glossy catalogs sent to collectors at no charge. Another innovation that benefitted collectors was the launching of the first online bottle auction.

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September - October, 2010

NORTHWESTERN BOTTLE COLLECTORS ASSOCIATION

SANTA ROSA, CALIFORNIA

Bottle show & sale

October 8 & 9, 2010 See show calendar for details Or dealer info. Call Bev Siri at 707-542-6438

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The Exploding World of Target Balls New B&E column takes aim at those little glass shooting orbs with the colorful past

By Ralph Finch Welcome to the first of many reports on the rapidly expanding world of target balls. True, they aren’t the equal of a cobalt firecracker flask — the most paid for a target ball is $28,000 — but even in difficult economic times, ball prices continue to impress.

But let’s back up a step and explain to those few collectors who remain in the dark: A: There were no WMDs in Iraq, and B: Target balls were introduced ca. *1876, designed to “replace the living bird” (according to one ad) in the world of pigeon shooting. Immediately, seeing thousands of pieces of glass shards out in the field, the smart money went to work devising what we today call “clay pigeons.” That was around 1880. But even after the switch to clays, glass continued to be blasted to bits by Wild West show shooters Buffalo Bill Cody, Annie Oakley, Adam Bogardus and scores of others.

Every town, large or small, had a gun club where “local cracks” attempted to outshoot (and out-brag) other club members (and shooters from other clubs). (In fact, my latest report of a glass-ball match is April 14, 1928, in Omaha.)

While Wild West shows traveled the world, introducing literally millions to glass ball shooting, small-time shooters often traveled from town to town along with troupes of singers, acrobats and dancers. (Champion shot Ira Paine started out as a “clog dancer.”) *A disclaimer. There are few hard facts relating to the evolving world of glass balls. Bragging, claims and counter-claims were part of the shooting society, and at the top, Wild West shows had press agents who could spin “facts” faster than today’s politicians. Most glass companies never mentioned making target balls; a few, thankfully, did: In early 1878, New York City’s Bohemian Glass Works claimed that 1,250,000 “have been sold since August, and our moulds are now running night and day filling our constantly increasing orders.” Hagerty Bros. & Co., also of New York City, claimed “103,250 of Bogardus’ Patent Glass Balls sold and shipped in one week in April, 1879.”

While the late Alex Kerr may have been the godfather of target ball collecting (am I the god-child?), shooterAdam Bogardus of Illinois, from 1876-78, is considered the driving force

behind the growth of glass balls: He patented and promoted his ball (each embossed with his name), developed an efficient, practical, sturdy and inexpensive ball thrower, wrote his own rules for ball shooting, and traveled the world with Cody’s Wild West shows.

Bogardus didn’t invent target balls.

After years of research I have (as of now) given the Brits that honor. A May 25, 1867 article in “Bell’s Life and Sporting Chronicle” credits James Harding as the inventor of glass target balls — it also describes them being thrown with a sling of India rubber. Specifically, the article stated: “At the Royal Oak Park, Manchester, on May 20, Mr J. Harding of the Lea Brook Grounds, Wednesbury, introduced his novel invention, by which small blue glass globes are fired at instead of pigeons, but it will be a long time, we imagine, before he causes experienced ‘shots’ to prefer aiming at glass rather than at the feathered tribe. However, Mr Harding deserves credit for his ingenuity, the globes being cheaper than birds ...”

OK, that’s the past. How’s the hobby doing now? Here’s a quick peek: WHAT’S HOT: Pictures of old (and strange looking) Wild West show shooters.

WHAT’S NOT: Ball prices are off from the heady days of the sale of Alex Kerr’s vast collection: In an auction last April at California’sAmerican BottleAuctions (ABA), a deep purple ball “From JH Johnston Great Western Gunworks” was pulled at $13,500 when it failed to meet its reserve. Consignor Peter Frobouck paid $19,040 for the ball in the Aug. 8, ’07 Kerr sale.

WHAT’S HOT and COLD: An engraved, gold-plated Smith & Wesson 38 once owned by Ira Paine was sold May 1 by Rock Island Auction for $8,050. (Yet Paine’s gold-plated 22 pistol with three barrels — and appearing similar to the gun in the poster above, where Paine is shooting a Walnut off his wife’s head — did not reach its $100,000 minimum last fall in a James Julia sale.

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WHAT’S OLD: eBayer sellers who know nothing, won’t bother doing five minutes of research, yet claim to be experts in an area where, in reality, they are idiots (perhaps I’m being too subtle).

WHAT’S NEW (relatively speaking): Two rare balls, from Sweden (“Sandviks Glasbr.

Hofmantorp”) and Norway (“Bøssemager H. Larsens Vaabenudsalg Kristiania”) “H. Larsen was a gunmaker.

WHAT’S ON EBAY: Early this year, a beautiful amber ball embossed “From Bogardus & Co. Shooting Gallery, 158 South Clark St. Chicago / Bogardus Glass Ball Patd Apr 10, 77” sold for $7,100. ABA sold a similar ball in the ’06 Kerr auction for $17,050.

I know of maybe six of the rare, cobalt “Ira Paine” balls. One from Burton Spiller’s collection was sold by Glass Works Auctions (GWA) for $5,376 in May, 2000, and I paid $4,400 for my example some six years ago. But earlier this year a beautiful cobalt Paine sold for $2,392. The eBay seller added that the ball had set 25 years “on top of a house plant; it’s a miracle the kids didn’t break it.” And two months later, GWA sold another blue Paine for $2,530!

FYI: “Target balls” is a term used today, but when they were first made they generally were referred to as “glass balls,” or “glass balls for shooting.” The 1867 Bell’s Life reference, as noted, was to “glass globes.” A circa 1878 box of English balls stated “E Barton & Son’s(sic) / Stourbridge / Purveyors of Fine Glass Shooting Targets.”

However, the Carver firm of Greenville, Pa., in May of 1879, touted “composition target ball.” In 1880, the Whitney Brothers of Glassboro, N.J., advertised “practice balls.”

IN THE NEXT ISSUE: Auction news, eBay reports, even a bit of gossip!

Drop a note if you have a ball question: 34007 Hillside Ct., Farmington Hills, MI 48335-2513, or give me a call (8 a.m.-11 p.m.) at 248-476-4893. Better yet, e-mail rfinch@ twmi.rr.com. For an in-depth look at ’em, go to www.targetballs.com. For a subscription to On Target!, the 68-page, three-times-a-year journal for collectors of glass balls, send $40 to the above address.

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JOHN HENRY WINKLE

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Baker and Soda Water Maker

By Eric McGuire The German Confederation, or German Union, was a loose confederation of 39 Germanic states that was established in 1815. One of those states was Hesse-Kassel. Its boundaries have been preserved as the current state of Hesse (named Hessen in the German language) within the Republic of Germany. Frankfurt is its largest city and the capital is Wiesbaden. The subject of this sketch, Johann Heinrich Winkle, was born there on March 10, 1821. Likely of Jewish descent and probably a believer of Reform Judaism, he arrived in New York City in 1840 where he spent three years then left for Pensacola, Florida, where he continued in the bakery business and kept a hotel.

He remained there until 1849 except for two years spent in Fort Gaines, Early County, Georgia, where he also had a bakery.(1) He preferred to use his Americanized middle name – thus Henry Winkle.

One biographical sketch notes that after keeping a bakery and grocery store in Pensacola, Florida, Winkle left for Panama in October 1849 where he stayed about three months.(2) He crossed the Isthmus and reportedly arrived in San Francisco in March 1850.(3) It is not clear whether he took the obligatory trip to the gold fields but he likely did.

If so, Winkle spent little time there for he advertised with Robert Skinner, as a partner in the California Bakery beginning in August 1850, also selling ground coffee.

Henry Winkle’s first venture in California was with Robert Skinner when they opened the California Bakery in Sacramento. Their advertisement first appeared in the Sacramento Daily Union,

Shortly after the great Sacramento fire the Alta California newspaper of San Francisco delineated the extensive burned area of Sacramento. Winkle’s soda works was very near the origin of the fire and was burned out.

The partnership was terminated in November of 1850.(4) Winkle continued in the bakery business alone, and, as well as a coffee saloon he also speculated in real estate and then decided to enter the soda water business in the Spring of 1852. On November 2nd of that year a fire started in the millinery shop of Madame Lanos on J Street near Fourth. It soon engulfed the city with great devastation, ultimately destroying 1,766 buildings and displacing 7,000 people. A total of 55 blocks burned and Henry Winkle’s soda water business was one of the casualties.

Within weeks he set about constructing two brick buildings on K Street between First and Second.(5) These structures were not the location of his soda works since that was at the foot of J Street at the levy of the Sacramento River. Cash strapped, evidently Winkle was able to continue his soda water business for a few more months until Sacramento was hit with another natural disaster. New Year’s Eve witnessed the beginning of a twoday rainstorm that brought a crippling flood to the city. At this point Winkle’s resources were severely diminished.

He may have continued bottling soda water for a few more months but the

final blow was his failure to pay back a note for $1,200 to Hermann Ebberson upon his demand. As a result the sheriff seized Winkle’s property and sold his soda water business “at the Factory of said Winkle, on the bank of the river above J street in Sacramento City” on October 14, 1853. His movable goods that were sold consisted of: “One table with bottling machinery attached.

Three soda fountains with pipes attached.

One rotary pump and pipe.

Three large tin cans.

5,000 soda bottles, more or less” (6) His real property in Sacramento was sold at a later sale. Winkle was forced to declare bankruptcy and in January 1854 he left Sacramento for San Francisco.

He soon entered the baking business, and as Winkle & Co., endeared himself with the Jewish community and landed an important contract. Winkle’s newspaper advertisement noted: PASSOVER BREAD FOR THE HEBREW EASTER DAYS – The undersigned having made a contract with the Congregation to bake all the bread for them give

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notice that it will be made under the superintendence of the Committee.

Orders from the country promptly filled.

when the Pioneer Benicia Hydraulic Cement Company was incorporated on September 5th. (Nagle is not mentioned in the incorporation). Nagle was soon followed by Winkle in liquidating their assets in the company which continued to flourish and set a standard in the cement industry for many years.

Henry was soon joined by his siblings in the bakery business, with Adam Winkle, and Henry Winkle, Jr. both arriving in San Francisco, from Germany, in the early 1860s.(9)

H. WINKLE & CO. R. PEISER. Cor. Battery and Sacramento streets.

Martin | Levy | - Committee Goldsmith | (7) A successive short partnership with Charles Geiger, styled as Hamburg Bakery, didn’t work out, and the two split after a few months with Geiger keeping the Hamburg name.(8) Winkle continued on in the baking business under his own name at the corner of Vallejo and Battery Streets in San Francisco.

Lime based building materials were in short supply on the West Coast and the demand by its rapid development created a strong market, even for high priced imports. The lime deposits near Santa Cruz and Mt. Diablo helped satisfy

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Henry Winkle advertised religiously in the San Francisco Business Directory throughout the 1860s.

Nagle and Winkle purchased a full page advertisement in the 1861 San Francisco Directory to advertise their new cement company.

The final blow for Henry Winkle’s soda water company in Sacramento was the great flood of January 1853, which crippled his finances. This music sheet was written for a good cause, but shows some even tried to cash in on the fledging city’s notoriety as a flood prone area.

local demand for mortar, however, no cement was made in California until Henry Winkle and local pioneer contractor, George D. Nagle, developed a high quality calcium carbonate deposit near the town of Benicia, California, in 1858.

How Winkle took part in this departure from his mainstay bakery business is a mystery, however, it proved his business resilience and flexibility in seeking opportunities in a fast paced and quickly developing region that California presented in its formative years - just as he saw possibilities in his failed soda water company even though luck was not with him in that venture.

The portland cement business was good and the partner’s capital was increased in 1862

Henry’s brother, William Winkle, also moved to San Francisco about the same time as Henry, Jr., and Adam, but initially he chose to open a shooting gallery. He didn’t join the family baking business until 1885, after the death of brother, Adam Winkle, on April 23rd of that year. With continued success Henry Winkle became entrenched in the San Francisco business scene. He married Emma Steudeman in April 1864 and became increasingly interested in politics. Henry was known as an uncompromising Democrat and held a seat on the Democratic Nominating Committee in San Francisco for many years. In 1869 he made a bid for Board of Supervisors of San Francisco and was elected to a 2-1/2 year term.

In the same year (1869) Henry Winkle began to cultivate his interest in viticulture and to shift his occupational desires. He purchased a sizable estate in Sonoma County, California, next to Jacob Gundlach and Julius Dresel, two pioneer wine growers of the area. By 1871 Henry Winkle had transferred ownership in the bakery to his brother, Adam, and Henry focused his attention on growing wine grapes. In 1874 Winkle accepted two partners into his business, George Claussenius and Louis Adler.

Claussenius was a successful insurance and passenger ticket agent in San Francisco who was apparently looking for a lifestyle change. Adler was a true California pioneer, having arrived in

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The new business of Henry Winkle & Co. was expanded to include a full range of domestic wines and liquors and presented an excellent outlet for the sale of Winkle and Adler’s own vintages.

Winkle continued with his liquor business in San Francisco for a few years and in 1876 made a permanent move to his vineyards in Sonoma.

The following year Winkle sold his San Francisco liquor business to George Claussenius and Winkle devoted his time to viticulture.

Adler also operated a saloon in Sonoma and went back to running that establishment and continued with his grape growing as well.

Louis Adler died in Sonoma May 20, 1896 (10) and Martha Winkle Adler died in Sonoma on August 31, 1900.(11) Meanwhile Henry Winkle, Jr., and William Henry Winkle’s entrance into politics is reflected in this Winkle(HenryWinkle’s page from the 1869 San Francisco Directory which lists him brother’s) continued to as the Board of Supervisor’s member from the First Ward. successfully operated San Francisco (then called Yerba Buena) the bakery at the old stand in San in 1846 and settled in Sonoma in 1848, Francisco, on the corner of Vallejo and prior to the gold rush. Among other Battery Streets. Operations continued things Adler was a wine grape grower as well. He married Winkle’s sister, Martha, in Napa, California, on November 26, 1874, thereby becoming Henry Winkle’s brother-in-law.

HenryWinkle’sadvertisementthatappeared in the 1875 San Francisco Directory.

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until the death of Henry, Jr. on October 21, 1897. William then purchased all interest in the business from his brother’s estate and continued baking until William’s own death on July 14, 1898. Thus ended the nearly fifty year old baking dynasty begun

by John Henry Winkle in Sacramento in 1850 – except for the hiatus punctuated by the unsuccessful and short lived soda water business from early 1852 to the middle of 1853.

Emmor Crew of Steubenville, Ohio, was granted Patent No. 128,597 on July 2, 1872, for what was called an “Improvement in Railways”. Quickly termed a prismoidal railroad the nature of the improvement was really embodied in its cost of construction. This monorail train was designed around and balanced on a single pyramidal track. Much easier to build than a double track railway it was especially adapted for urban use and caused a brief sensation throughout the country. After its successful construction in Opelika, Alabama, a number of communities proposed its construction, which was much cheaper than even a standard narrow gauge railroad. By 1874, Joseph S. Kohn, of San Francisco was a leading proponent in the West.

Kohn petitioned the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to operate a prismoidal rail line in San Francisco, but repeated attempts were thwarted due to opposition from influential residents such as W.C. Ralston and William Sharon.(12) Not to be defeated he convinced eight others to build a prismoidal railroad in the Sonoma Valley which would run the approximately six miles from the town of Sonoma to a deep water port

A single track prismoidial engine similar to the type that was used on the Sonoma Valley Prismoidal Railroad.

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Along with Henry Winkle, the final resting place of many of California’s pioneers was forever lost when the Odd Fellow’s Cemetery in San Francisco was removed, shown here in this circa 1930 photo, and its inhabitants place in unmarked graves in Colma, California.

at Sear’s Point on the northern end of San Francisco Bay. From there a steamer could complete the voyage to San Francisco – or any other port in the world. This would give the farmers, and most specifically, the wine makers of the Sonoma Valley, a reliable transportation route to their primary market in San Francisco. Among the nine trustees of the Sonoma Valley Prismoidal Railroad was Henry Winkle. The company was incorporated February 15, 1875, and capitalized with 1,000 shares at $100 each.(13) The Pacific Iron Works built the locomotive in San Francisco and construction of the track was begun in June 1876.(14) By the end of November 1876 the first 3.5 miles of track was opened.(15) Winkle’s continuing interest in this business venture is not well documented; however, it is known that the company failed in May 1877 and the line was converted to a more standard narrow gauge, which was eventually purchased by the San Francisco and North Pacific Railroad.(16) Henry Winkle continued with his viticultural interests throughout the 1880’s and was counted among the largest grape producers in Sonoma County until his death there on March 2, 1890.

Henry was buried in the Odd Fellow’s Cemetery in San Francisco, however, that cemetery was moved and along with most of the 26,000 removals, he was re-buried in Greenlawn Cemetery in Colma, California, where it is presumed Henry Winkle is now reposing, in an unmarked grave.(17) Much of his estate passed to his brother Henry Winkle, Jr., who moved to Sonoma and continued growing

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Rather harsh words by the Chronicle but the vernacular of the day was not directed at the cable car driver, but the car itself. The early cable cars of San Francisco were composed of two separate units. The passenger car was actually pulled by a separate unit called the “dummy”.

This was the section that gripped the moving cable installed in a track below the pavement. The dummy was then attached to the primary passenger carrier by a coupling, although the dummy could usually accommodate some passengers as well.

Emma Winkle continued to live in San Francisco until the death of her

A typical San Francisco cable car of the period of the 1870’s showing the “dummy”, loaded with passengers and pulling the passenger car which is empty. Then, as now, most people prefered to sit in the open section unless the City fog was particularly heavy and cold.

grapes as well as controlling Winkle Brothers Bakery in San Francisco.

Henry Winkle’s widow, Emma Winkle, continued to reside in her beautiful Sonoma home until it was reduced to ashes. The Daily Republican (Santa Rosa, California), reported on October 3, 1891: “The fine house of Mrs. Henry Winkle, two miles east of Sonoma, caught fire Friday afternoon and was totally destroyed. The loss of over $2,000 was partially covered by insurance.”

Emma Winkle then moved to San Francisco, but it seems her run of bad luck followed. The San Francisco Chronicle reported on October 29, 1891: “Emma Winkle has sued the Sutterstreet Railway Company to recover $10,000 damages for being run into by a dummy.”

brother-in-law, William Winkle, and then moved to Santa Cruz, California, and lived with Charles Steudeman, the oldest son of her brother, John Steudeman. Emma died in Santa Cruz on July 30, 1904, and is buried in Santa Cruz Memorial Park Cemetery.

Henry and Emma Winkle produced no children but descendants of Henry’s siblings, Henry Winkle, Jr., and Martha Winkle Adler, are currently counted among the residents of California and Washington State. However, none carry the Winkle surname.

THE BOTTLE The pictured example is apparently one of an original 5,000, although it is difficult to determine how many have survived. Not extremely rare, the bottle, embossed HENRY WINKLE / SAC. CITY and with XX on the reverse, was most commonly found in excavations around the old part of Sacramento. It was very rarely found in San Francisco so the

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bottles must have stayed in Sacramento when they were sold by the sheriff in October 1853. The color is nearly always aquamarine or light green and they often exhibit bubbly glass. Some specimens have been found with open or blowpipe pontils which are highly prized, even though they were all likely blown with a single order – late in 1851 or early 1852.

The manufacturer remains a complete mystery, but they were definitely not blown in California since no glass factories were operating there at the time.

The double X is usually associated with drink containing some alcoholic content and, with two Xs, often referred to double distillation although, alcoholic drink was not known to have been bottled

by Winkle. He may have sold porter or weiss beer but even that is unlikely.

The Lancaster Glass Works is the only documented company that comes to mind who used the X embossing on soda water bottles, although there are other un-attributed examples known.

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Lancaster Glass Works does fit the period for manufacture of the Winkle bottles as it was in operation at that time.

Endnotes

This advertisement for the Lancaster Glass Works documents its full operation by early 1850. It is a candidate for the manufacture of the Henry Winkle soda bottles, but attribution is weak and can be based solely on the use of embossed Xs, similar to the Lancaster Glass Works soda bottles. An eastern coastal or Pittsburgh are glass works would seem more likely as a source, simply because of the transportation advantage. Perhaps Winkle got a special introductory price from the Lancaster Glass Works.

(Milwaukee Sentinel, May 2, 1850)

(left) The face of a typical pint Henry Winkle soda water bottle. (right) Reverse of the Henry Winkle soda bottle showing the double Xs.

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(1) Alley, Bowen & Co.: History of Sonoma County, California.1880. pg.

686 (2) On December 31, 1849, one H. Winkle left New Orleans on the Brig Major Eastland for Chagres, Panama, his first leg on a voyage to California.

(Daily Picayune [New Orleans, Louisiana] January 1, 1850) This may be our Henry Winkle.

(3) History of Sonoma County, California. 1880. pg. 687 (4) Sacramento Daily Union Sacramento, CA) Decembr 24, 1850 (5) Alta California (San Francisco, CA) November 16, 1852 (6) Daily Democratic State Journal (Sacramento, California) October 12, 1853 (7) Daily Evening Bulletin (San Francisco, CA) March 25, 1856 (8) ibid., August 6, 1856 (9) The subject of this sketch was actually named John Henry Winkle but preferred to use his middle name as his first name. To confuse matters he had a younger brother named Henry Winkle, Jr. who also used Henry as his first name. Thus there were two brothers living in San Francisco whose names were Henry Winkle.

(10) San Francisco Chronicle, May 21, 1896 (11) ibid., September 1, 1890 (12) San Francisco Bulletin October 15, 1874 (13) Daily Alta California (San Francisco, CA) February 16, 1875 (14) ibid., July 14, 1876 (15) The New York Times, December 3, 1876 (16) George Woodman Hilton, American Narrow Gauge Railroads: Stanford University Press. 1990, pg. 335 (17) In 1902 an ordinance banning further burials within the City of San Francisco was passed by its Board of Supervisors. Further, nearly all of existing cemeteries had to be moved out of the City limits. Removal of the 26,000 bodies in the Odd Fellows Cemetery was begun in 1929 and it took six years to complete the project.

Most were removed to Greenlawn Cemetery in Colma, California, and many of the old tombstones were used to build a seawall at Aquatic Park in San Francisco.

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FOHBC National Bottle Show Report

By Marianne Dow

The 2010 FOHBC National Show was fabulous! The showroom in the Roberts Centre in Wilmington, Ohio was huge, brightly lit, with nice wide aisles.

We had plenty of room for the 297 sales tables, the 20 great displays, and all the dealers and shoppers. No gridlock! Lots of smiles!

Sadly, Show Chairman Jamie Houdeshell became ill a few days before the show, and was unable to attend.

But all his advance work, planning, and coordinating paid off. He was missed, but with us in spirit. Especially at the bottle auction, which was Jamie’s pet project. The man loves his bottles!

All of his efforts in getting some Jamie Houdeshell really good bottles Show Chairman consigned were well rewarded. The auction grossed just shy of $20,000.

Jamie put together a great team. Show Co-Chairman Joe Hardin and ChiefCoordinator Patty Elwood stepped right

up and took charge. Each have put on many a bottle show, and their experience showed. They calmly handled all the final arrangements with the show venue, from making sure the showroom was laid out correctly, to running the banquet and auction events. Right at their sides were Jamie’s parents, Jim and Mira Houdeshell, Richard Elwood, and John and Margie Bartley, all doing whatever had to be done. They all deserve a round of applause.

The team was also at the ready to welcome the early-bird buyers, getting the dealers to their assigned tables without a map, all while signing up new FOHBC members and fielding hundreds of questions. Many other people volunteered, and spent a lot of time helping at the registration desk. They were all wonderful, and their efforts greatly appreciated. THANK YOU to everyone who contributed.

The show was an all-around success.

FOHBC Treasurer Alan DeMaison, who handled the money over the course of the three days, commented that “... this might just be the most profitable National Show in years.”

The 3-day event had many activities.

Marianne Dow “live-blogged” much of it, taking photos and e-mailing them

The showroom

to the Findlay club website as the events progressed. You can see the pix at finbotclub.blogspot.com Friday saw the FOHBC Board meeting, with the election of new officers.

Many dealers and collectors showed up and registered in the afternoon. There was lots of mingling and visiting, and connecting with old friends. We had well over 100 attend the evening banquet.

Compliments to the chef -- the food was actually tasty! Sheldon Baugh gave a talk about the Ohio Shaker communities, and showed some bottles from his Shaker collection. Jeff Wichmann and Scott Grandstaff and Kitty Roach were inducted into the FOHBC Honor Roll.

Saturday morning started bright and early with the seminars, along with the displays being set up in the showroom. The educational seminars were well attended, and ran until noon.

Jerry McCann, Brad and Eva Booth, John Wolf, John O’Dell, John Pastor, Ferdinand Meyer V and Jeff Wichmann shared their extensive knowledge in their fields, and some illustrated with items from their collections.

Saturday afternoon was what we all had worked and waited for -- SHOW TIME! Dealer set-up and early-bird admissions started at 1 p.m. Early-bird admissions brought in nearly $3,000, on top of the table rents. The big beautiful showroom was well-received. Lots of oohs and aahs when it was first seen, turning to even more excited exclamations when the wonderful displays were viewed. And then the amazing merchandise was put out. The hunt had begun! Incredible bottles were there, from $1 bargains to six-figure bitters bottles. Wow! In what seemed like a blink of an eye, but was really a few hours, the showroom was closed. Everyone went to the auction preview, to see the bottles, and do more visiting. Many stayed to bid on the bottle that had caught their eye. Many others

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went out to dinner in chatty happy groups.

The adjacent hotel had comfortable chairs in the lobby and the weather was nice enough that lots of us sat outside on the patio, talking and laughing till late at night, too excited to sleep.

Finally Sunday morning came, and everyone was back to the showroom, ready to wheel and deal. Early-birds had the room to themselves, and ran around looking for treasures until 9 a.m., when the general admission started. The rest of the show ran smoothly, and the vibe was great. Lots of well-deserved

Another view of the showroom

Joe Hardin, Show co-chairman holding up a piece of stoneware during the auction

Some of the Jelly Jammers Club members.

It wasn’t all bottles - we had advertising and paper dealers too.

I love the litho calendar with the children - so colorful.

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compliments were given to the show committee, whose hard work finally came to an end in the late afternoon.

On behalf of Jamie, Joe, Patty, the show committee, and the Findlay Bottle Club, our heartfelt thanks to all of you who supported our show, and the FOHBC, by volunteering your help, buying tables, admission tickets, setting up a display, doing a seminar, consigning your bottles, contributing an article or buying an ad in the souvenir program.

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“The Myriad Hues of New Hampshire Glass”

by Michael George

Every autumn, New Hampshire’s foliage explodes into an exhilarating diversity of colors – colors that are subtly and beautifully echoed in the lovely, diverse hues of New Hampshire glass of the 1700s and 1800s. Hundreds of rare and beautiful examples of early New Hampshire glass will be on display in the unprecedented upcoming exhibit “New Hampshire Glassmakers, 1780-1886,” a collaborative exhibit by the Historical Society of Temple, the Peterborough Historical Society, and the Historical Society of Cheshire County.

Peterborough Historical Society 19 Grove Street, Peterborough, NH 13 November 2010 – 19 February 2011 TEMPLE (1780-1781) Glass has been produced in the Granite State since the earliest days of American independence, when Robert Hewes launched his New England Glassworks venture in Temple in 1780. The vital natural resources along this rugged terrain were abundant; plenty of hardwood and a mountain of quartz.

Hewes’s glass “experiment” was to establish a factory for producing primarily crown glass, along with a scattering of other glass articles. The blend of the local ingredients produced a rich emerald green, the predominant color of glass seen in Temple. Excavations, however, show that test pots produced cobalt, amethyst, aqua, and clear glass as well.

With two disastrous fires only months apart, the Temple venture failed to thrive, and the New England Glassworks closed within two years.

Very little Temple glass was produced and even less has survived and been documented. Robert Hewes continued his glass career in South Boston and Pitkin, Connecticut.

Temple glass, including a bullseye window pane, 1780

KEENE (1815-1843) After Hewes abandoned his bold experiment in Temple, glassmaking in New Hampshire languished for more than a generation. At least three factories sprang up in Keene between 1815 and 1843; two between Washington and Gilsum streets and one on Marlboro Street. Thanks to early Blown Three Mold decanters from Keene, NH, 1820s pioneers like Harry Hall White, we have documented site work supporting much of the information that we hold true today. In the 1920s, White did extensive excavations at the Marlboro Street factory (Keene Glass Works), uncovering numerous bottles, flasks, and blown three mold glass. Keene produced some of the most attractive and colorful blown three mold glass objects known to collectors. The early Eagle / Masonic flasks (especially the “JKB” flasks) have been found in an incredibly wide range of colors from amethyst to cranberry to lime green, many of which are saturated with striated colors throughout.

In Keene, the art of glassmaking achieves a level of creativity and marketing previously not seen before in America. The colors and techniques are clearly intentional; beyond a doubt, master artisans of Keene’s glasshouses achieved color control during production.

“New Hampshire Glassmakers” will containabroadselection of colorful Keene glass, illustrating the beauty and creativity of this A selection of fine colored New fine glassmaking.

Hampshire flasks

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STODDARD (1842-1873) The next chapter in New Hampshire glassmaking commenced in Stoddard, a small, heavily wooded town roughly 15 miles northeast of Keene. The glass industry in Stoddard spanned more than three decades and employed hundreds of townspeople, increasing the capacity of the town to more than double the present-day population. There were at least four documented glass businesses in town, producing a unique array from functional utilitarian vessels to elegant works of art.

While excavations of the four sites have given us clues as to which bottles were produced at which factory, there is considerable overlap, and most of the bottles blown here are lumped together as “Stoddard.” In addition to the marked bottles Rare medicine bottles from and flasks, the various Stoddard, NH, 1850s Stoddard glasshouses were the source of inks, blackings, snuffs, spirits, medicines, mineral waters, and figured flasks. Their range of color is striking, primarily in shades of olives and ambers A selection of New Hampshire inkwells and with extremes from emerald green to citron yellow to blood red. To see these wonderful “earthy” tones brought together in one display, as in the New Hampshire Glassmakers exhibit, is powerfully evocative of the Granite State’s brilliant fall foliage.

SUNCOOK (1839-1850) Originally incorporated in Massachusetts as the Chelmsford Glass Company in 1828, this productive windowglass factory moved to the Suncook Village in Pembroke, NH, in 1839. The reason for moving was simply the abundance

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of natural resources; wood for fuel and the right sand for good glassmaking. After the move, the factory took the name Pembroke Glass Factory, but it is commonly known among collectors as “Suncook” glass. While the primary output of Suncook was window-pane glass, a variety of blown table wares and bottles were produced as well. There isn’t much diversity when it comes to the color of the glass... quite simply, it is a rich bluish aqua color. Oh, but what a color!

This consistency was ideal for the manufacture of window glass, and it also worked well (An exquisitely crafted pitcher made in Suncook, for lovely table wares.

LYNDEBOROUGH (1866-1886) Lyndeborough NH was the home to one of the most productive glass factories in New Hampshire history, the Lyndeborough Glass Company. Lyndeborough glass is a very durable, high quality substance with much fewer impurities and air bubbles. The colors of the glass offer a very dramatic range from a warm orange amber tone, to a vibrant lime or apple green, to a bright robin’s-egg blue. Usual production consisted of thick, heavy items such as insulators, battery cases, turtle whimsies, canes, canning jars and demijohns, all resulting in very dense colors. This broad range of color and diversity of glass objects has drawn the attention of many collectors, and the desirability of Lyndeborough glass continues to rise.

“New Hampshire Glassmakers, 1780-1886” will feature the most comprehensive grouping of Lyndeborough bottles and history ever assembled -- nearly 100 examples on display! The exhibit will be open from November 13, 2010, to February 19, 2011, at the Peterborough (NH) Historical Society, 19 Grove Street, Peterborough.

For more information, visit http://www.nhglassmakers. com or email Michael George at earlyglass@gmail.com.

A wide range of colored glass objects produced at the Lyndeborough Glass Company

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A Brief History of Bottle Collecting in Minnesota One of a series

By Steve Ketcham It was the 1960s. Perhaps it was the observance of the centennial of the American Civil War, or perhaps the turbulence of the decade which caused Minnesotans took look back in time and begin to focus on artifacts of the past.

A small group of Minnesotans began to notice that various urban renewal projects were uncovering bottles and stoneware.

Several early diggers were often gathered at building and road construction sites. Others met at a garage sale where old bottles were featured.

On June 14, 1966, these individuals formed Minnesota’s First Antique Bottle Club, meeting at the home of Fran and Harvey Rutherford. The club’s first newsletter was published in April 1967, listing Fran Rutherford as club president, Dave Robertus vice president, Sherman Doran treasurer, Mary Essig secretary and Diane Essig as newsletter editor.

By 1971, the club had grown to the point where the membership decided to hold its first show and sale. On Aug, 8, 1970, however, the short-lived Lake Superior Bottle Collectors Club held a show and sale in Duluth. There were 25 tables and the table rent was $5.

As of 2009, two bottle clubs still exist in Minnesota, and continue to play host to annual shows and sales in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

As Minnesota’s First Antique Bottle Club was growing, other Minnesotans were also taking notice of the beauty, history and collectibility of early glass and stoneware containers, During the 1960s, Doug Shilson became a scuba diver for the Minnesota Historical Society. His interest in all things old was piqued by his underwater discoveries and bottles became his focus.

Before long, he was staging bottle exhibits at such sites as the Hennepin County Historical Society and the Gibbs Farm Museum. On Nov. 21, 1971, 14 of the people Doug met at those exhibits gathered and formed the North Star Historical Bottle Association. Those first members included Doug and Winnie Shilson, Doug and Carol Sather, Jim Conley, Jean and Don Donovan, Fran Rutherford, Jim Hasse, Debbie Knutson, Bill and Marilyn Bettendorf, Owen Mattson and Steve Ketcham.

Doug Sather was the club’s first president, Steve Ketcham served as vice president, Pat Schimik was elected secretary and Winnie Shilson was the treasurer.

While North Star members participated in the early Minnesota’s First shows, it wasn’t long before the two clubs were cooperating to stage the annual event.

Minnesota’s involvement in the Federation of Historical Bottle Clubs (later Collectors) also began in the early 1970s.

Though the federation was originally formed in California, Minnesota’s bottle collecting activities were noted by California collectors and Barbara Robertus was tapped to become the FOHBC treasurer.

Soon Barbara and husband Dave were off to Missoula, Mont., for their first federation meeting. Before long, the Robertuses invited Steve Ketcham, a member of both Minnesota clubs, to attend federation meetings with them.

While attending federation meetings around the country, they became involved in plans for a national bottle exposition to be held in St. Louis in 1976. A large group of Minnesotans attended and a collection of rare bottles from that state was assembled and displayed .

A large area of North Minneapolis was razed following civil disturbances of 1966 and that area sat empty for many years. Eventually, a number of diggers began to cruise the site, realizing that the missing houses were built at a time when each would have had an outdoor privy. Once the city gave permission, diggers enjoyed several years of searching and many fine bottles were found. More digging resulted when a new freeway was built through parts of this same neighborhood.

Other freeway and urban renewal projects were also under way during these same years and many a Minnesota bottle collector was born in the muddy recesses of long-hidden privy holes. Minneapolis and St. Paul collectors still speak in reverent tones of the digs simply known as Dunwoody, Williams Hill, Seven Corners, Selby-Dale, University Avenue, Northwestern Hospital, River Road and Cedar Riverside.

By the 1980s, many Minnesota bottle collectors had assembled large local collections. Numerous local bottles had been researched on city libraries and at the Minnesota Historical Society. Using the information uncovered, these curious collectors were sharing their research in articles written for the club newsletters. Before long, it was agreed that all of the information needed to be organized.

A portion of the Minnesota crew attending the 1984 Federation Expo in Montgomery, Ala. Front row, L-R: Dave Robertus, Neal Sorensen, Steve Ketcham, Pat Sorenson. Back row, Vernie Feldhaus, Ron Feldhaus, Winnie Shilson, Barbara Robertus, Doug Shilson. (Courtesy of Steve Ketcham)

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Steve Ketcham’s longtime friend, Jean Garrison, presents him with a plaque in recognition of his two years as Federation president. The event took place at the 1984 Expo in Montgomery, Ala. One of the two bottle quilts raffled off are hanging in the background. Other Minnesotans who have served the Federation include Dave Robertus (second vice president) and Barbara Robertus, treasurer and corresponding secretary). (Courtesy of Steve Ketcham)

Joint display at the 1976 National Antique Bottle and Jar Exposition in St. Louis by Minnesota’s First Antique Bottle Club and the North Star Historical Bottle Association.

Highlights include two sizes of Appetine Bitters, two sizes of Digestine Bitters, a Red Star Stomach Bitters, a Dime Remedy Company Vegetable Tonic Bitters jug (made by Red Wing Stoneware Company), a Dr. Ward’s Barb Wire Cure, a Dr. Warner’s Minnesota Tonic, a Smokine Cabin, an HSNB fire grenade, an iron-pontiled, cobalt Comstock and Steere blobtop soda, an amber Standard Bottling Company Hutchinson soda and cobalt and citron versions of the Spa Bottling Works Hutchinson. (Courtesy of Steve Ketcham)

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With Ron Feldhaus as editor and dozen of club members contributing their research, two Minnesota bottle books were eventually published. Many members also contributed to the efforts by making rubbings and drawings, cutting and pasting and editing. Minnesota’s First member, Neal Sorensen, a leader of the local printing industry, was instrumental in getting the first book published.

The Minnesota book was among the first club-written books to be published in the hobby. Copies of Volumes I and II of The Bottles, Breweriana and Advertising Jugs of Minnesota may still be purchased. Rumor even has it that even state archaeologists use the books for reference.

Another collecting club closely related to bottle collecting also was born in Minnesota. The Red Wing Collectors Society was formed in 1977 and now boasts 5,000 members nationally.

While Red Wing potteries produced a variety of clay products during their 100-year history, manufacture of advertising jugs and crocks during the late 1800s and early 1900s means its wares are often the focus of bottle collectors as well.

An annual convention held in the Mississippi town of Red Wing each July draws hundreds of collectors from more than 20 states and many a bottle collector can be found in the crowd.

A host of Minnesota diggers, mostly North Star members, continue to seek subterranean treasures. The North Star club holds its annual “Best Dug” contest with nearly 20 categories.

A similar contest for non-diggers, called “Silver Pick Awards,” also is held annually. These contests bring out the best finds of the year and attendance at the meetings is high.

The 39th annual Minnesota Antique Bottle, Advertising and Stoneware Show and Sale was held March 28, 2010. Times have changed and while the North Star organization is now the larger of the two clubs, both continue to work together toward the success of the show.

In Minnesota, collecting the past has a great future.

Steve Ketcham, sans beard, as he appears today, showing off a portion of his collection. (Courtesy of Steve Ketcham)

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By Lee Linne Conrtibuted by Bill O’Connor

Preface This month, I would like to introduce you to one of the most interesting categories in the marble collector’s arena. We are fortunate to be able to reprint an article by Lee Linne, from the IAMC club newsletter, “Marble Beads”, great history. Enjoy.

As a marble collector marble beads have appealed to me for the same reasons I collect antique marbles.

When my wife and I purchased our first marble beads in the mid 1990s, questions about marble beads kept plaguing me and the answers in the marble world were not there. Over the years you hear bits of information that later proves to be incorrect. This information is passed on as fact and I must say that I have been guilty.

Marble Beads are a subset under the classification of BEADS, then TRADE BEADS, then HAND MADE.

There are books written on BEADS and TRADE BEADS. But not much information on Marble Beads. For this article a Marble bead is a cane made or rod made marble with a hole through the center.

First, were they made as trade beads? I define ‘Trade’ as bartering with indigenous peoples for goods.

They probably were used as trade for bartered items. Although records show that few were shipped to Africa, but many were shipped to Holland and the Netherlands, who were among the biggest world traders. The marble beads were likely used to trade for gold and Ivory. In North American museums no marble beads show up in the archives from trading with the North American Indians.

Were they used to trade for Slaves? Most likely not. The Slave trade ended in Europe and America in the early 1800s with laws banning the import of slaves. As it will be shown Marble Beads did not start production until the 1850s. There were some renegades that still traded in slaves in the 1800s but most went to South America.

Origin of Marble Beads When talking with Jamie Allen, a prominent bead collector and author of many articles on beads, Jamie made the comment that it was too bad marble beads did not have the full range of color and design that antique beads have. And he is right, speaking as a bead collector where are the designs and patterns that are

Linne Collection

Thomas Stricker Collection

prevalent in antique beads? There are no chevrons or the millefliori. But, as marble collectors have found, marble beads have the same designs and patterns as antique German Swirls.

This German connection is further proven by evidence found at factory digs in and around the Lauscha area of Germany.

Here is a sample of the cullet and marble beads that were unearthed in these digs.

German Marble and Marble Bead Production German marble production can be traced to the area around Lauscha and Haselbach in the state of Thuringen, Germany.

The town of Lauscha is famous for the production of human glass eyes, eyes for stuffed animals and Christmas tree ornaments. This is an area of eastern central Germany close to what is now the Czech Republic.

Glass has been made in this area since the 12th century. This area is wooded which supplied fuel for the glass furnaces. Most of the people are farmers and some raise livestock.

However in the winter months they can’t farm so the people turned to glass production. Typically a town or village would build a furnace called a “HUT” and rent out work stations to village families. The number of huts was limited by the supply of wood for fuel. During the heavy winters families were engaged in cottagework. Father, mother, grandparents and children were all involved.

Thanks to the research of Jurgen Busch a German journalist some of the early history of German handmade marbles and marble beads has been published. According to the information from Jurgen, German marble production started in the late 1840s when Johann Greiner developed the marble scissors in 1848 and received concessions to produce and sell “artificial agate and semiprecious stone balls and in 1849 received a patent from the

Bottles and Extras

Royal Bavarian Government in Bayreuth. The Greiners tried to work in secrecy to keep the competition out of the marble business. The Greiners planned to build their furnace but local competitors protested because of the wood allotment. The Greiners started their furnace in 1853 using only coal as fuel. Their furnace initially had four work stations but was enlarged to ten within months.

Ignoring the Greiner patent two other local families started marble production in 1856 and by 1877 ten different units were producing marbles.

According to Jurgen, the production of marbles from Lauscha is well documented. From 1850 to the development of machine made marbles Lauscha was the world leading marble maker. Little is known about the direct production of marble beads. In 1854 a letter from Greiners complained “all sorts of elements were allowed to produce marbles” while his concession (or Patent) was still valid.

With this letter, Greiner appeared to get the concession expanded to include marble beads. Attached was a small box marked “colored glass coral beads” (Glaskorallperlen) or in other words marble beads.

A packing list from one glass maker listed “Lochmarbel” or marble beads packed 100 to a carton.

Holes How were the holes made? By investigations with marble makers, bead makers and glass workers, it appears that majority beads were hot punched.

Hot punching can be identified on a marble bead by a slightly tapered hole. The hole may not look tapered but it most likely is as the taper enhances punching and removal of the punch. One end of the

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This is an example of a hollow cane type bead. Some hollow cane beads may have been made in Germany but no hollow cane cullet has ever shown up in the factory digs.

There is mention in some literature that there was a marble scissor that would cut the marble off the cane and punch at the same time. However, I can not positively confirm this method. hole is usually larger and will be rounded at the edges with a smooth shiny look from fire polishing.

The punched marbles come from the factory site in Germany or from the African trade. There are some marble beads that were drilled.

These holes have straight shoulders where they enter and exit the marble bead and the inside of the hole usually has a rough dusty white appearance. The drilled marbles come mainly out of India, Burma or SE Asia. But, in either instance the marbles all have the same Lauscha / German appearance and characteristics.

Another method, which is difficult to see in marble beads, is to produce a hollow cane. Bead production using a hollow cane or rod is common and well documented in ancient bead manufacture.

The marble beads are pinched or cut from the cane and rounded. Both ends will be fire polished with the edges of the hole rounded.

If you can see into the bead the hole open larger and is not a uniform diameter from end to end.

Current Source Most of the Marble Beads can be traced from Africa. Since the 1960’s buyers have been scouring Africa for relics to sell in the European and American markets. The majority of the complete beads come from this trade.

Marble beads have also come from Burma, SE Asia, Borneo, and Afghanistan.

Some of the beads come from the factory digs in Germany along with broken marbles and cullet as these from Thomas Stricker.

Thomas Stricker Collection

Linne Collection

Thomas Stricker Collection

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Linne Collection

I have one strand of Banded opaque beads that can be traced from SE Asia.

I have another matched strand of graduated size onionskin mica that could have never seen but a jewelry box.

In Jurgen’s closing statement he states that most beads from the African trade are not from Lauscha because the intensity color and design are not the same. But, in examining the beads I have seen these beads are from German origin if not from Lauscha, then from some surrounding artisan.

They are truly a beauty to have and behold.

Thomas Stricker Collection

Acknowledgements and Bibliography I would like to thank Thomas Stricker for his sharing of much bead information and his pictures. To Hansel de Sousa for the contribution of pictures of his marble bead collection.

To Jamie Allen for his insight into beads. And a very special thank you to Jurgen Busch for his article “Lauscha Blown Glass and Marble Beads” in Ornament Magazine Vol. 24 No.2 Winter of 2000 and his permission to use the article. Jurgen research was invaluable.

Lee

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Recently I received a phone call from a very nice lady, Pam, from Indiana. She was inquiring about marble stands. Where to find one, what type are best etc. We had a nice conversation about marbles. She told me that although she didn’t collect, in fact didn’t own a one, she thought they were beautiful. So why did she need a marble stand? Actually, it was her best friend that needed the marble stand. She explained that her friend had a very special marble, about an inch and a half. It came with a stand, but somehow the stand had been misplaced. Without the stand, she could not display the marble, and it was very dear to her. You see, the marble contained the ashes of her father. She said her friend’s father was a huge marble fanatic there in Indiana, and bought and sold on ebay, went to the shows etc. When her father unexpectedly passed away from a motorcycle accident, he had his ashes enclosed in a marble, one for each child. Have you put 2 and 2 together yet? Needless to say, we were more than happy to send a glass marble stand her way! Yep, ‘Indiana has great marbles!’

Marble on Les. ~Dani Here’s one of the marbles...photo courtesy of Bill Tow

Thomas Stricker Collection

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Bottles and Extras

Never Say Never

By Bobby Vaughn

As time has gone by, I have discovered that I really enjoy spending time with my wife. It can be as simple as us just reading in the same room and my live is in harmony. Another thing I enjoy “almost” as much, (my wife is reading this) is a good old fashioned bottle dig.

A little treasure hunt is just the tonic to brighten my day or week. Sure, we know it’s a lot of sweat equity, torn and dirty clothes, bug bites and even poor weather sometimes. Despite all of that, most things in life worthwhile are not easy.

Well, for at least two years I tried to entice my wife to come along on a bottle dig. But she would always have something to do or say, ”I’ll never go”, it’s just too messy. About a month ago we had a friendly bet and if she lost she would agree to go on a dig. She lost, and was I happy. My wife reluctantly agreed to go with me on the 10th of July, 2009.

Finally, the big day arrived and we drove out to a prime dump (1885-1900) site I had been saving just for her first dig. It was on the Chattahoochee River just north of the town of Franklin, Ga. I had talked with some local old timers and they practically drew me a map when I explained it would be my wife’s first dig. These guys were old as dirt, but sweet as chocolate. As luck would have it, it rained the day before our dig and cooled off the temperature and lowered the humidity some - really decent for July in Georgia.

We arrived on the river about 0730am so we could dig a few hours before the oppressive humidity set in by the afternoon. I felt, a short fruitful dig could be just enough to give my wife the dreaded (an incurable) disease called “dig fever”. I kind of felt a little guilty, but hey, what are husbands for?

We hiked down to the lush riverbank and I showed her the uneven mounds under the huge live oaks. There were our hopeful rewards under those moss covered sentries of the forest. We both

started to probe about ten feet apart from one another and almost immediately hit the sound of metal on glass. Then, we started pulling out broken glass, melted glass, horseshoes, cast iron bands, everything but bottles for about 30 minutes. We noticed a 2 foot ash layer at the bottom and I told my wife to try and dig at that base, as I did the same.

My wife mysteriously became quiet after about 5 minutes and for her, that is unusual. I said, ”Hey, what’s going on over there”? She mumbled back at me, ”Nothing, just stay there, I’m busy right now. In about ten minutes she called and said, ”Come over and tell me if this bottle is a keeper or not”. As I approached her I could see an amber, rectangular bottle. I cradled it and wiped off the excess mud to examine it. My heart started beating fast as I saw it was a large, River Swamp and Chill Fever Cure from Augusta, Ga. With the embossed alligator! Except for a little exterior staining, it was in perfect shape. “Well, is it any good” my wife asked me? I replied;”This is a very good bottle and I have never found one...ever..”

She grinned at me and said, ”What have you found ?” I had only found a swig of envy and a large piece of humble pie by this time. Truthfully, I was very happy for her, especially on her first dig. We dug for another two – three hours then stopped to survey our “keepers”. They were as follows:

(3) River Swamp and Chill Fever Cure Augusta, Ga. Amber bottles (she found) (2) Clear unembossed hutchinson sodas (me) (5) Bromo-seltzer large size cobalt (me) (2) Large amber Jacobs pharmacy Atlanta, Ga. (she found) (1) Jacobs and Brewert sour mash Ga. Whiskey 1 gal crock (me) (1) Chattahoochee Saloon 166 4th St. Franklin Ga. one pint (she found) Not a great haul, but my wife feels much like a fish, she is really hooked now. She placed her River Swamp cure bottles in a display case in her quilt room so I could “view” them whenever I want, Gee Thanks...

We now go digging as often as we can but it disturbs me that she always seems to know just where to look and dig. Is it luck or skill? It doesn’t really matter as it makes both of our lives a little happier. Since that first dig near Franklin we have been back twice but the seasonal flooding has our dig site under two feet of muddy, river water.

Anyway, my wife has learned to NEVER say never again, and I have learned, be careful what you ask for you just might get it....

Safe digging to you all.... Bobby and Deanne..

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George W Swett Root Beer 1845 to 1952 ~ Boston, Mass.

By Donald Yates

The second half of our book, Ginger Beer & Root Beer sprayed with a buff colored Bristol glaze. After drying, the top Heritage, contains photographs of Bob Avrill’s Root Beer Museum would be dipped in a dark color Bristol glaze, giving each bottle in Pottsville, Pa. He was the proprietor and gave us permission to the characteristic two-tone finish. They would then be fired in the photograph the artifacts in this world class collection. Unfortunately, kiln for seven days, making it a total of twelve days to make each this collection has been dispersed via auction. Our book is now the bottle. only record of this historical collection.

The common Dr. Swett Stoneware bottles say: Dr. Swetts One entire floor of the Root Beer Museum was just for Hires Root Beer Boston. They used an identical transfer for the Tristate Root Beer. Other rooms were dedicated to each individual brands of Beverage Co., in El Paso, Texas. root beer. The entire lower floor contained 75 fullsized oak root beer They also had stoneware bottles made for the Kittanning barrels that weigh 250 pounds each.

Brewing Co. in Kittanning, Pa. There is also an early Dr. Sweet He also had 100 medium size oak barrels that weigh 75 pounds stoneware bottle. The wood Sweet was misspelled by the minister each. He also had 85 smallsized oak barrels that were 18 inches who married the Swetts. high. Every oak root beer barrel was hand made by skilled coopers The ornate and colorful Dr. Swett Stoneware Mugs were also in the late 1800s and early 1900s. made by the Sherwood Brothers Pottery. The original patterns were John D. Rockefeller was the largest user of wooden barrels in carved in a soft material – possibly beeswax. Dr. Swett’s portrait had Ohio. He was also the sole proprietor of Dr. Swett Root Beer at one to be hand-carved by highly skilled artists. They also carved threetime. The Museum also owned several great oak and brass Dr. Swett dimensional cherubs. Brass coggle wheels were used for repeating Root Barrels. pattern around the mug and around the base and on the handle.

The Root Beer Museum also owned the most phenomenal Once the wax pattern was complete, it could be used to make collection of ceramic Root Beer dispensers. One interesting style of plaster molds. The mugs were poured in these hinged plaster molds, dispenser is twelve inches high and was shaped like a barrel and had a top plug and bottom plug were used to create the interior and a hand plunger for dispensing the syrup. bottom space. Each mug would be made These ceramic dispensers were made by pouring slip clay in the mold and it

by The American Standard Company in would be allowed to dry for two days. The Toledo, Ohio --- the same folks who make handle would be glued on with the clay ceramic plumbing components. They also slip and it would dry for another day. Each owned several other designs of root beer mug would be finished by the painters. dispensers including small ceramic barrels Most of the mugs were painted in a cobalt and the great Bardwell root beer canteen blue, deep green, or chocolate Albany slip. (repros made in Mexico) and Bardwell After painting, each mug would be fired pitchers. in the kiln for seven days. The bottom of The stoneware in the Root Beer each mug is stamped with a mold number, Doctor Swett Root Beer Stoneware Bottles Museum dates from 1750 to 1920. The a potters stamp, and a fine check mark, primitive bottles were made by the indicating that it has been inspected.

Edward Merrill Pottery in Akron, Ohio, also several other New These wonderful mugs were probably made from 1890 to 1900.

England potteries. Sherwood Brothers Pottery in New Brighton, Dr. Swett used a subsequent stoneware mug that has an image of Pa., made the majority of the stoneware mugs and the transfer type the ornate mug, indicating that it was later than those. There is also stoneware bottles. They also made the majority of the stoneware a late 1800 tray that has a lithograph image of the ornate mug. This whiskey bottles. mug had a copper lithograph type transfer.

Dr. Swett’s Root Beer: Stoneware Transfer Type Bottles: Research by Ben H. Swett, Colonel, U.S. Air Force.

These were made by casting each half (top and bottom) in clay; Dr. Swett’s Root Beer was originated by Dr. George W Swett then, after drying, the top and bottom halves would be joined together (1834 – 1924). He owned two large wholesale and retail pharmacies by placing them in a ceramic fixture and pouring clay slip around in the 1800s – one in Boston and the other in New York City. the neck of the bottle. This would allow the joint to be formed that His root beer was first sold in little packets of dry ingredients held the bottle together. All of the bottles made this way have a ring and as a soda fountain drink in his pharmacies, then it was shipped mark around the neck, indicating how high the slip was. to other pharmacies, as syrup to be mixed with soda water and, later The transfer would then be applied after the bottle was removed it was pre-mixed and sold in bottles. from the fixture. One type of transfer was a rubber stamp that was It was not fermented and contained no alcohol. In the late 1800s dipped in black ink and then directly applied to the bottle. and early 1900s, Dr. Swett’s Root Beer was available throughout the The earlier type of transfer was made by etching a copper plate United States. It may have been unavailable for a few years in the in the desired pattern by highly skilled lithograph artists. The plate 1930s, but, it was produced by franchised bottling companies until was then coated with a special ink and stamped onto a thin pager. the 1950s.

While still wet, the transfer would be applied to the stoneware by Everett Stackpoole’s Swett Genealogy lists among the children rubbing it in place with an ivory tool. of Stephen Swett and Hannah Knight: Nathaniel, born Feb. 7, 1804; The interior of each bottle would then be filled with chocolate Amelia Swett, daughter of Captain John Hall. Children: George, brown Albany slip. After drying for a day, the exterior would be Emma, Amanda, and Augusta, who married Oct. 24, 1866, James

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Reed Kimball, and Clark. The 1890 Census shows Dr. George Swett 1885 – Harper’s Bazaar, New York, Saturday, July 4 1885: living with his sister, Emma Waldron.

Hires Improved Root Beer – package 25 cents. Makes five 1829 – George W. Swett’s parents were married in St. Stephen, gallons of a delicious, sparkling and wholesome beverage. Sold by New Brunswick, Canada. Nathaniel Sweet of this Parish, Cabinet all druggists or sent by mail on receipt of 25 cents. C. E. Hires, 48 Maker, and Amelia Hall of this Parish, Spinning Wheel Operator, N. Delaware Avenue, Philadelphia, Pa. were married by License with Consent of Parents and Guardians on Dr. Swett’s Root Beer – Packages contain Sarsaparilla, the 29th of November 1829.

Checkerberries, Juniper and Wintergreen. It acts mildly and Notice that the rector misspelled their name Sweet, whereas, beneficially on the Stomach, Liver, and Kidneys. Each package will make five gallons, 25 cents by mail prepared and packaged by the true spelling is Swett. This mistake occurs many times and was even used on some stoneware bottles. the New England Botanic Depot – 245 Washington Street, Boston, George W. Swett, MD Proprietor.

1834 – George W. Swett was born in October, 1834 in St. 1885 – New York City: George W. Swett & Company – Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada, son of Nathaniel Swett and Wholesale and Retail Druggists, No 29 Park Row. Amelia L Hall. St. Stephen is just across the international boundary This is an important business in this city that is owned by George (St. Croix River) from Calais, Maine.

W. Swett & Company, and specializes in wholesale and retail drugs.

1845 – Many examples of company advertising state that Dr. Swett’s Root Beer was established in 1845 when he was eleven The business dates its inception from 1836 and controls a trade which already large, is constantly expanding. This establishment years old, and, although this claim has not been proven, it seems likely that he was experimenting with various concoctions when he is conducted as a branch of the New England Botanic Depot of Boston. This firm is owned by Dr. George W. Swett and Alfred was a boy and perhaps even selling something like root beer.

1858 – His death notice says that George W. Swett graduated B. Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell conducts the New York business. The from New York University in 1858. building occupied is large and well adapted The 1900 Boston Census states that he for the business and contains a very full immigrated to the United States in 1860. and complete line of drugs, chemicals, 1859 – He was listed in the Boston medicines, etc. Special attention is given City Directory, occupation: Botanic to the selection of medicinal roots, herbs, Medicine, living at 106 Hanover Street. barks, leaves and flowers and physicians The Business Directory included an ad prescriptions are accurately prepared of the for the New England Botanic Depot at the best materials. A specialty is also made of same address. natural mineral waters. The establishment 1862 – George W. Swett married Ella owns a splendid soda fountain.

Haring on September 25, 1862 in Boston.

1890 – The Boston City Directory for Doctor Swett Root Beer Mugs 1875 1866 – The Bureau of Internal Revenue 1890 states: George W. Swett, drugs and was created in 1862 to collect stamp medicines, 245 Washington Street, Boston, taxes and internal duties. The next year it 28 Worchester Square, Boston and 29 Park administered the nation’s first income tax.

Row, New York.

It also issued revenue stamps. These were The liquid concentrate (syrup) was legal tender notes, not backed by specie. mixed with soda water at drugstores and The four-cent Private Die Medicine soda fountains. The stoneware dispenser Stamp advertising “Dr. J. W. Poland’s was shaped like a large root beer bottle White Pine Compound” for sale by Dr. and would be readily available behind George W. Swett, Boston, Mass, was the counter and, probably, dates to 1890. printed and in use from 1866 through The stoneware dispenser was made by Doctor Swett Root Beer Stoneware Mugs 1879. the Sherwood Brothers Pottery and the Dr. Swett published a brochure entitled “The Illuminated White bottom was completed in a buff Bristol glaze and the top was done Pine Alphabet” about 1867. It contained twenty pages and was in a chocolate Albany slip. The transfer was done with a five inch intended for children, but, the entire book is advertising for patent diameter rubber stamp, similar to those used on the stoneware medicines sold by his New England Botanic Depot. bottles. Dr. Swett also made a Canadian root beer dispenser for The following paragraphs are condensed extracts of the Montreal. These large dispensers were 22 inches tall. advertising in his brochures. The price for each of these four The ready to drink version of Dr. Swett’s Root Beer was sold medicines was 25 cents. They basically state that Dr. J. W. Poland’s in stoneware bottles, probably before 1892, because the first ones White Pine Compound will cure everything. used Lightning Toggle Stoppers. The Sherwood Brothers were Fellow’s Worm Lozenges are a remarkable power in expelling proud of their smooth Bristol glaze stoneware. This allowed them worms with pleasant taste and perfect safety. They contain no to use a transfer stamp, which could be seen through the transparent Mercury, no mineral, no turpentine, no oil of worm seed, no poison, glaze. The Bristol style glazed bottles were developed by the Powell nothing injurious. They do not act as a purgative or emetic. family in Bristol, England in 1835. See our book, Ginger Beer & 1876 – Hires Root Beer made its debut at the U.S. Centennial Root Beer Heritage, for a complete history by Tim Newell Price. His Exposition in Philadelphia along with Alexander Graham Bell’s father was the last owner of the Price-Bristol Pottery.

Telephone, the Remington Typewriter, and Heinz Ketchup. At that The Sherwood Brothers Pottery probably started making time, Charles Elmer Hires (1851 – 1937) was a young pharmacist Bristol stoneware bottles in the 1870s. We have all seen the Christian Moerlein bottles from Cincinnati. These used the copper plate in Philadelphia. transfers and were highly ornate.

1880 – The 1880 Boston Census has George W. Swett, wholesale 1900 – The 1900 Boston Census has George W. Swett, druggist, and his wife, Ella, living with her parents, Lemon and physician, widower, born October, 1834 in Canada age 56, living in Elizabeth Harding. th

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the home of his sister Emma Waldron at 579 Columbia Rd. 1903 – The first automatic bottle blowing machine was put in operation by inventor Michael Owens, an employee of the Libby Glass Company. By 1910, this new machine could produce over 57,000 bottles each day. The previous production by hand blowing was about 1,500 bottles per day.

1906 – Congress passed the First Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906, including provisions that were intended to stop the fraudulent advertising of patent medicines and required open disclosure of their contents.

Dr. Swett used an advertising folder that shows a young boy drinking his root beer and a reflection of an old man in the background. It gave reasons why you should drink his root beer: Made from the juices of such beneficial berries, barks, roots, and herbs such as Checkerberry (Tea Berry), Sweet Birch, Sassafras, Sarsaparilla, Spikenard, Juniper, Wintergreen, Ginger and Hops.

Beer made from this extract is in every respect the most refreshing and beneficial drink of its kind manufactured. Its medicinal properties render it exceedingly valuable in any disorder of the stomach, liver, or kidneys.

Dr. Swett Root Beer was first offered to the public of Boston more than 60 years ago. Each year adds to its popularity and reputation for being the purest and most healthful of all temperance drinks.

The following article was published in the Boston Post and will especially interest those who in childhood had their thirst quenched by home made root beer.

“About half a century ago, a little youngster roamed the Massachusetts hills with an odd fancy for collecting herbs and carrying them home to his mother.

“Sometimes his patient mother insisted that the herbs might be of doubtful origin, but the little fellow always insisted that they be cooked up in some sort of brew that would be better even than the one he made the last time.

“Every day he went farther into the hills and, once in a long time, he came upon a new thing that seemed a savory bit to add to his brew. He knew the home of all the checkerberries, and when they grew ripest. He could tell the shadowy little hill where the sassafras grew, and the pleasure to be derived from digging into the soil for the reddish brown roots.

“He found the dandelion with its fuzzy yellow top, and came under his eye for the herbal brew. The juniper tree had a special charm.All these went into the little basket that the youngster carried under his arm, and it wasn’t very long until the mother found that she was becoming almost as interested in the root beer as her son.

“It wasn’t long before it was more than an experiment and, the neighbors from far and wide recounted the beverage that little George Swett had found out himself in the woods.

“Of course, there were many village people who indulged in these quiet mixtures of the hills, but they were most of them for medicinal use, and, not one of them had the sharp refreshing taste that the little boy’s had.

“This is the story of the beginning of Dr. Swett’s Root Beer and, one would almost say, after hearing it first hand from the kindly old doctor, that there is a flavor of all the wood plants in it. Elsewhere, there may be rivals in the field, but New England is faithful to Dr. Swett. He has never advertised greatly, and the others have perhaps outstripped him in notoriety in the West, but, in his native country, the herb brew that contains the essence of his boyhood days is still the favorite.

“When this youngster grew up, he went to college, and, then with a liking for medicine, graduated in New York as a physician.

“Dr. Swett said yesterday, in talking of the beverage, “This will stand the test of all the pure food laws in existence,” and at

Bottles and Extras

the factory, one may get a glimpse of Dr. Swett himself overseeing things, and still looking after the oldest root beer in existence.”

The last page of this brochure had drawings of eight plants with brief descriptions of their uses: Hop Flowers – have been commonly used as a tonic for the nerves and have also been used in the treatment of dyspepsia. They were also widely used in the brewing of beer. They were considered a vital flavor of beer.

Spikenard – is a New England plant and was much used by the Indians and through them became a home remedy. It is a very pleasant aromatic stimulant and also helps digestion.

Birch Bark – depends for its activity on its volatile oil, has been largely used in domestic practice for its domestic properties. It is widely employed as a flavoring agent. The chemical compound in birch bark is nearly identical to that of Wintergreen. Birch beer was often brewed as a sole flavor beverage. It was still available here in the 1950s. The White Castle Restaurant had birch beer as their specialty. A lot of people stated that they loved their birch beer.

Chances are that it included a few other spices.

Most English people have had their palates compromised by the chemicals in Wintergreen. Their ointments and other medicines have been flavored with Wintergreen, which is fine, except they find United States root beer to taste medicinal. Ginger beer was the favorite beverage in England for over two hundred years, but root beer has never been sold in England. Root beer is an American product and can only be appreciated by us. Our northern neighbors have used 5,000 different brewers of ginger beer and perhaps 20 brewers of root beer. You get the idea.

The Sassafras Root – is an aromatic stimulant and is used as an adjuvant to other ingredients to improve their flavor and render them most acceptable to the stomach.

Checkerberry Leaves – are found throughout New England, have an aromatic odor and taste due to the volatile oil of Wintergreen, which they contain and act as a mild stimulant.

Juniper Trees – are also quite common and are found throughout New England. The branches are very valuable as stimulant, stomachic and carminative, also in mild forms of kidney affections.

Juniper Berries – are gently stimulating and diuretic and like sassafras are largely used as adjuvants.

Wintergreen – is a diuretic, acting mildly on the kidneys.

Wintergreen is the primary flavor of root beer.

Sarsaparilla – has a world wide reputation and the American variety which is used in this root beer is considered by many physicians to be far superior to the imported variety. It is an excellent blood purifier. The medicinal product also contains other herbs to make it more pleasant. It tastes like root beer.

All of the above ingredients were added to improve the flavor to make this root beer pleasant, while quenching the thirst.

1919 – Dr. Swett’s Root Beer was sold by the Tri-State Beverage Company in El Paso, Texas, which was in business from 1919 to 1923. This was during Prohibition, when the demand for root beer accelerated. These bottles are quite unusual in that they are the only stoneware bottles known to have carried the name of an El Paso firm. This bottle had the normal Dr. Swett’s Root Beer on the front, Boston, Mass, and Tri-State Beverages – El Paso, Texas on the back.

The oak Dr. Swett’s Root Beer Barrel Dispenser had a pump for the syrup and button to release the soda water at the end of the pump stroke.

1920 – Prohibition – The 18th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. This act prohibited the manufacture, import, export and sale of alcoholic beverages. One of the results was a

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huge increase in demand for root beer. Many Connecticut, was listed as a manufacturer of breweries went bankrupt. Others started to Dr. Swett’s Root Beer from 1924 to 1932. bottle soft drinks.

1934 – The end of Prohibition. The 21st 1920 – Dr. Swett’s Root Beer Company of Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment, Philadelphia placed a full page advertisement thus again permitting the legal manufacturer of in the Philadelphia Record on June 17, 1920. It alcoholic beverages. shows a clear glass bottle with a bottle cap 1934 – Applied Color Label (ACL) is a and a paper label. This was their first glass baked enamel process still used today. Each bottles. They were made in the automatic bottle color is applied separately and then baked so machines and were filled in the automatic bottle that the cost of labeling is proportional to the Doctor Swett Root Beer Label filling machines. number of colors used. It is a benchmark for There were great early lithographed colored labels. They dating bottles because it was developed in 1934. have a yellow foreground and a red background. They state: Dr. 1937 – Dad’s Old Fashioned Root Beer began about 1937 in Swett’s Original Root Beer. The best in the world. Originated in Chicago. How could it be Old Fashioned when it was introduced 1845. Delicious and Refreshing. And they show the young boy so late? drinking Dr. Swett’s Root Beer and the shadow of an old man.

1938 – A new Dr. Swett Root Beer Company was started in the 1924 – George W. Swett died on March 12, 1924 in Malden, late 1930s by four stockholders, including Nelson Rockefeller.

Massachusetts. His death certificate gave his age as 93 years.

1939 – Franchises for Dr. Swett’s Root Beer were advertised 1925 – This letter, typewritten on the letterhead of the Dr. Swett in the First Annual Blue Book of the National Carbonators and Root Beer Company or Portland, Maine, lists subsidiaries in Boston, Bottlers Association – February 1939. This book contained detailed Chicago, Philadelphia, Oakland, New Orleans and Montreal. The information on what was available to the bottlers of soft drinks. logo is still the shadow of an old man in the background and a young 1940 – The advertisement of the Second Annual Blue Book of boy in the foreground. The left margin has drawings of some of the the National Carbonators and Bottlers Association, February 1940. herbs used in Dr. Swett’s Root Beer – Hops, Birch, Sassafras Root, The company now changed their address from Boston to Rockefeller Wintergreen, Juniper and Checkerberry.

Plaza, New York. Nelson Rockefeller was the main shareholder in 1928 – The Portland Main City Directory of 1928 still lists the the new company.

Dirigo Bottling Company.

1929 – The Great Depression. Many of the small companies that NOTE: The information in this article was from Ben H. Swett – bottled soft drinks went out of business in 1929 or shortly thereafter Colonel, U.S. Air Force; also from our book, Ginger Beer & Root - another affect of our Government, who enacted Prohibition in Beer Heritage available for $29 including shipping, from Don Yates, 1920. Many states immediately went bankrupt.

8300 River Corners Rd., Homerville, OH 44235. donaldbetsyyates@ 1932 – The Baker and Malaspina Company of Danbury, earthlink.net

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Isn’t That Dandy?

The life and times of James Gilberds

by Joe Terry

Jim Dandy – (jim’ dan’ de) informal usage – one that is very pleasing or excellent of its kind.

This story is all about a “Jim”, but as for him being a dandy or not, I cannot say. His name was James Gilberds. For some the name may be vaguely familiar, for others not so much. Mr. Gilberds is best known to fruit jar collectors as the man behind several uncommon jars.

Mr. Gilberds was born in Canada where he first saw the light of day on June 12, 1830. The family moved to Jamestown, New York, in the county of Chautauqua, when he was yet a small boy. Fate was to keep him rooted to where he grew up. He got married, settled down, and had a family right there in Jamestown. James Birdsall Gilberds was to be the only child. His mother, Lucy, died when he was but a child. It was a tragedy his father failed to recover from. He never remarried. The two grew up together, the son eventually learning his father’s trade.

Initially Jim learned the trade from S.E. Southland, a local tradesman who among other things held a patent on a butter tub. His Union butter tubs became well known. After learning the appropriate skills, Jim worked independently, manufacturing his own butter tubs. He excelled at it, and made a brisk trade in the region around Jamestown. He used local ash wood, well seasoned, which was less likely to impart an unwanted flavor to the contents. Additionally, he began coating his tubs in sheet iron, to help them hold their shape and maintain their integrity.

In 1871, on the day after Christmas, Mr. Gilberds was granted patent #122166, for improvements in wooden butter tubs.

Business was good, and he could hardly keep up with orders. The shop at 155 E. Second street was busy with the sounds of sawing and hammering.

Further developments came along rather quickly. The initial tubs were shown as being square. The next step, a patent in 1873, was in conjunction with another local inventor named Milo Harris. Mr. Harris was marketing sewing machine attachments at the time, so it is likely his contribution to the device was in the metal fasteners. It is interesting to note, however, that Mr. Harris was awarded top honors for butter tubs at the New York State Agricultural Exhibition in 1873, with no mention of Mr. Gilberds.

This style of tub apparently remained the mainstay for several years until 1877, when yet another patent was granted.

This was rapidly followed with another in 1878, partnered by a Charles S. Jackson.

Jackson was assignor to Gilberds, but outside of that information, nothing is known about him.

These later tub versions were sold under the brand name Optimus, and were generally remarked upon as being the superior product on the market. Mr. Gilberds had them on display at a dairy and butter exhibition in Greenfield, Massachusetts in 1880, where they met with general approval. But despite the positive reviews, the tubs were to be replaced with another venture. The inventive mind mulled over ideas, coming up with several more of importance. In 1879 he was partner in another patent, one that had nothing to do with butter tubs or fruit jars. He, and a local man named Benjamin Franklin (seriously!),

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were granted patent # 212369. It was a combination pipe wrench and cutter. Little is known about the tool, but such a device would have been of little importance to Mr. Gilberds in the manufacture of tubs.

But it shows that he was capable of fostering and promoting interesting ideas.

In a few more years, those ideas would begin to bear fruit.

In 1883, he was granted two patents relating to fruit jars. The first, #271328 was granted on January 30. There seems to be little reference to this device, mention instead being made to the later one. The second, #282188, was granted on July 31. The designs were unusual in that the wire bail encircled the jar from top to bottom. It may have been a borrowed idea, seeing as Warren Van Vliet had received a similar patent in 1881. Since the two men lived only about 250 miles apart, as the crow flies, there is a better than average chance there would have been some kind of contact between them.

While this is debatable, nevertheless Mr. Gilberds set out to have his jar produced for the market. The molds were cut with the words “Gilberds Jar” and an embossed star. The July 31, 1883 patent date was embossed into the lid.

By the mid-1880’s a new occupation was listed for the senior Gilberds; that of commercial traveler. It would be hard to determine what success he had in selling his jars. The cost of manufacture could not have been cheap. Van Vliet was manufacturing his in a factory he was

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part owner of. But the Van Vliet jars came to an abrupt end in 1885 when the small Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania factory burned to the ground. Little is known about the sales potential of these jars. However, the rarer a jar is today, the fewer there were to begin with. Needless to say, these both of these style jars are scarce.

The same year Van Vliet lost his factory, Gilberds was granted another patent. Mr. Gilberds marketed another jar, an “Improved” version, based somewhat on his third design. This was granted on October 31, 1885. The special part of this design was the stair step or double ramp feature of the lid. It was different from the 1883 model in that the ramp on the lid now had a step to it. It is difficult to say if this made a great change in the usefulness of the design. It is likely the step did help secured the lid to the base. While no information exists of sales, it could be assumed the marketability of this jar was on par with his earlier versions. As rare as they are, one could assume that sales weren’t too good.

It was from this point on that things go a little shady with Mr. Gilberds. He would have had about four years of marketing the improved Gilberds jars before he changed his tactics. It was a rather drastic change, considering the patent design. Further more, he fudged a bit on the new name for his creation.

Overall, he was stepping onto morally shaky ground. I refer to “The Dandy.”

Since the new jars required a

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retooling, that meant entirely new molds.

Second, he needed to find someone to make the jars. Production costs had to be kept to a minimum, while at the same time manufactured in quantity. While its likely that his first jars were made either in New York or Pennsylvania, these locations were no longer the center of the glass industry. Cheap gas was abundant in areas of Ohio. Findlay in particular was home to a great number of glass factories, all operating on the free natural gas there. Mr. Gilberds approached the Findlay Bottle Company, contracting with them to manufacture his new jars.

He had molds cut and sent to the factory, which began turning out jars embossed “Trade Mark The Dandy”.

For those unfamiliar with trade mark rules, you are not allowed to register something considered common usage.

Thus, there was no trade mark for “The Dandy” ever registered with the Patent Office. There was no denying that it could have legitimately been used as a product name. There were any number of items marketed as such, from butter churns to rat traps. But none were trade marked. So, just because the jars said it, it didn’t mean it was true. Further changes were made in the lid. While the ramp was still the stair step design, it was now much narrower and provided with side supports. Additionally, the wire bail no long encircled the jar, instead being secured around the neck of the jar. The lids to these jars bear the patent date of October 31, 1885, but the

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whole package bore little resemblance to their predecessors. James had decided to go mainstream, producing a jar similar to ones already on the market.

The contract between the Findlay Bottle Company and James Gilberds was signed on March 3, 1890. The contract loosely gave the factory exclusive right to produce The Dandy fruit jars. James was to receive $1.00 for every gross of jars sold; $0.50 for royalties on the patent and $0.50 for commission on selling them. The contract also gave James exclusive right to sell the jars as he saw fit for a period of four years. However, an interesting side note declared that The Findlay Bottle Company was to employ people to sell the jars too. Having your cake and eating it too?

Mr. Gilberds knew he stood on unsure footing concerning The Dandy. Clause #7 in the contract states “In case suit is brought against said company on the ground that the patent is an infringement of some other patent, or in case the rights of said co. are contested on the ground that the said company has not a good title to the same, so derived from the said Gilberds or that the patent is invalid as non-patentable.. The expense incident to such a suit and the judgment if any recovered therein shall be paid out of moneys so due him as above provided, the said Gilberds to have the right to name the attorney in said action.”

The contract was essentially good for one year, despite the clause about exclusive rights for four years. He made it clear that if he was not happy with the way the factory did business, he would withdraw from the deal. This is just what happened. James filed suit against the bottle works on August 31, 1891. His claim in court was that they failed to pay him his dues to the sum of $1448.89. He sued for damages amounting to $20,000

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for the loss of future revenues. This action on his part was prompted by the factory’s threat to legally bind him from taking his business elsewhere.

The officers of the Findlay Bottle Company had every right to take action on their behalf. The contract, so quickly mentioned by Gilberds in his lawsuit, had obligations that he himself never fulfilled.

James was, as stated in the contract, was to “transfer and assign to said company the exclusive right to manufacture said Dandy fruit jar.” Chances are, if he had transferred the papers, the jar would have immediately been shown to be a fraud.

This was something he could not let happen. The disposition of the case was not divulged, but the manufacture of the jars in Findlay ceased. All told, there were only 2470 gross of the jars, in various sizes, made here.

There are three colors The Dandy can be found in; amber, aqua, and clear. The Findlay Bottle Company only made the first two colors. Therefore, the clear would have been made elsewhere. Furthermore, it appears that there are no aqua lids to be found to match the aqua jars. This is curious, but not beyond explanation. It could be assumed that there was trouble with the type of glass the Findlay Bottle Company was using in making the jars, in regards to the plunger assembly necessary in pressing the lids. Therefore, they very well may have commissioned the work to another factory in Findlay. While there is no mention of this, it would go far in explaining this discrepancy. One can go further with this and even guess which factory was responsible,the Hancock Flint Glass Company. They were the closest capable of doing the work. While the factory closed soon after opening, it was open at the correct time to have done the work.

To add to the mystery, there was

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Above top - Side view, Gilberds Jar showing full body wire enclosure.

Above - Gilberds lidm top and side views.

Both marked “Improved” one with the July 31, 1883 date and the other with Oct. 15, 1885 added.

Bottom left - detail of the “improved” embossing on the second generation Gilberds jar.

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Immediate left - This woodcut illustration was first published in the Findlay Republican on May 26, 1891 Far left - A half gallon The Dandy jar in amber. On the base is “Gilberd” Top center - The Dandy jar lid, showing the highly modified stair step closure. The “wings” on the side provided support to the central structure.

Middle center - The jar had a fairly typical wire enclosure, wrapped around the neck, instead of the entire jar.

Bottom center - Base embossing.

a large wholesale firm from Chicago, namely Pitkin and Brooks, who had contracted for 1000 gross of Gilberds’ jars. Due to the court case, production was at a stand still. The firm made plans to purchase the Hancock plant, with the aim of reopening production of The Dandy.

This was report in the local papers on January 5, 1892. Unfortunately, it never happened. The search was broadened to other factories in the area. The Commoner and Glassworker reported, in the March 10, 1892 edition, the the newly named Sneath Glass Company of Tiffin, Ohio was host to a Mr. James Gilbert (sic). It seems likely that this was James Gilberds, as the article claimed he had recently put an improved jar on the market. Proof that the jars were made in Tiffin could be determined by the final statement. He has just made arrangements with the new firm for the manufacture of them, and his molds are now arriving.

The author visited the Findlay Bottle Company site in 1999. It was literally strewn with glass fragments.

In short order I picked up bases from Hero fruit jars, F.B.Co. wax sealers, and Gilberds embossed Dandy jars. But the more interesting tales came from FABC members who have dug there over the years. Amongst the many whole and broken items to come out of the site were amber and aqua Dandy jars, amber lids and...clear lids. Not a single aqua lid has ever surfaced from the site, suggesting that there never were any. Additionally, clumps of rusted wire bails were dug out of the ground, likely meant for application to the jar, but having never

been put in place. Physical evidence would indicate only a few sizes existent in The Dandy jars. The court transcript tells differently.

According to the Findlay contract, the molds and equipment supplied to the glass factory were as follows. The molds included the following; one milk jar mold, 7 cover molds and plungers, 15 half gallon molds, 24 quart jar molds, 7 pint molds, one half pint mold, one each of a 26 oz, 20 oz, 15 oz, 12 oz, 9 oz, 8 oz, and 5 oz size. There was also a wire bailing machine manufactured in Findlay (Adams Bros. Machine Shop) for making the closures for the jars. The fact that the manufacture of the jars moved to Tiffin cannot be disputed. How many were made can be, as little information seems to exist after the Findlay period. In 1897, two Tiffin attorneys placed a small advertisement in The Commoner and Glassworker. It read “For Sale Patent Letters No. 328115, issued Oct 31, 1885 for Dandy Fruit Jars.” The Sneath Glass Company left Tiffin in that year. As such, it could be assumed that they had acquired James Gilberds patent.

Mr. Gilberds died on July 14, 1901.

Cause of death was listed as apoplexy. He was 71. In his lifetime he had developed a variety of devices, mostly those intended

to preserve food products. From butter tubs to fruit jars, he had led a busy and varied life. But the 1885 patent was not his last. On May 24, 1892, he granted one for a bottle and stopper for the same. #475448, was yet another of the many different bottle caps that evolved over the years. It is unknown if it was ever manufactured. If so, it was not marked in the clear-cut way the other Gilberds’ items were.

Which brings up a few interesting points that have been raised over the years. One is a rare and old milk bottle embossed “The Dandy.” I have never seen it, but I have talked to those who make claim to its existence. Since the molds included one for a “milk jar”, it could be assumed that those came from the Gilberds’ mold. Another little mystery seems to surround Mason style jars with the Gilberds name on the bottom. It seems likely that it the molds were three piece (two sides and a base) then the base might conceivably fit a different mold.

A frugal glass blower might just reuse a part in making a new jar. Who would bother reading the bottom anyway? It seems the simplest explanation, which is often the best. I don’t guarantee it, but it stand by it. It makes for a dandy of a story, if nothing else.

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The Dating Game:

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Tracking the Hobble-Skirt Coca-Cola Bottle Bill Lockhart and Bill Porter

Frequently, the story of why an article was written is almost as informative as the actual publication. In this case, the tale will at least set the scene and explain why we are presenting what may seem like old information in a new package.

It began with a phone call and a question (neither of us remembers what question) that began a series of discussions that has lasted for years. As a member of the Bottle Research Group, Bill Lockhart (NM Bill or New Mexico Bill) was investigating manufacturer’s marks on bottles, and Bill Porter (MD Bill or Maryland Bill) was (and is) a devoted researcher on the subject of hobble-skirt Coca-Cola bottles. Topics of discussion have ranged from the obvious (the development of hobbleskirt Coke bottles) to technical details (like discovering the system of date codes used by the Graham Glass Co.).

Eventually, the questions concerning the development of the Coca-Cola bottle began to accumulate. As with most topics, there seems to be misinformation, misunderstanding, and just plain mistakes in the existing literature. The farther we looked, the more fresh questions arose. Norman Dean’s new book The Man Behind the Bottle answered some questions, but it, too, raised additional points. The following is an attempt to sort out some of these issues.

The Invention Although Munsey (1972:57) made the same identification almost 40 years earlier, Dean (2010:23-28) presents compelling evidence that his father, Earl R. Dean, was the designer (inventor) of the universally recognized and quite distinctive Coca-Cola bottle. Called the contour bottle by the Coca-Cola Co., and both the “Mae West” and “hobble-skirt” bottle by collectors, archaeologists, and drinkers, this is clearly the most recognized package in the world.

The story began when the Coca-Cola Co. felt the need for a standardized Coke bottle. The main office was concerned at least as early as 1913, when it ordered all Coke bottles to be standardized. Prior to that time, each franchise ordered its

own bottle and pretty much created its own design. Called “straight-sided” Coke bottles by collectors, these containers used different combinations of embossing and paper labels to identify the bottlers and the product. The 1913 edict required each bottle to be embossed with the script Coca-Cola logo on each shoulder and another on the base – as well as a standardized paper label at the center of the bottle. The bottler was free to emboss its own name and location on the heel of the bottle.

This edict was duly carried out by most of the manufacturers, but, since the “standardized” design was not patented, imitators simply copied it, and the change proved to be ineffective. An entirely new bottle was required, one that would qualify for a “design patent,” one that could be legally protected.

At a bottlers’ convention in 1914, Harold Hirsch requested a “bottle that we can adopt and call our own child” (Pendergrast 1993:105). Benjamin Thomas suggested “a distinctive package that will help us fight substitution. . . . a bottle that people can recognize . . . in the dark . . . so shaped that, even if broken, it would be recognized at a glance for what it is” (Munsey 1972:57).

In 1915, the Board of Directors agreed to the development of a completely unique package.

The firm contacted several glass houses, offering a contest for the best design for the Coca-Cola bottle. The design had to be distinctive both to the eye and the touch. This would replace the bottles with straight sides and either the bottler’s name embossed on the side of the bottle, a paper label affixed to the front, or both. Since the main method for cooling bottles was to immerse them in ice, the drinks were often not in plain sight of customer, and the labels frequently washed off as the ice melted. Coca-Cola wanted a bottle that the consumer could identify by touch alone. One of the firms that joined in the contest was the Root Glass Co. Chapman J. Root, president of the Root Glass Co., called a meeting at the Root factory with his company

auditor, T. Clyde Edwards; Alexander Samuelson, the plant superintendent; and Earl R. Dean, a bottle designer, machinist, and engraver. Root explained the situation, setting the process of invention in motion. Dean drew a design for the bottle, based on the shape of a cocoa pod (Figure 1).

R o o t approved the bottle, and Dean fashioned a mold for it. Placed on one of the Johnny Bull machines at the Root factory, the mold was used to make a few prototype bottles.1 Oddly, Root’s attorney only took Dean’s drawing of the back of the bottle to the patent office, along Figure 1 – Dean’s with Alexander drawing of the Samuelson, prototype bottle the plant (Dean 2010:36) superintendent.

Samuelson signed the patent document, and the prototype Coca-Cola bottle began its life (for the story in much greater detail, see Dean 2010).2 In 1971, the Coca-Cola Co. commissioned the Owens-Illinois Glass Co. to make a mold from the original prototype bottle. The glass house manufactured 5,000 reproduction bottles embossed “1915-1965” on the bases. Although made a bit late, these bottles commemorated the 50th anniversary of the hobble-skirt bottle (Munsey 2001). Few of these remain in circulation. However, the company allowed another reproduction in 1999, and these bottles are common (Figure 2). The bases of these newer reproductions are embossed “© 1999 THE COCA-COLA / COMPANY (both arched) / ALL RIGHTS / RESERVED (both inverted arches)” on the bases.

The bottles have no manufacturer’s marks.

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Figure 4 – Comparison of 1916 patent drawing with actual bottle

shape to make the bottle much more stable. Earl Dean further stated that “of the four individuals most connected Figure 2 – 1916 patent drawing of with the development of the bottle . . . prototype bottle Samuelson had the least to do with it” (Dean 2010:28).

The First Patent Although probably not a pertinent Alexander Samuelson, of Terre Haute, Indiana, officially applied for a point, there is no clear consensus as to whether the Coca-Cola patent on August 18, 1915, Co. actually adopted the and received Design Patent prototype bottle or the No. 46,180 for a “Design modified container. Clyde for a Bottle or Similar Edwards implied in 1949 Article” on November 16, that the modified bottle 1915. He assigned the patent was submitted to Coke. to the Root Glass Co. In Earl Dean, however, made design patent applications, it pretty clear in his 1971 the drawings tell the story interview that the Coca(Figure 3), but some of Cola main office selected the text is worth repeating. the prototype, and Dean Samuelson stated that he had modified it later (Dean “invented a new, original, 2010:30, 44). It is certain, and ornamental Design for however, that the prototype Bottles or Similar Articles.” was the bottle that was The document clearly stated patented, but the modified that the “Term of patent” extended for “14 years.”

Figure 3 – Reproduction bottle was the one actually produced.

It is important to note of prototype bottle An interesting aside has that the bottle in the drawing does not include the labeling area that to do with the bottle color. According appears on the actual prototype bottle to Allen (1994:112), George Hunter or later Coca-Cola bottles. The “bulge” wanted to make the new bottles from in the center is much more pronounced amber glass, but, after a protracted than those on the bottles actually used dispute, Veazey Rainwater succeeded by the company, and the circumference in setting the standard at a “light green” of the base is much smaller (Figure 4). or aqua color. Munsey (1972:60) agreed The bottle in the drawing was never that the light green was chosen and was used. According to Dean (2010:29), eventually called “Georgia-green” – but his father made all the alterations to the there were many exceptions (including

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colorless and various shades of greens and blues), especially during the early days of hobble-skirt production.

Both Munsey (1972:58) and Dean (2010:33) stated that Coca-Cola assigned the Root Glass Co. as the sole manufacturer of the bottle for the first year. This has to be pure myth, developed at some point by someone who misunderstood the patent system.

Samuelson received the patent. As an employee, he assigned the patent to the Root Glass Co. Root, then, had total control of the patent – and the bottle. Root – not Coca-Cola had the total say about who did or did not make the bottle. This point cannot be stressed too strongly.

The patent and all manufacturing rights pertaining to it rested only with the Root Glass Co. Both Munsey (1972:58) and Dean (2010:33) also stated that Root was awarded five cents per gross for all Coca-Cola bottles manufactured by other glass houses. Allen (1994:112113) and Dean (2010:33) added a story, possibly apocryphal, that Harold Hirsch proposed offering Root 25¢ per gross, but Root declined in order to keep the cost of the bottles down. His thinking, as reported, was that the cost would be passed on to the bottlers, who would rebel at the higher cost and continue using the older, straight-sided bottle – thereby actually losing money for Root.

As noted above, the Root Glass Co. – not Coca-Cola – owned the patent rights. It is very unlikely that anyone awarded Root anything. Chapman Root almost certainly set his own royalties.

The story, however, probably has a factual basis that was lost in the telling.

Once Coca-Cola adopted the hobbleskirt bottle, Chapman Root certainly knew he had acquired a gold mine, although one made of glass. He probably toyed with the idea the he could charge an outrageous royalty or commission – then realized that the bottlers would only tolerate a certain level of cost. On the other hand, the potential market was immense, so a lower royalty would pay off in big profits in the long run. And that market grew larger than he probably ever imagined.

As always, one misunderstanding leads to others. Dean (2010:33) implied that five-cent royalties were attached to the 1915 patent. If so, those commissions

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went to the Root company. Munsey (1972:58), however, discussed the 1923 patent and stated that “for the next fourteen years The Coca-Cola Company paid Root a five-cent royalty on every gross of bottles manufactured.” In other words, Munsey tied the royalties to the 1923 patent, paid to Chapman Root, personally. As explained above, Root already had the rights to the 1915 bottle.

In addition, Chapman Root personally patented the 1923 bottle – acquiring total rights to that one, too. But, this second time, those rights were in his own name. Again, Root set the price to the other glass houses. Coca-Cola had little control.

The power and control issues, however, need a bit more discussion.

Other researchers began with the assumption that the Coca-Cola Co. held all power connected with the hobbleskirt bottle. Our discussion above gives the impression that Root Glass Co. held total power. In reality, the power was more likely shared. Root had all rights to the production of the bottle, but CocaCola had the rights to the adoption of the container. This created a balance of power, and the agreements that governed that balance were certainly set between Chapman J. Root and the principals of the Coca-Cola Co. This balance may have had interesting ramifications in the adoption of the 1923-patent bottle.

Dean (2010:135) brought up another interesting point. Only the actual inventor of a design may be issued a patent.

Conversely, for a patent to be valid, all inventors must be listed on the document.

This suggests that at least the first patent, probably the second one, and possibly the third patent were taken out illegally and might not have withstood a serious challenge. With Dean’s evidence, there is virtually no question that his father, Earl Dean, designed the first and very likely the second bottle shown in the patent drawings. It is clear that neither Samuelson nor Root (in the case of the second patent – see below) deserved an identification as the sole inventor.

Further, Dean (2010:135) discussed that the employer owns the patent if the designer creates the design while on the job. Since Dean was in the employment of Root, the original patent was correctly assigned to the Root Glass Co. The assignment of the second patent

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to Chapman Root – the individual, not the company – may also be called into question.

The First Year Although we have exploded the myth of Coca-Cola controlling the royalty, we still need to test whether the Root Glass Co. maintained sole manufacturing rights for the first year. As noted above, both primary researchers of Coke bottle history thought that Root was granted exclusive rights to manufacture the hobble-skirt bottle during the first year of production. We have found no source that states when that very important year started. There is not even a solid consensus on when production of the bottle commenced and whether that date is also the date when Root’s “year” of exclusive manufacturing rights began.

Using records from the Coca-Cola main office, Munsey (1972:62) implied that the new, hobble-skirt bottles were first made during 1916. The Coca-Cola firm, indeed, provided a newspaper ad to the franchises in 1916 to help promote the new bottle. The ad carried the message that Coca-Cola impersonators “cannot imitate the new Coca-Cola bottle—it is patented” (Dean 2010:131).

Dean (2010:141) also noted an ad in the National Bottlers Gazette that announced – to the rest of the glass container manufacturers – the introduction of the contour bottle on April 5, 1917.

The ad stated that “Genuine bottled Coca-Cola is now sold in a new-shaped bottle—as per our fac-simile illustrated herewith.” The main office crowed that “every Coca-Cola bottler will welcome this new and distinctive package . . . [as] protection against infringers and would be infringers.” An October 1916 letter from Coca-Cola on display at the museum in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, also states that “the new bottles should be available by early spring” (i.e., spring 1917).

Munsey (1972:58) and Dean (2030:105), however, both observed that most bottlers needed to exhaust their supplies of the older, straight-sided bottles prior to adopting the new style.

Thus, the hobble-skirt bottle was phased in over time rather than immediately replacing the existing containers.

Because of this, the Coca-Cola Co. did not advertise the bottle to the general

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public until “its 1918 calendar, and later in magazine and newspaper ads” (Dean 2010:105). Virtually, all bottlers had adopted the hobble-skirt bottle by 1920, although Kendall (1978:7) claimed that a few hold-outs never used the 1915patent bottle, waiting until the second, 1923-patent bottle was available.

These ads mentioned above suggest that the bottles were not intended to be used by the franchises until the April 1917 debut. Other researchers (e.g.

Gilborn 1968:15; Kendall 1978:7; Pollard 1993:45) have also claimed a 1917 date for the initial manufacture of the first bottle. We, too, have found no evidence that any hobble-skirt bottles were produced in 1916.

The Message in (or on) the Bottle The bottles, themselves, provide a considerable amount of empirical evidence – evidence we can see and feel.

While we have discussed this aspect along with much of the documentary evidence so far, many bottles were embossed with extra information that bears on this story.

In the mid-1990s, Ben Napier, a former employee of the Chattanooga Glass Co., provided Bill Porter with a list of “directives” that Coca-Cola sent to the glass houses. These directives set up a chain of physical evidence – embossed clues opening up new interpretations for the early events surrounding the hobbleskirt bottles.

The Coca-Cola Co. sent a blueprint drawn by C.W. Mourey to various glass houses, including the Chattanooga Bottle & Glass Co. (as described in Napier’s directives). Dated August 16, 1916, this almost certainly marks the earliest transmission of bottle details to any companies other than Root. It also demonstrates that glass houses – aside from Root – had the capability to make the bottles by that time.

Coca-Cola sent a revision to the glass houses on May 13, 1918. From that point on, the city and state of each bottling plant was to be embossed on the bases of CocaCola bottles to maintain a record of plants that bottled Coca-Cola and ascertain that bottles were being sold only to authorized bottlers (Figure 5). This was a logical extension of previous practices in the soda bottling industry in general and reflected the typical bottler information on the earlier, straight-sided Coke bottles.

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code (Figure 6). We have found a few Root hobble-skirt bottles embossed with the “17” (1917) date codes but none from 1916. However, date codes for 1917 and 1918 are uncommon. Beginning in 1919, the numbers of hobble-skirt bottles made

by Root increased.

Figure 5 – City/State designation on early base

During the ca. 1880-ca. 1906 period, when Hutchinson soda bottles were the industry standard, the bottles were cased for delivery with the finish end of the bottle down to keep the seal moist and prevent leakage. Since the base of the bottle was thus exposed, many bottlers began having glass houses engrave the name or initials of the bottling company on the base of the mold. A dealer could thereby tell at a glance whether a case of empties contained any “foreign” bottles (i.e., ones belonging to another bottler).

With the adoption of crown-topped bottles, packed upright in a case, the need for basal embossing of company names was lost, but the practice continued. Some bottlers added the city and state location to their names or initials on the bases; others just used the city/state designation.

Coca-Cola merely formalized the practice in May of 1918.

Another letter from Coca-Cola, dated July 23, 1919, required both a manufacturer’s mark and the year of manufacture to be embossed on the heels of the containers “so cut that they will not disturb the conveying of the bottle” although they had to be “prominent enough to be seen under careful inspection.” Thus, glass house date codes and manufacturer’s marks were not required until after July 1919, and the city/state designation should also be present.

Two glass houses in particular used their own logos and other codes on hobbleskirt bottles prior to the 1919 Coca-Cola requirement. Of great importance, the Root Glass Co. used date codes embossed on the heels of its soda bottles beginning in 1909. Also embossed on the heels was the ROOT logo and, usually, a model

Figure 6 – Example of Root Glass Co. logo (straight-sided bottle)

Unfortunately, most early manufacturers did not include their logos or date codes on hobble-skirt Coke bottles until the July 1919 requirement from the main office. Thus, these bottles with no manufacturer’s marks or date codes can only be dated between 1917 and 1919 – although there is no guarantee that every glass house complied with logo and date code requirements at all times.

We thus have a limited guide for dating the early bottles: 1917-May 1918 – no manufacturer’s mark, date code, or city/state marking May 1918-July 1919 – city/state marking is present – but no manufacturer’s mark or date code July 1919-1930 – manufacturer’s mark, date code, and city/state marking are all present It should be noted that this was not practiced perfectly, and there are exceptions of various kinds throughout the entire history of the 1915-patent bottle. It is also important to realize that none of these dates is absolute. For example, some glass houses embossed their logos but no date codes on some bottles without city/state designations.

Those may indicate a manufacture during the 1917-1918 period, even though the glass house mark is present. Very little in bottle dating is ever absolute. However, this guideline gives us at least some broad generalities to use when looking at bottles made by specific glass houses.

Root Glass Co. The Root Glass Co. was incorporated on May 10, 1901, and occupied two factories in Terre Haute,

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Indiana. The first, completed November 1901, was for the manufacture of soft drink bottles, and the second made fruit jars. The jar business, however, was short lived, and Root concentrated on soda bottles after 1909. Root began developing its own semiautomatic machine as early as 1905 and had shifted almost entirely to machinemade bottles by 1912.

Root specialized in proprietary soft drink bottles (Figure 7). Called specialty bottles by the glass industry and deco bottles by collectors, these were elaborately designed containers, specific to individual brands of soda. Along with the hobble-skirt Coke bottles, Root also made bottles for Whistle, Orange Crush, Chero-Cola, and a particularly elaborate design for Bludwine – as well as many others.

Figure 7 – Root Glass Co. ad run from 1924 to 1946 (Glass Container)

Root became Plant No. 25 of the Owens-Illinois Glass Co. in 1932.

Although the company retained the Root name for the next two years, the plant ceased production of hobble-skirt bottles when it became part of Owens-Illinois.3 The factory continued to produce glass for Owens-Illinois until 1938 when it was shut down. It was reactivated in 1942 but was again idled in 1948 and was used as a warehouse when not active. As noted elsewhere, Root made 1915-patent bottles from 1917 to 1930.

Graham Glass Co. The Graham family entered the bottling business in 1904, with the acquisition of the Lythgoe Bottle Co. at Loogootee, Indiana. After incorporating as the Southern Indiana Glass Works, the Grahams began mechanizing by buying a Johnny Bull machine and inventing one of their own. They expanded in 1910, opening a new plant at Okmulgee, Oklahoma, followed by another at nearby

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Chacotah the following year. In 1912, the Grahams bought the Citizen’s Glass Co. at Evansville, Illinois, and renamed their venture the Graham Glass Co. The Graham machine was successful, and the firm specialized in soda bottles.

On June 28, 1916, the Owens Bottle Co. bought the entire Graham Glass operation but continued to run it under the Graham Glass Co. name. Owens sold the Chacotah plant in 1923 and closed the Loogootee factory in 1926. When Owens merged with the Illinois Glass Co. in 1929, the new firm closed the Okmulgee plant. The Graham tenure was at an end.

Like Root, Graham Glass included both its factory identification and its unique code system on virtually all its bottles. Graham generally embossed four codes on its bottles. First (usually) came the factory code. This was a single letter (two, in the case of Chekotah): L – Loogootee, Indiana E – Evanston, Illinois O – Okmulgee, Oklahoma CH – Chakotah, Oklahoma This was usually followed by either a G, P, or S. While G somewhat obviously means Graham (although it could mean General), we have conjectured that P may indicate Proprietary, and S equals Standard – although we have considered several other interpretations. All are speculation. At this point, we simply do not know. These are usually followed by a 1- to 3-digit model code.

Figure 8 – Graham Glass Co. logo, Evansville factory, with letter date code (R = 1918)

Beginning in 1916, Graham added a unique date code system (Figure 8). These codes were based on letters, starting with “P” – the 16th letter of the alphabet: P = 1916 Q = 1917 R = 1918 S = 1919 At the beginning of 1920, Graham adopted a two-digit, numerical date code (Figure 9). Oddly, when the firm used the

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Figure 9 – Graham Glass Co. logo, Chacotah factory, with both letter (S = 19) and numerical date code (21 = 1921)

old molds, the engravers often added the two-digit code to the right while leaving the older letter-code in place. Since the firm also frequently just stamped a new final digit over an existing one when it updated the mold for the next year, we sometimes have somewhat of a process history on a single bottle.

The story told by the Graham codes does not fit with the existing Coca-Cola histories. We have discovered several bottles with an LSQ heelmark. These were made at Graham’s Loogootee plant, and the “Q” code indicates that they were made in 1917! The implication here, of course, is that both Root and Graham were making hobble-skirt bottles in 1917.

The 1917 Graham date codes question the exclusive manufacture by Root. As we have demonstrated above, the story of Root being given exclusive manufacture is apocryphal; Root already owned the patent. So, why did Root allow Graham (and others – see below) to make hobble-skirt bottles during the first year?

While not intuitively obvious, the answer was probably tied to the production of other soda bottles. Root was probably already operating at close to full capacity in 1917 and simply did not have sufficient resources to handle the tremendous demand for Coke bottles. The obvious solution was the royalty system.

The rest of the Graham story is worth discussing. In both Coke bottles and other soda bottles, we have found more “Q” (1917) codes than “R” (1918) codes. In fact, Graham codes for 1917 outnumber the total 1917 production of hobble-skirt bottles by Root! There are two plausible explanations for this phenomenon. First, the “Q” code may be a “frozen” date code. In other words, bottles with the “Q” code may have actually been made in both 1917 and 1918 – possibly even into 1919.

Second, following up on the idea that Root had insufficient resources to

Bottles and Extras

fill all the early orders, Graham may have received so much business that the Loogootee plant made a huge number of the earliest bottles – much more than Root. Thus, the “Q” code really does always indicate 1917.4 However, Graham apparently shifted production of Coke bottles from Loogootee to Evansville at the end of 1917, although few soft drink bottles seem to have been produced in 1918 – anywhere. The U.S. involvement in World War I in 1918, the heaviest American participation of the entire conflict, probably played a large part in the reduced production. Because of shortages and rationing, it is also likely that bottles were used by each franchise until they completely wore out or were broken. Thus, there were fewer left to appear in current collections.

In 1919, bottles with the “S” date code were mostly made at the Evansville plant, although production shifted to Okmulgee for the western bottles in the early 1920s.

Some of the molds were transferred from Evansville to Okmulgee and show where the “O” had been stamped over the “E” for the plant code. Okmulgee ceased production of Coke bottles in 1926, but Evansville still made 1915 Coke bottles the following year. Orders must have been especially heavy in 1921. During that year alone, the “CH” code is found on hobble-skirt bottle heels, suggesting overruns sent to the smaller plant. For more information about the Graham marks, see Lockhart 2006a or Lockhart & Miller 2007).

The above data suggest two very interesting conclusions – that do not support the statement that the Root Glass Co. enjoyed an exclusive manufacturing right for the initial year of production.

First, initial production of hobble-skirt bottles likely began in 1917, probably in April. Second, at least two bottlers (almost certainly more – see below) began production in 1917, and Graham Glass seems to have been the most prolific.

The “Second Year” According to Dean (2010:33-34), Coca-Cola licensed six additional glass houses to make hobble-skirt bottles at the beginning of the second year: American Glass Works, Richmond, Virginia Chattanooga Bottle & Glass Mfg. Co.,

Bottles and Extras

Chattanooga, Tennessee Graham Glass Co., Evansville, Indiana Laurens Glass Works, Laurens, South Carolina Lynchburg Glass Works, Lynchburg, Virginia Pacific Glass Works, San Francisco, California Once again, empirical evidence questions the assumptions implied by these companies being involved in the “second year.” To reiterate from the documentary and empirical evidence presented above, it is highly likely that production of the hobble-skirt bottle first began commercially in early to mid-1917.

Therefore, the “second year” would have begun in early 1918. To test this idea, we need to look at the histories of the six glass houses and what we currently know about their bottles and their logos.

Of these six firms, only the Graham Glass Co. used date codes prior to the Coca-Cola edict of 1919. Since Graham was discussed above, it will not appear in the following analysis. Several also did not emboss their company logos on hobbleskirt bottles until 1919. Fortunately, however, most of the these companies left evidence that allows us to trace at least some of the unmarked bottles to specific glass houses. We can also assess when each firm began using date codes and when some of them ceased production of the contour bottles.

American Glass Works The American Glass Works opened in 1908 at Richmond, Virginia. The plant originally made medicinal bottles for Sauer’s Extract, a company also run by C.F. Sauer, the glass house owner. Eventually, the factory made a general line of bottles, including soda bottles. The plant had at least one machine by 1916. About 1919, the American Glass Works bought out the Duquesne Glass Co. at Paden City, West Virginia, but the Richmond plant burned in 1925 and was not rebuilt. The Paden City factory made essentially the same products and remained in business until ca. 1935.

Mouth-blown bottles (also called Blown In Mold or BIM) were embossed with a two- or three-digit number placed below the glass house logo (e.g., A.G.W. / 133). Machine-made bottles, however, were embossed with a one- or two-

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digit number, a dash, then a single-digit number, beneath the mark (e.g., A.G.W. / 67-5). We have only discovered a single hobble-skirt bottle embossed with a city/ state designation on the base. However, there are numerous examples embossed with the A.G.W. basemark and American’s typical machine-made numerical code (Figure 10).

Figure 10 – Typical machine-made base, American Glass Works (eBay)

These numbers deserve some discussion. On the mouth-blown bottles, the typical three-digit number was almost certainly a model or catalog code. The double code on machine-made bottles is not as easy to explain. The first two digits (to the left of the dash) may be model codes or mold numbers. We have recorded those in a range from 9 to 75 so they cannot be date codes. The numbers to the right of the dash, however, are always single digits between 1 and 5. These may be date codes from 1921 to 1925.

Our single hobble-skirt bottle with the city/state designation was almost certainly made in 1919, shortly after the Coca-Cola Co. issued the requirement. The others may have been made prior to that time.

Since these are fairly common, at least some were most likely made at least as early as 1918. We may never know why the American Glass Works apparently dropped Coca-Cola bottle production early. If, indeed, the single digits on the bottle bases are date codes, the company may have stopped making soft drink bottles when the Richmond plant burned.

Chattanooga Bottle & Glass Co. The Chattanooga Bottle & Glass Co. opened at Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1901. The plant may have begun machine production as early as 1910 and was certainly mechanized by 1913. The factory

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made a variety of bottle types, although it specialized in soda and beer bottles. The firm’s first expansion occurred in 1917, when it bought the Tallapoosa Glass Co., Tallapoosa, Georgia.

In 1930, the firm became the Chattanooga Glass Co. It absorbed the Florida Glass Mfg. Co., Jacksonville, Florida, in 1947 and opened a branch plant at Corsicana, Texas, in 1958. Chattanooga became a subsidiary of the Dorsey Corp. in 1960, although the unit continued to operate as the Chattanooga Glass Co. Although the plant remained in operation when the Container General Corp. took over in 1983, it no longer retained its own identity (Lockhart 2006b).

The earliest date code on a hobble-skirt bottle made by the Chattanooga firm was 1920, placed to the right of the company logo “CHATT” on the heel (Figure 11).

The “CHATT” mark was used until mid1934 on the heel of the bottle. In 1934, it was replaced by the Circle-C (©) logo (Figure 12), which appeared on the bottle skirt.5 The Circle-C was moved from the skirt to the base in 1951. (Interestingly, the Circle-C appeared on the base, briefly, in 1927, and, on a few 1926-dated bottles, a very small Circle-C was embossed on the neck.)

But neither date codes nor manufacturer’s marks tell the full story.

The documents provided by Ben Napier include the original requirement by the

Figure 11 – CHATT heelmark, Chattanooga Glass Co.

Figure 12 – Chattanooga Glass Co. Circle-C (©) logo

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Coca-Cola Co. to use the C.W. Mourey blueprint for the 1915-patent bottle. That edict, dated August 16, 1916, was sent to the Chattanooga Bottle & Glass Co. There would have been no reason to send that message to Chattanooga – unless the Chattanooga plant had been selected for the production of original hobble-skirt bottles.

Although we have no absolute proof, we believe that early hobble-skirt bottles made by the Chattanooga Bottle & Glass Co. are distinguished by very large-letter bases (as were later bottles made by the glass house), and/or by a period after 1915 located as much as a millimeter to the right, and by large, rather thin side letters.

In addition, the bottles are blue in color, are well made, and are heavy. These early bottles were very common; Chattanooga was at least as prolific as Graham. We thus submit that Chattanooga was also one of the original manufacturers of the 1915-patent bottle in 1917.

Chattanooga rapidly became one of the largest makers of hobble-skirt bottles.

It is virtually certain that Chattanooga Glass only began the use of date codes because of the Coca-Cola requirement.

The firm was one of the last hold-outs, eschewing date codes on its non-Coke bottles until forced to comply by federal law changes in the 1970s.

Laurens Glass Works Although Laurens Glass Works began production in 1911, it shut down later that year and did not reopen until 1913. Although the plant soon specialized in soda bottles, it did not begin machine manufacture until ca. 1919. Laurens added date codes to its “LGW” logo in 1919 – almost certainly because of the Coca-Cola requirement (Figure 13).

Unlike Chattanooga, Laurens used date codes for the rest of its tenure in business.

Like Chattanooga, however, the South Carolina firm also became a major hobble-skirt bottle producer.

Laurens holds the distinction of being the only factory to manufacture mouthblown hobble-skirt bottles. These were sky blue in color, and we have recorded examples with city/state codes only for Florida, Georgia, and both Carolinas.

Many of the Laurens bottles were made without city/state basal designations.

These (especially the mouth-blown bottles) may have been produced in 1917.

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Bottles and Extras

Figure 13 – Laurens Glass Works heelmark (eBay)

Others have the city/state designations – but the lack of manufacturer’s marks or date codes. These bottles probably fit best between May 1918 and July 1919.

At least one machine-made bottle was probably produced in late 1919. This example had no city/state codes but lacked punctuation after “NOV. 16” and “1915” – a characteristic also found in the mouth-blown bottles.

Lynchburg Glass Works The Lynchburg Glass Works, Lynchburg, Virginia, began production about February 1919 and probably made Coke bottles from its inception. The firm embossed its “Lbg” logo on the heels of 1915-patent Coke bottles that were a smoky grey in color (Figure 14).

We have only discovered a single “20” (1920) code on a Lynchburg bottle. The plant burned in 1921 and never resumed bottle manufacture (although it continued to make insulators and jars). Some bottles were embossed with “Lbg” on both heel and base but have no date codes. These were probably made during 1919.

Pacific Glass Works The final glass house on the “second year” list was the Pacific Glass Works, San Francisco. This was apparently the

Figure 14 – Lynchburg Glass Works “Lbg” logo

firm expected to carry the West Coast business for Coca-Cola, but there is something amiss here. The Pacific Glass Works was only open between 1862 and 1875. The Pacific Coast Glass Works was open from 1902 to 1924 and was followed by the Pacific Coast Glass Co. (1924-1930). This was probably the firm intended by the list. Pacific Coast Glass used several logos over the years, but we have never seen a single one on a CocaCola bottle.

The “Third Year” Dean (2010:34) further stated that Coca-Cola broadened the number of glass houses licenced to make the bottles in the third year. However, aside from the single bottle made by the American Glass Co., we have only discovered a total of nine glass houses that made the 1915 bottle (see Table 1). Although we are discussing the

Table 1 – Early Hobble-Skirt Bottle Makers (1916 patent) Manufacturer

Location

Dates*

Root Glass Co.

Terre Haute, Indiana

1917-1930

Graham Glass Co.

Loogootee, Indiana

1917**

Graham Glass Co.

Evansville, Indiana

1918-1927

Graham Glass Co.

Okmulgee, Oklahoma

ca. 1920-1926

Graham Glass Co.

Chacotah, Oklahoma

1921

Laurens Glass Works

Laurens, South Carolina

1917-1928

Chattanooga Bottle & Glass Co.

Chattanooga, Tennessee

1917-1927

Obear-Nester Glass Co.

East St. Louis, Missouri

ca. 1918-ca. 1919

Lynchburg Glass Co.

Lynchburg, Virginia

1919-1920

Southern Glass Co.

Vernon (Los Angeles), California

1919-ca. 1926

F.E. Reed & Co.

Rochester, New York

1920-1927

Illinois-Pacific Glass Corp.

Los Angeles, California

ca. 1926-1929

* Dates of production of 1916-patent hobble-skirt bottles are based on empirical evidence. ** Some hobble-skirt bottles were made at Loogootee after 1920, but these were probably overruns – where the other factories could not keep up with production.

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glass houses not included in the “second year” list below, they do not necessarily fit into that temporal order.

Obear-Nester Glass Co. Although not generally noted for making soft drink bottles, the ObearNester Glass Co. was located at East St. Louis, Illinois, from 1894 to 1978. At least nine 1915-patent Coca-Cola bottles were embossed on the heels with “ON” followed by a one- or two-digit number between 5 and 24. The bottles were made for Coca-Cola franchises at Kansas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Illinois, and Iowa – all states adjacent to the Obear-Nester plant at East St. Louis.

Figure 16 – Example of REED heelmark (not a Coke bottle)

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The third logo used by Southern Glass on soda bottles is also found on the bases of at least two 1915 hobble-skirt bottles. This mark consisted of “SGCo” in a downwardly slanted, segmented parallelogram (Figure 18). These bottles have no heel embossing, no date codes, and no city/state designations. Empirical evidence from non-Coke bottles suggests that the mark was used between ca. 1923 and 1926.

Figure 17 – Example of R-in-a-Triangle (not a Coke bottle) Figure 15 – Obear-Nester O-N logo

None of the Coke bottles had date codes, but most had city/state designations, so they were probably made between 1918 and 1919. At least one lacked a city/state marking and may have been made slightly earlier. We have also found crown-topped, non-Coke bottles embossed “O-N” in larger letters on the heels, followed by single-digit numbers (Figure 15). Despite a thorough search through the bottle literature, we have been unable to find any other glass company with initials that even came close to “ON.” Thus, it appears that Obear-Nester was one of the early hobble-skirt Coke bottle manufacturers.

F.E. Reed Glass Co. Although it grew out of several earlier companies, the F.E. Reed Glass Co., Rochester, New York, was in business under that name from ca. 1909 to 1947. The firm made a general line of bottles and had semiautomatic machinery by at least 1913. All but a few specialty items were machine made by 1922. The company incorporated in 1947 as the Reed Glass Co., Inc. and remained in operation until 1956.

As with most glass houses that were in business for many years, Reed used several manufacturer’s marks. Some Reed hobble-skirt bottles lack the city/ state designation on the base. Most of the 1915-patent bottles, however, were

embossed “REED” on the heel followed by a two-digit date code (Figure 16). Our sample includes date codes from “20” (1920) to “25” (1925). From 1923 to 1926, 1915-patent bottles were embossed with REED on the heel and R-in-a-Triangle on the bases.6 All of the 1923-patent bottles had the triangle mark (Figure 17). Reed only made hobble-skirt bottles for New York Coca-Cola franchises and a few in surrounding states (New Hampshire, Ohio, and Pennsylvania).

Southern Glass Co. Located at Vernon (Los Angeles), California, the Southern Glass Co. began production in 1919. Specializing in milk and soda bottles (although it made other bottle types), the plant began machine manufacture by 1920, although many of the bottles were still mouth blown. The factory continued in production until 1930. See Lockhart et al (2009) for more details.

Three different Southern Glass Co. logos were embossed on 1915-patent Coca-Cola bottles. One of these, a simple “S” in the center of the base, was embossed on at least four hobble-skirt bottles, with 64-8 (or other numbers following the “64”) embossed on the heels. This mark has not been found on other bottles that can be traced to the Southern Glass Co. The logo may well have been used on Coca-Cola bottles from the beginning of production in 1919 until ca. 1923.

Figure 18 – Southern Glass Co. SGCo in a downwardly slanted, segmented parallelogram (courtesy of Mike Miller)

Figure 19 – Southern Glass Co. Star-S logo

Southern used a final logo, the Star-S (also known as the “Southern Star”) from 1926 to 1927 with no date codes (Figure 19). This mark, too has been found on a 1915-patent bottle with “64-8” embossed on the heel. Although Southern used date codes early on milk bottles, it first began embossing date codes on soda bottles (in conjunction with the Southern Star logo) in 1928.

Illinois-Pacific Glass Corp.

The final West Coast manufacturer’s mark we have discovered on 1915 bottles was the Triangle-IPG mark (Figure 20),

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Bottles and Extras

Coast hobble-skirt manufacturer, probably beginning in 1919. A shift to IllinoisPacific apparently occurred during a transition period between 1920 and 1926.

7. The 1915-patent hobble-skirt bottles were made from 1917 to 1930, although only Root continued production during the last two years.

Figure 20 – Example of Illinois-Pacific Glass Corp. Triangle-IPG logo (not a Coke bottle)

used by the Illinois-Pacific Glass Corp. from ca. 1925 until the firm merged with the Pacific Coast Glass Co. in 1930. These had date codes of “7” through “9” (19271929), although a few had no date codes and may have been made in 1926. The company used a very few date codes on other soda bottles in 1926 but had adopted date codes regularly on all its soda bottles by the following year. See Lockhart et al.

(2005) for more details on Illinois-Pacific.

Conclusions About the First Three “Years” These discrepancies between the physical (empirical) evidence and the documentary records creates cause for concern. While it is true that the lack of a date code requirement during the critical 1917-1918 period leaves us with somewhat limited information, the data we do possess, at the very least, contradicts the written histories. To summarize the empirical data: 1. Hobble-skirt bottle production probably began at some point during 1917.

2. At least two glass houses – Root and Graham – manufactured contour bottles during the first year.

3. Three more glass manufacturers – Chattanooga, Laurens Glass Works, and the American Glass Works – show at least some evidence of having also made hobble-skirt bottles in 1917.

4. Most of the hobble-skirt bottles made in 1917 were made by other plants – not Root.

5. Four other glass houses (Obear-Nester, Lynchburg, Southern, and Reed) entered into production between 1918 and 1920.

6. Southern Glass Co. was the initial West

This data suggest that the original information from historical records is inaccurate. It is highly probable that the Root Glass Co. simply did not possess the capacity to fill all the orders for the new hobble-skirt bottles in 1917. We may never know how or why the real selection process began; however, either Root or Coca-Cola (or both in collaboration) almost immediately chose at least three other glass houses to fill orders. As the contour bottle became more popular, Root and/or Coca-Cola added subsequent glass houses to the list.

This evidence fails to support the idea that six manufacturers produced Coke bottles by “the second year” – 1918. The list was probably produced from memory – as was a great deal of the published history of the original 1915-patent bottles. We have found no evidence that the Pacific Coast Glass Co. produced any Coca-Cola bottles; the Pacific Glass Works had closed in 1875 – an obvious mis-identification.

Figure 21 – Patent drawing, December 25, 1923

Figure 22 – Comparison of 1923 patent drawing with actual bottle

The Second Patent On February 4, 1922, Chapman J. Root filed for a patent for a “Design for a Bottle” and received Design Patent No. 63,657 on December 25, 1923. Root did not assign the patent to his company.

Root specified that he had “invented a new, original, and ornamental Design for a Bottle” and referred to the drawing for details (Figure 21). Again, the term of the patent was 14 years.

This drawing had radically changed from the original patent drawing of 1916.

Of importance, the bulge had dramatically decreased, and the constriction or waist was both reduced and moved upward.

In addition, the labeling area was now clearly illustrated. In other words, this drawing really looks like a Coke bottle (Figure 22).

Dean (2010:148) described the physical changes made to the Christmas bottle so well that the integrity of his wording needs to be preserved: In the process of patenting the 1923 bottle, Earl R. Dean was called upon to make a design change in the 1916 (modified) bottle. In addition to changing the embossed patent date from November 16, 1915[,] to December 25, 1923, Dean was instructed to make the change so minor that it would not be noticeable to preserve the integrity of the highly successful design. He obviously succeeded. As of this writing, the change is still mostly unknown.

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The change consisted of making notches, or breaks, in the two vertical ribs separating the front and back panels of the 1916 bottle. The breaks were made in the ribs adjacent to the tops and the bottoms of the panels, resulting in the panel lines being extended completely around the bottle. This change was carried over to later glass contour bottles and can be seen at a glance if one knows what to look for. [Figure 23]7

Figure 23 – Comparison of 1916 and 1923 bottles – note indentations on rib at both sides of the labeling area

This brings up interesting issues, and the alterations made to the bottle need to be discussed in light of the changes in the patent drawing. These are two different issues – although they are distinctly related. In order for the 1923 design patent to be issued, the bottle featured in the drawing had to be sufficiently changed to warrant a new and separate patent. This should have been basically simple, since the 1915 patent was for the original Dean prototype that was never actually placed into commercial use.

However, Root seems to have had trouble obtaining the patent. He filed the application on February 4, 1922, and did not receive the patent until December 25 of the following year. That is a delay of one year, ten months, and 21 days! This suggests that the patent office was hard to convince. Root had to show that his design was sufficiently different from the original to warrant a new patent.

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This delay in the patent approval does not make intuitive sense, especially in light of the comparative ease with which the next (1937) patent was accepted.

Since the 1916 patent was for the original prototype bottle that was never used, the drawing bore little resemblance to actual containers filled by Coca-Cola bottlers. It is thus highly likely that the patent office compared the new drawing to the actual bottle in use – and questioned whether this was a sufficient design change to warrant a new patent. Although probably not recorded anywhere, this must have been an interesting story.

As usual, the evidence calls to mind as many questions as it does answers.

Who drew the design for the 1923 patent?

Dean noted that his father actually made the design changes, but who drew the design for the 1923 bottle? The best guess, of course, is Dean. If so, why did that identification not come up in any of the interviews. It seems likely that he would have said something like, “Yes, and they did it to me again in 1923” or words to that effect.

Dean answered another question, probably correctly (at least in our opinions). The original patent was good for 14 years. Root applied for the 1923 patent just seven years, three months, and 19 days after the original patent was received. The patent was only halfway through its term, seemingly nullifying the need for a new patent. According to Dean (2010:31), however, “Root’s interest in developing the Coca-Cola bottle was, at that time, defensive. He wanted to protect the soft-drink bottle business that he

presently had and felt that if a bottle were adopted that he could not manufacture, that the Root Glass Company might suffer.”

Dean (2010:132) later went into even more detail. Even though CocaCola advertised that its new bottle was patented and “therefore cannot be used by any other manufacturer of any other kind of bottled carbonated goods,” Root was likely concerned because the original patent drawing had little resemblance to the actual bottle in use. There was no actual patent for the design used for the bottle embossed “BOTTLE PAT’D NOV. 16, 1915.”

However, Root did not assign the patent to his company. This must be significant, although the timing is not intuitive. In 1922, when Root applied for the patent, the Root Glass Co. was going strong and showed every indication of remaining one of the dominant soft drink bottle manufacturers. Root had its own automatic machine, and the development of its most important potential rival, the Owens-Illinois Glass Co., was years in the future. However, as noted by Dean (2010:132), if Root ever sold the company, the lucrative patent and attached royalties would go with it. Did Root foresee the downfall of his firm? If so, he was prescient, indeed. The Root Glass Co. remained in business until 1932 – ten years after Root applied for the patent – when Root sold the company to Owens-Illinois. He must have wanted to retain the royalties on bottle sales, even if the company folded.

Table 2 – 1923-Patent Hobble-Skirt Bottle Makers Manufacturer

Location

Dates*

Southern Glass Co.

Vernon (Los Angeles), California

1928

Illinois-Pacific Glass Corp.

Los Angeles, California

1928-1932

Owens-Illinois Pacific Coast Co.

Los Angeles, California

1934-1938**

Graham Glass Co.

Evansville, Indiana

1928-1929

Owens-Illinois Glass Co.

Evansville, Indiana

1930-1938†

Laurens Glass Works

Laurens, South Carolina

1928-1938††

Chattanooga Bottle & Glass Co.

Chattanooga, Tennessee

1928-1938††

F.E. Reed & Co.

Rochester, New York

1928-1929

Root Glass Co.

Terre Haute, Indiana

1928-1932

* Dates of production of 1923-patent hobble-skirt bottles based on empirical evidence ** Very few 1923-patent bottles were made by Owens-Illinois in California in 1934 (two in our sample). † Almost all 1930 and 1931 date codes are on molds made for Graham Glass Co. †† Very few 1923-patent bottles were made by any glass house in 1938.

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Again, we need to look at empirical evidence – although not in as great a detail as in the case of the first patent.

The same researchers who addressed the manufacturing dates for the 1915patent bottle also addressed the use of the Christmas Coke bottles. Gilborn (1968:15) and Pollard (1993:45) dated the manufacture of the 1923-patent bottles at 1924 to 1937. Kendall (1978:7) claimed a range of 1926 to 1938. The earliest date code we have found on one of these bottles, however, is for 1928, and they were made until 1938. See Table 2 for a list of the nine glass houses that made the 1923-patent bottles.

Once again, there seems to be a gap between the patent date and manufacturing date. Unlike the 1915-patent bottle – where the main hesitation was on the part of bottlers who wanted to use up the existing supply of outmoded bottles – the probable reason for a lag here has to do with the manufacturing process. One of the costliest replacements in bottle production is the molds. We find repeated evidence that manufacturers used molds until they wore out. It is probable that the glass houses simply balked at producing the new design as long as old molds were still functional. Root, a glass maker, would have been very understanding.

According to Ben Napier’s information, one final change was connected with the Christmas Coke bottles. At a meeting of the bottle manufacturers on May 29, 1934, the Coca-Cola Co. announced that henceforth the “manufacturer’s mark, date of manufacture, and mold number were to be blown in at the ‘hobble’ on the flute beneath the word ‘PAT’D.’” At the same time, the contour of the reinforcing ring on the finish was standardized for the first time.

The Third Patent Eugene Kelly, of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, filed for a “Design for a Bottle” at the U.S. Patent Office on March 24, 1937.

He received Design Patent No. 105,529 on August 3 of the same year and assigned the patent to “The Coca-Cola Company, Wilmington, Del., a Corporation of Delaware.” Again, the drawing was the main determinant of the design (Figure 24) and the wording in the text indicated that Kelly “invented a new, original, and ornamental Design for a Bottle.”

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Bottles and Extras

under patent protection. That protection required Root to show good justification that his design was, in fact, sufficiently different to warrant a new patent. In this case, the 1923 patent would elapse in just a little over four months. This shorter period may have created less potential for conflict.

Figure 24 – Patent drawing, D-105523, August 3, 1937

The Patent Act of 1927 created a change in the markings on Coca-Cola bottles (and all other patented items). Prior to the act, the Patent Office required the date of the patent to be clearly placed on the patented item. Following the Act, the date was replaced by the patent number.

Because of this, bottles of the third patent are embossed “BOTTLE PAT. D-105529” – replacing the patent date that was used on the first two bottle styles.

Even though the process for this patent only took four months and ten days to complete, this bottle was still a recognizable variation of the one patented in 1923. The speed with which this patent zipped through the process may also have an interesting story attached to it.

However, the explanation may be much simpler. When Root applied for the 1923 patent and faced a long delay before receiving it, the 1915 design was still

Figure 25 – Comparison of 1937 patent drawing (D-105523) with actual bottle

The 1937 drawing emphasized a thicker waist, with the constriction moved to a higher point, with a notably greater curvature in the labeling area. The heel of the bottle in the drawing is much rounder, and virtually every other feature is exaggerated. This effect, although apparent in the patent drawings, is not present upon a visual examination of actual bottles, and it is not supported by actual measurement (Figure 25; Table 3). In fact, the bottle embossed “BOTTLE PAT. D-105529” has a slightly narrower waist than the earlier, December 25 bottle. It seems obvious that the drawings were intended to emphasize differences between the two designs for the purpose of claiming a “new, original, and ornamental design.”

Table 3 – Measurements of Selected Hobble-Skirt Bottles (in cm.)

Bottle

Bulge

Constriction

Heel

Seam

Center

Seam

Center

Seam

Center

PAT’D NOV. 16, 1915

6.1

5.95

5.1

5.0

6.1

6.1

PAT’D DEC. 25, 1923

5.95

5.9

5.3

5.2

6.1

6.1

PAT. D-105529

6.0

6.0

5.1

5.35

6.1

6.1

IN U.S. PATENT OFFICE

6.0

5.9

5.2

5.2

6.0

6.0

ACL

5.9

5.9

5.15

5.1

5.95

5.9

Bottles and Extras

As noted above, Ben Napier provided Bill Porter with a list of “directives” that Coca-Cola sent to the glass houses, including a letter requiring changes to comply with the 1937 patent. Aside from the obvious alteration of the patent number, changes in the D-105529 bottle included: The side flutes between the trade-mark panels were made elliptical in shape.

The Coca-Cola script trade-mark was modified slightly to give it a more graceful appearance.

The bottom (base) of the bottle was to be flat instead of concave.

Specified diameters were reduced by .010” because of previous dimensions applied to molds rather than finished bottles.

Each of these changes deserves a bit of discussion.

Elliptical Side Flutes These are the ribs that divide the front and back labeling areas. In a visual comparison of a 1923 bottle, a 1937 (D-105523) bottle, and the 1937 patent drawing, a few interesting features of these side “flutes” become apparent. The patent drawing labeled “Fig. 5” shows a cross-section of the hobble-skirt bottle at the center of the labeling area. The drawing shows the flutes as being very rounded. When the 1923 and 1937 bottles are laid on their sides with a flute on each bottle facing upward, it is obvious that the 1937 flute is more rounded and more pronounced. The difference in thickness is less noticeable when the bottles are held side by side with the finish up – although it is still apparent. This feature is shown much more clearly in “Fig. 1” of the patent drawing. Finally, when the flute is viewed directly (as in “Fig. 2” of the patent drawing), it is also more elliptical that the one on the 1923 bottle.

Coca-Cola Script Logo Modification and the Flat Base Although very slight, the logo really has noticeable alterations. The finial at the end of the “tail” underlining the “oca” is shorter, wider, and slightly reshaped, and the loop at the top of the “C” is a bit larger. The concavity of the base on the 1923 bottles is very slight, but the 1937 modification really is flat, although it

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is recessed below the resting point (i.e., the ring upon which the bottle actually sits on the table). “Fig. 3” in the patent drawing, however, shows the base to be concave. The patent drawing is actually more of a caricature of Coke bottle than a representation of the bottle, itself.

Dean (2010:145) stated that his father “made changes to the 1923 bottle ‘a hundredth of an inch here and there.’”

While this old memory seems to support the requirements noted by Napier, neither conforms to the obviously larger changes shown in the patent drawings (see Figure 25), and such minute changes in the bottle, itself, would certainly not qualify it as a “new, original, and ornamental design.”

It is notable that the Coca-Cola company now had control over the design patent for its own bottles for the first time – after 21 years, eight months, and 18 days of control by Chapman J. Root and/ or the Root Glass Co. But, like all the other patents, the evidence we find leaves unanswered questions.

The first question wraps around a topic we broached earlier. Where does the Owens-Illinois Glass Co. fit into this picture? Owens-Illinois bought the Root Glass Co. in 1932, five years prior to the elapse of the Root 1923 patent. It is probable that the patent, in the name of Chapman Root, did not transfer to OwensIllinois – although a significant portion of hobble-skirt bottle manufacture did go to the firm. By 1932, Owens-Illinois controlled both the former Root Glass Co. and the former Graham Glass Co.8 The plants continued to make Coke bottles (including transition bottles embossed with logos of both Owens-Illinois and the former firms).

Did Chapman Root refuse to sell/ transfer the patent to Owens-Illinois?

Did he continue collecting royalties on Coke bottles for another seven years?

Did Owens-Illinois attempt to obtain a patent on the Coke bottles? Did the giant glass firm even care? Did CocaCola and Owens-Illinois reach some tacit agreement? We will almost certainly never know or even rationally speculate about the answers to most of these questions.

Another question is: Why was Kelly chosen as designer? According to Dean (2010:134), “Why Kelly was chosen to be inventor was anyone’s guess.” Dean noted that his father had “obtained Root’s approval every step of the way . . . when

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he made the minor changes in the bottle for the 1923 and 1937 patents.” In this case, Dean may have overstepped his bounds in his defense of his father.

Since Chapman Root sold the glass business to Owens-Illinois in 1932, he had been out of the picture for five years when the 1937 patent occurred, and Earl Dean now worked for Owens-Illinois. There is no evidence of any sort that OwensIllinois was even remotely involved in the 1937 patent. This was a coup that was apparently carefully engineered by the Coca-Cola Co. to gain control – for the first time – of what was possibly the firm’s greatest asset.9 According to Dean (2010:134), Eugene Kelly, a Georgia native, operated the Canadian Coca-Cola operation.

Eventually, Kelly rose to be a national director before retiring on November 5, 1969. As Dean noted, Kelly is very unlikely to have actually designed the slight changes in the bottle. However, it is highly probable that he assigned that duty to one of his Canadian plant employees – then took the design to the U.S. patent office. It would be interesting to know if Kelly planned the coup alone and delivered it as a surprise to the main office. To have presented such an accomplishment to the Board of Directors would certainly have been a feather in his cap.

Ben Napier (noted above) may have provided at least a partial answer to this enigma. In a letter to Bill Porter, Napier stated that “during 1936, the bottle manufacturers were asked to submit proposed minor design changes for the purpose of obtaining a new patent.” This second contest, then, was apparently won

by Kelly. While there seems to have been no specific prize involved, the resulting patent certainly had an effect on Kelly’s mobility within the company.

The typical lag between patent and manufacture seems to have disappeared with this bottle change. Gilborn (1968:15) and Pollard (1993:45) both claim no lag at all; the bottles were made from 1937 to 1951. Kendall (1978:7) agreed with the 1951 closing date but set the first manufacture of the new style at 1938.

Our study agrees with Kendall; the bottles were made between 1938 and 1951. By this time, only four glass houses still manufactured Coke bottles: OwensIllinois Glass Co., Chattanooga Glass Co., Laurens Glass Works, and Liberty

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Glass Co., Sapulpa, Oklahoma. The first three made the bottles during the entire hobble-skirt period, but Liberty Glass was a latecomer to Coca-Cola bottle production, only making the D-patent bottles in 1950 and 1951 – mostly for bottlers in Oklahoma and the surrounding states. See Table 4 for a chronology of Coke bottle changes.

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Citing Coca-Cola archivist, Wilbur Kurtz, Jr., however, Dean (2010:133134) claimed that the bottle was protected by “common law rights” during this period, an idea also supported earlier by Munsey (1972:58). This is a reference to the common law rights for trademarks.

According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (2010):

Federal registration is not IN U.S. PATENT OFFICE required to establish rights On August 3, 1951, the in a trademark. Common D-105529 patent expired, 14 law rights arise from actual years afer it was issued, and use of a mark. Generally, the the new Coca-Cola bottles first to either use a mark in were embossed “TRADE commerce or file an intent MARK REGISTERED / IN to use application with the U.S. PATENT OFFICE.” The Patent and Trademark Office top line was identical to the has the ultimate right to use ones on each of the previous and registration. bottles, but the second line was a complete change. In reality, Johnson & Denklau the embossing only means (2003) make the distinction that the script Coca-Cola logo more clear: “Unlike trademark was registered as a trademark common law rights, patent in the patent office.10 The protection must be granted patent protection on the by the Patent and Trademark bottle, itself, had elapsed in Office.” In other words, August. The embossing of common law protection only “IN U.S. PATENT OFFICE” on the bottles was probably Figure 26 – IN U.S. applies to trademarks.

It is important to realize, an attempt to discourage any PATENT OFFICE however, that Kurtz was copies of the bottles (Figure bottle looking at the issue in 26). After all, it still looks impressive – even though it has no retrospect – not from the viewpoint of the meaning as far as the bottle, itself, is Coca-Cola Co. during the actual period between 1951 and 1960. Kurtz was fully concerned.

Table 4 – Dates of Manufacture of Hobble-Skirt Bottle Characteristics Characteristic

Dates

PAT’D NOV. 16, 1915

1917-1930

Manufacturer’s mark and date code on heel

1919 (1917) -1934

PAT’D DEC. 25, 1923

1928-1938

Manufacturer’s mark moved from heel to skirt

1932?-1951

Two numbers to right of logo – date code

1932?-1951

PAT. D-105523

1938-1951

IN U.S. PATENT OFFICE

1951-1967 (embossed bottles)

MIN. CONTENTS 6 FL. OZS.

1917-1958

CONTENTS 6 ½ FL. OZS

1957-end of 6½ oz.

Manufacturer’s mark moved to base

1952-present

Two numbers to left of dash – date code

1952-present

Line spacers on base embossing

1952-present

Applied Color Lettering

1955-present

BOTTLE TRADE MARK ® (base)

1962 (1964 on 6½ oz.)-?

Bottles and Extras

aware of the 1960 trademark of the bottle – an action that was unknown in 1951 (see the next section for a discussion of the trademark itself). It was thus easy for Kurtz to recognize the application of the common law when applied to a trademark long after the trademark had been established. It was quite a different situation during the 1950s.

The term “common law” indicates that there is NO written statute that applies. U.S. courts, however, have supported the idea that the first person to use a name and/or symbol had the “right” to the exclusive use of that name and/ or symbol in the future. However, each court case becomes a new challenge to the “common” idea. Sometimes, a new challenge completely reverses the older “common” interpretation. Therefore, the application of common law is much more tenuous than Kurtz, Musney, or Dean make it sound.

One major issue that almost certainly made the Coca-Cola Co. uncomfortable is that the common law application presupposes that a logo will meet the qualifications for a trademark. That assumption was, at, best unclear at the time and under the circumstances. Only a single bottle had previously been granted trademark status – the Haig & Haig “pinch” bottle. Thus, there was little precedent for the idea that a bottle can be used as a trademark.

A second possible issue was addressed

by Pendergrast (1993:185). If a name falls into common usage, a company can lose its trademark rights. The terms aspirin, cellophane, and escalator had already suffered those fates, and CocaCola worried by at least the 1930s that the same could happen to its product. In fact, the company did lose the right to the word “cola” in a 1945 case against Pepsi.

Unfortunately, we have found no records from the 1951-1959 period. Past researchers have merely noted the period and moved on or ignored it completely.

This must have been a time of great tribulation for the Coca-Cola Board of Directors and legal staff. A tremendous brand loyalty hinged on the exclusive use of the hobble-skirt bottle by CocaCola. The company must have explored pathways to protect the bottle.

Since methods of legal protection for packaging in the U.S. are limited in number, Coke almost certainly attempted

Bottles and Extras

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59

The only physical change that is specific to the trademark was the addition of “BOTTLE TRADE MARK ® in a circle around the manufacturer’s mark – embossed in the center the base (Figure 28). This “bottle” trademark was first applied to embossed 6½-ounce bottles in 1964 and to ACL 6½-ounce bottles in 1965. The term “IN U.S. PATENT OFFICE” continued to be embossed in the labeling area. Other changes (described below) were unrelated to the actual trademark process.

Figure 27 – Comparison of all three patent drawings (1916, 1923, 1937)sides of the labeling area

to capture another patent. However, it is already pretty amazing that the Patent Office issued a total of three patents for what is essentially the same bottle design.

As is obvious from the patent drawings, those were all for the same bottle. In fact, it is remarkable that no one challenged the first or third patent (Figure 27). Only the 1923 patent drawing actually fits the specifications for the bottle that was in use!

It is likely that the Coca-Cola representatives attempted to establish a new patent either prior to the expiration of the 1937 patent or immediately thereafter.

If so, the patent office balked. Minor design changes resulting in a patent can apparently be pushed only so far – and the 1937 patent was the end. It is highly likely that dead-end patent applications were not permanently recorded at the patent office, so information along this line of research will probably remain obscure. How long the patent route was followed (if, indeed, the Coca-Cola legal staff pursued that venue) is currently unknown, but the bottle remained vulnerable for almost eight years and seven months.

The Trademark On March 19, 1959, on behalf of the Coca-Cola Company, Pamela C. Mallari, an attorney for the firm, filed to register the contour Coca-Cola bottle as a Trademark. The company received

Registration No. 0696147 on April 12, 1960. According to the registration, “The Trademark consists of the distinctively shaped contour, or confirmation, and design of the bottle as shown.” The firm claimed an initial use on July, 8, 1916, and a first use in commerce on September 1, 1916. The Trademark was renewed for the third time on March 24, 2010.

We have not discovered whether Coca-Cola gave up on a new patent or decided to stop playing a temporary game in favor of a more permanent protection.

The timing, however, strongly suggests that the trademark solution was not conceived for most of the unprotected period (1952-1960). Since first use of the bottle as a trademark was registered as September 1, 1916 (almost certainly the date of the initial ad), Coca-Cola could legally have trademarked the bottle in 1952. The application date of March 19, 1959, strongly suggests that Coke came up with the trademark idea no earlier than 1958. To have remained legally unprotected while aware of an alternative is simply incongruent with Coca-Cola policies and history. What is certain, however, is that the shape of the bottle was now, finally, legally protected on a long-term basis. Equally certain, the Coca-Cola Co. carefully monitors the trademark; it has now been renewed three times.

Figure 28 – Base marking for bottle trademark

It is probably not a coincidence that 1965 was also the year that CocaCola instituted the use of the “random baseplate.” Beginning that year, the city and state designations were placed randomly on hobble-skirt bases. Prior to that time, each franchise ordered bottles embossed with its own city/ state designation. These were originally bottled only by that franchise and in that city, although each bottler filled bottles that came from any other location once they were returned by customers. The random base names, however, meant that each bottle could have been originally filled literally anywhere in the U.S. The city/state designation had become meaningless.

Although Gilborn (1958:15) placed the IN U.S. PATENT OFFICE bottles in production from 1951 to 1959, and Pollard (1993:45) dated them from 1951 to 1963, the bottles actually continued to be manufactured until 1965.11 From 1951 to 1958, the bottles were embossed “MIN. CONTENTS 6 FL. OZS.” on one side. That changed in 1957 to “CONTENTS 6½ FL. OZS.” and remained in that format, even after Applied Color Lettering (ACL) began to be used in 1955 (Figure 29). Note that both volume designations were used in 1957 and 1958. There was also

60

September - October, 2010

apparently made more of the “first year” bottles than the Root Glass Co. 3. Empirical data do not support the claim that there were six additional manufacturers added to the Root Glass Co. in the “second year.” Some of those six made hobble-skirt bottles in 1917, and two glass houses, not included in the “second year” list may have made bottles by 1918.

4. Southern Glass Co. was the initial West Coast hobbleskirt manufacturer, probably beginning in 1919. A shift to the Illinois-Pacific Glass Corp. apparently occurred during 1926.

5. The 1915-patent hobbleskirt bottles were made from 1917 to 1930, although only Root continued production of ACL bottle during the last two years.

Conclusion The story of the bottle, at least in 6. The actual bottle produced was very this case, is equally as interesting as the different from the patent drawings. story of the product – possibly more 7. Evidence produced by Dean (2010) so. The Coca-Cola contour bottle (or shows unquestionably that Earl Dean hobble-skirt, or Mae West) went through was the designer of the bottle, despite the a series of changes, including three patent being in the name of Alexander patents, one trademark, and a period of Samuelson. dubious protection under common law.

These changes have been repeatedly The 1923 patent: chronicled in the past, but almost every 1. This is the only patent where the researcher has repeated the same (or a drawing actually matches the bottle that was produced. very similar) story.

Our analysis, using a different 2. It is almost certain that Earl Dean interpretation of existing documentary also authored the changes to this patent, and secondary evidence, combined with even though the patent was issued to empirical observations of bottles and Chapman J. Root. recent discoveries in glass manufacturing 3. From the date the patent request was histories, points out major discrepancies filed, it took almost two years for the in the existing secondary publications. patent to actually be issued!

With every patent, we have found 4. Cuts at the top and bottom of the ribs inconsistencies and raised new questions. dividing he front and back labeling areas Some of these, we were able to answer. comprise the most notable change from We have summarized our findings the 1915-patent bottle. below, divided according to changes in 5. According to our sample, 1923-patent bottles were only made from 1928 to the bottles.

1938.

The original 1915 patent: 1. Hobble-skirt bottles were initially The D-105523 patent: manufactured sometime between April 1. The patent drawing of this bottle is out of proportion almost to the point of and August of 1917.

2. The Graham Glass Co., Chattanooga being a caricature of the bottle. This was Bottle & Glass Co., Laurens Glass probably done to convince the patent Works, and the American Glass Works agency that there was sufficient change an overlap from 1955 to 1965, when both embossed and ACL labels were in use (McCoy 2009:40-56).

A few other details of these changes are worth noting. The use of ACL in 1955 was only on the larger sizes. ACL was not applied to the 6½-ounce bottle until 1957 – two years later. This lag may indicate a resistance to any type of change in the “sacred” 6½-ounce bottle. In 1959, “Coke” was applied in white ACL to the necks of bottles.

The “Coke” designation was moved to the reverse side of the labeling area (with “Coca-Cola” remaining on the front) in 1963. Coca-Cola had registered “Coke” as a trademark in 1945 but did not immediately use it on bottles. Figure 29 – Example

Bottles and Extras

to warrant issuing a new patent.

2. Despite the drawing, a patent was issued in a short time (unlike the 1923 patent).

3. Eugene Kelly, Toronto, Canada, received the patent and assigned it to the Coca-Cola Co. Coke now had full control of the bottle for the first time.

4. Earl Dean again claimed that he made the changes (and correctly described some of them), although he now worked for Owens-Illinois. We have not found a connection between Owens-Illinois and Coca-Cola (except for the actual production of bottles), especially the Toronto branch of Coke.

5. Four small changes were made to the bottle: minute changes in size; small changes in the shape of the Coca-Cola script logo; elliptical shape for ribs in labeling area; and flat base.

6. Bottles were made between 1938 and 1951.

IN U.S. PATENT OFFICE 1. In 1951, when the D-105523 patent expired, the bottles were embossed “IN U.S. PATENT OFFICE” where the patent information used to be.

2. The new embossing referred to the script trademark not to the bottle, itself.

3. The bottle remained essentially unprotected for almost eight and onehalf years (1951-1960).

4. The “common law” protection cited by previous researchers was tenuous at best.

The bottle as trademark 1. The bottle, itself, officially became a trademark on April 12, 1960, offering permanent protection from use by other companies.

2. Trademarks must be periodically renewed, and Coke has renewed this trademark twice since it was issued.

3. The only physical change to the bottle was addition of “BOTTLE TRADE MARK ® in a circle around the manufacturer’s mark – embossed in the center the base.

The actual history and physical evidence tell a great story of the process of this remarkable bottle.

Postscript – Historical Research Historical research is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle with most of

Bottles and Extras

September - October, 2010

the pieces missing. The process is never finished, and no one ever has the last word. The first person who publishes about any historical subject is certain to be corrected later. In this process, we all climb onto the shoulders of those who came before us. Presenting new information or different ways of looking at a subject is not intended as an insult to those who came before. In our turn, future information will supercede this work. And so the process continues . . . .

Lockhart, Bill, Michael R. Miller, Bill Lindsey, Carol Serr, and David Whitten 2005 “The Dating Game: Illinois Pacific – A Division of the Illinois Glass Co.” Bottles and Extras 16(2):16(4):73-80.

Sources Allen, Frederick 1994 Secret Formula: How Brilliant Marketing and Relentless Salesmanship Made Coca-Cola the Best-Known Product in the World. Harper & Rowe, New York. [S,]

Lockhart, Bill, Pete Schulz, Carol Serr, and Bill Lindsey 2009 “The Dating Game: Southern Glass Co.” Bottles and Extras 20(6):50-61.

Dean, Norman L. 2010 The Man Behind the Bottle: The Origin and History of the Classic Contour Coca-Cola Bottle as told by the Son of its Creator. Xlibris.

Gilborn, Craig 1968 “Looking at the Coke Bottle.”

Museum News December 12-18.

Hopson, Kathy 2002 “Chapman J. Root, the Root Glass Company.” Soda Pop Dreams Magazine 5(3):4-5.

2004 “Chapman J. Root, the Root Glass Company and the Coca-Cola Contour Bottle.” The Soda Spectrum Series 1(1):6-7.

Johnson, James H. and Andrea P. Denklau 2003 “IP Rights ‘In a Can’: Intellectual Property-Protected with Trademarks, Patents or Copyrights-Is Easily Explained with a Can of COCA-COLA.” American Journalism Review 25(AugustSeptember).

Kendall, William N. W. 1978 “Collecting Coca-Cola Bottles, Phase II.” Old Bottle Magazine 11(10):68.

Lockhart, Bill 2006a “A Tale of Two Machines and a Revolution in Soft Drink Bottling.” Bottles and Extras 17(2):19-25.

2006b “Chattanooga Glass Company.”

The Soda Fizz 4(3):28-30.

Lockhart, Bill and Michael R. Miller 2007 The Bottles, Marks, and History of the Southwestern Coca-Cola Bottling Co., New Mexico and Arizona, 1917-1947.

Privately Published, Alamogordo, New Mexico.

McCoy, Doug 2009 The Coca-Cola Bottle: A History of Returnable Bottles in the United States with Quick Reference Guide. Privately published.

Munsey, Cecil 1972 The Illustrated Guide to the Collectibles of Coca-Cola. Hawthorn Books, New York.

2001 “Where are the original hobble-skirt Coca-Cola bottles?” h t t p : / / c e c i l m u n s e y. c o m / i n d e x . php?option=com_docman&task=cat_ view&gid=18&&Itemid=34 Pendergrast, Mark 1993 For God, Country, and Coca-Cola: The Unauthorized History of the Great American Soft Drink Industry. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York.

Pollard, Gordon 1993 Bottles and Business in Plattsburgh, New York: 100 Years of Embossed Bottles as Historical Artifacts. Clinton County Historical Association, Plattsburgh.

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office 2010 “U.S. Patent and Trademark Office: An Agency of the Department of Commerce: Trademark FAQs.” http:// www.uspto.gov/faq/trademarks.jsp [1] There is no question that the bottle was machine made rather than mouth blown.

Earl Dean described the process (see Dean 2010:27-28, 46, 97), and the two actual extant bottles have clear indications of machine manufacture, such as side seams

61 that extend to the top of the finish.

[2] Although they did not follow all of the nuances of Dean’s version of the invention, Munsey (1972:57) and Hopson (2002:4; 2004:6) both agreed that Dean – not Samuelson – was the inventor of the bottle.

[3] It is possible that Chapman Root refused to let Owens-Illinois make Coke bottles after the sale in 1932. This, however, is unlikely.

Beginning in 1930, Owens-Illinois began making hobble-skirt bottles at the former Graham plant at Evansville – using molds that still had the Graham codes on the heels.

Owens-Illinois probably made a sufficient number of Coke bottles at the former Graham plant (and others) but shifted production at Terre Haute to other bottle types.

[4] The Loogootee plant made occasional hobble-skirt bottles after 1921, but these probably represent overruns – orders that the other plants could not handle.

[5] One of the interesting side discoveries is that the “2 ©” mark on Coke bottle bases almost certainly indicates the Corsicana, Texas, plant.

[6] The use of the triangle mark may have begun near the end of 1923. We have only found one example with a 1923 date code, yet there are multiple bottles from other years.

[7] In his letter to Bill Porter, Ben Napier confirmed that “the flutes separating the trademark panels were modified by cutting them in at top and bottom” on the 1923 bottle.

[8] The Owens Bottle Co. bought the Graham Glass Co. in 1916 – possibly as an entrance into the lucrative Coca-Cola bottle production. The firm continued to operate under the Graham name until the merger that created Owens-Illinois in 1929.

[9] Dean (2010:13-22) spends considerable time making a case that the contour bottle was very important in Coca-Cola popularity.

Even though blind taste tests proved otherwise, some drinkers claimed that the product tasted different in containers of any other shape.

[10] John S. Pemberton received the initial trademark for the script Coca-Cola logo on June 28, 1887. With the passing of the new Trademark Law of 1905, the script logo continued to receive protection (Pendergrast 1993:35, 104).

[11] McCoy (2009:38-41) places the date at 1967, and some collectors have reported dates for IN U.S. PATENT OFFICE bottles of 1966, 1968, and even one with a date code for 1975! These, however, are almost certainly errors in date codes or occasional exceptions produced by some factories.

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For Sale: Jar – beautiful amber Maggi’s Gekornt, Fleischbruke, ground lip, original cork lined lid embossed cross star and Krelizstern – rows of stars around jar – stands approximately 5” tall, excellent $325. Cobalt Carter master ink, quart $125. Cobalt Carter master ink, pint $175 or both $250. Hanbury Smith Mineral Water (embossed horizontally) ½ pint, pretty green $60. Contact: Alice Moulton, ph: (813) 754-1396, email: amoul01954@aol.com.

For Sale: Yellow wood Coca-Cola case in good condition - $25. Wood Abbots milk crate – wood with metal edge - $25.

Aqua tall blob – Chas L Braunwarth Brewery Philada with embossed crown - $25. zMO for Pain, aqua - $10. The Embalmers Supply Co, Westport, Conn – crown top - $10. Clear , sheared top Kolynos Liquid, The Kolynols Company - $8. Odenwelders Drug Store Easton, PA – 2 fl ozs MBW Millville on bottom - $18.

Contact: Greg Gifford, 832 Clover Dr, North Wales, PA 19454, ph: (215) 6995216, email: grgmam@aol.com.

For Sale: Large crock funnel used in Greenwood Mississippi Pepsi Cola plant.

Stamped on side in blue “60 – Perfection Sanitary Self-Draining Jars – Red Wing Potteries Inc. Red Wing, Minn.” $250.

No delivery offered – must be picked up at my address. Item is approximately 41” tall and 25” in diameter so very heavy. Contact: Bruce Schad, 1108 W Jefferson Ave, Greenwood, MS 38930, ph: (662) 455-9343 or (662) 299-7975.

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Bottles and Extras

KETCHUP, PICKLES, SAUCES 19th Century Food in Glass Betty Zumwalt, author 498 pages of pictures & research of glass containers the early food industry utilized Smyth Bound - $25 Mark West Publishers PO Box 1914 Sandpoint, ID 86864 For Sale: Quality collection of early and vintage labeled medicines, apothecary, and related drug store advertising. Most items were acquired from old store stock with original boxes and inserts. Poisons, patents, colored apothecary, tins, ampoules, pills, quacks. Trade cards, blotters, almanacs (1806 – 1930), talcs, perfumes, early cigarette boxes, snuff tins. Coors pottery crucibles, embossed bottles, stoneware, cabinets, counter displays, Dutch Pharmacy catalogues (1835 – 1875), electric shock devices, lots of psychiatric items – over 1000 items in very good to mint condition. I am retiring and will sell all at reasonable prices to fellow collectors. Contact: Bill Tropiano, email: batbottles@hotmail. com.

WANTED Wanted: Chero-Cola and NEHI soda bottles with the optional pry-off lip feature in the upper grades. These are the lips that allow cap removal with a common table knife. The special lip design includes the terms, “PRIOF REGISTERED” on most bottles, circa 1926, Contact: Mike Elling, 4042 Sidonia Rd, Sharon, TN 38255, ph: (731) 973-4995, email: Cheromike@ citlink.net.

Wanted: Glass target balls. All colors, any color, any brand name. Contact: Cliff White, ph: (404) 626-2501.

Wanted: Drug store or apothecary items.

Contact: Curtis Haggar, PO Box 649, Ouray, CO 81427, ph: (970) 325-4172, email: docs_gallery@montrose.net.

September - October, 2010

Wanted: E. Durand mineral water bottles – also patent soda bottles or Philadelphia pontiled sodas or beer bottles. Contact: Tod Von Mechow, website: www. sodasandbeers.com.

Wanted: Bayet & Williams O’Fallon Ill. I am looking for the previously mentioned bottle. Will pay Top Dollar for one in amber or aqua. Contact: Theo Adams, 3728 Fair Oaks Dr, Granite City, IL 62040, ph: (618) 781-4806, email: stlouissoda@aol.com.

Wanted: Belleville Ill, looking for Jos Fischer Selters Water, Fisher & Rogger, Fisher & ABEGG, J.N. Clark, A.Koob in amber, T Heberer & Bros. TOP DOLLAR!! Contact: Theo Adams, 3728 Fair Oaks Dr, Granite City, IL 62040, ph: (618) 781-4806, email: stlouissoda@aol.com.

Wanted: Alton Ill Looking for A. Yoerger & Bros. A.& F.X. Joerger, and other pontil sodas and bitters from this town.

Contact: Theo Adams, 3728 Fair Oaks Dr, Granite City, IL 62040, ph: (618) 7814806, email: stlouissoda@aol.com.

Wanted: Hemingray Glass Co products – insulators, bottles, jars, tableware, lamps, oil cans, etc. Also any historical documentation or original letterheads – serious collector. Contact: Bob Stahr, ph: (630) 231-4171, email: Bob@ hemingray.com.

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Wanted: Sacramento whiskey: THEO. BLAUTH/WHOLESALE WINE/&/LIQUOR DEALERS/ SACRAMENTO, CAL. Barnett #55.

Contact: Steve Abbott, ph: (916) 6318019, email: foabbott@comcast.net.

Wanted: Real photo postcards from small towns in Colorado. Prefer early street scenes – horses & wagons, dirt streets, early automobiles, vintage businesses, etc. No scenics, please.

Contact: Don Fritschel, ph: (303) 4992437, email: donfrits@aol.com.

Wanted: Early, rare sodas, patent medicines, beers, whiskeys, food and any stoneware from Kansas. Target balls wanted also. Contact: Mark Law, ph: (785) 224-4836, email: mlaw4@cox.net.

Wanted: Bottles embossed Modesto and bottles embossed Frazier and Modesto memorabilia. Contact: Mervin Frazier, 1216 Trombetta Ave, Modesto, CA 95350, ph: (209) 522-1209.

Wanted: Items from the cities of Long Beach, Wilmington, and San Pedro, California. Bottles, ashtrays, calendars, thermometers, etc. from the Los Angeles Harbor area. Thank you. Contact: Dave Hall, ph: (310) 834-6368.

Wanted: pontilled Philadelphia (PA) bottles by collector, researcher: medicines, sodas, beers (prefer attic even if not mint), household (e.g. bluing, snuff), etc. Contact: Carol, ph: (610) 449-7962, email: starbird31@verizon.net.

Wanted: Looking for Kilmers. Have a few. Looking for Kilmers sample bottles, Dr. Kilmers Indian Cough Cure, Kilmers Ocean weed hear Cure, Kilmers Autumn Leaf Extract for Uterine Injestion (4 ½” tall). Let me know what you have for sale. Trying to get all of them. Contact: John Whitney, 5709 E 22nd St, Tulsa, OK 74114, ph: (918) 835-8823.

Wanted: Old dug and undug insulators.

One or collections. Contact: Doug (Dug) Williams, ph: (910) 470-5805

Wanted: Pint size “Atlas EZ Seal” in AMBER. Contact: Chuck, ph: (515) 9890452, email: amberjars4erb@aol.com.

Wanted: Michigan bottles – pyro and embossed milks, blob top beers and sodas, colored medicines and druggists, bitters and strapside flasks – dug or damaged is ok.

Contact: Steve DeBoode, ph: (616) 6670214, email: thebottleguy@comcast.net.

Wanted: Amber colored bitters. Mint condition only. Light or dark color – square or figural – common or rare.

Contact: Ed LeTard, 239 Maplewood Loop, Daphne, AL 36521, ph: (985) 788-6163, email: eandeletard@aol.com.

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Wanted: Looking for straight-sided cokes from Georgia and any bottles from the Georgia towns of Thomson, Washington, Warrenton, Lincolnton, or Louisville. Contact: Calvin Ferguson, 131 Lee St, Thomson, GA 30824, ph: (706) 595-4445 or (706) 595-2520, email: cleanman@bellsouth.net.

Wanted: Lid for Lamb Mason clear.

Thank you to the lady who donated quart at Saint Louis show in March. Contact: Pat Jett, email: patsy-jett@yahoo.com.

Wanted: Some smaller size Colorado town druggist bottles (embossed). Also smaller size Colorado town souvenir china items. Contact: Wendell Sack, 306 F St, Washington, KS 66968, ph: (785) 325-2373, email: wm_sack@yahoo.com.

Wanted: San Diego area bottles, cans and go-withs, embossed, ACLs, soda, beer, etc. If it says San Diego, I am interested.

Contact: Mike Bryant, 4214 Tacoma St, San Diego, CA 92117, ph: (858) 5812787, email: sdmike@san.rr.com.

September - October, 2010

Wanted: Veterinary medicines.

Premium prices paid for early especially pontiled examples, but, interested in all pre-1920 products. Contact: Stan Tart, 1581 Union Cross Rd, Kernersville, NC 27284, ph: (336) 992-3152 – day, email: ktart1@gmail.com.

Wanted: Arizona bottles wanted! I am always looking for any embossed Arizona soda, whiskey, or drug store bottles. This includes any Arizona embossed ABM/Deco sodas. I am also looking for any Arizona JUGS. Also searching for any Territorial Hutch or crown sodas (Oklahoma, Indian, Idaho, Dakota, Utah, etc..). I will buy single bottles or whole collections. Top $$$ paid! Contact: Brent VanDeman, ph: (602) 818-6490 (cell – please leave a message) or (623) 935-1498 (home), email: azokie99@cox.net. Thank you!

Wanted: Information on companies in the Coeur D’Alene mining district in northern Idaho that utilized embossed bottles or stoneware jugs. Contact: Tom Harman, ph: (208) 753-1351, email: VLHarman@hotmail.com.

Wanted: Bottles from the following southeast Pennsylvania towns – Telford, Souderton, Lansdale, Doylestown, North Wales, Quakertown, Norristown, Hatfield, Harleysville, Kulpsville, Shannonville and Ambler. Also looking for early (pre – 1840s) Philadelphia flint glass medicines and any bottles embossed Gifford.

Contact: Greg Gifford, 832 Clover Dr, North Wales, PA 19454, ph: (215) 6995216, email: grgmam@aol.com.

Wanted: Fort Wayne and Indiana blob beers and any northeast Indiana bottles.

Contact: Jim VanEvery, 11919 Fisher Rd, Fort Wayne, IN 46818, ph: (260) 6254872, email: ordjim44@embarqmail.com.

Wanted: Fort Wayne, Indiana brewery items: Centlivre, Berghoff, Hoff-Brau, Old Crown. Any bottles. Contact: Doug Farmer, 11937 N 500 E, Roanoke, IN 46783, ph: (260) 760-1762.

Wanted: Dr. Langley’s Root & Herb Bitters, large sizes only – L-21, L23, & L25. All colors and lip variants, smooth base or pontiled. Also, colored or fancy bitters! Perfect specimans only. Contact: Randoph, ph: (415) 518-4124, email: hawkeye751@comcast.net.

Wanted: Bitters – rare squares, Michigan bitters, bitters from Mississippi.

Michigan mineral water and well water bottles, large size Kilmer’s Cure with embossing in lung design. Graig’s Cure with embossed kidneys. Mississippi whiskey jugs. Contact: Bruce Schad, 1108 W Jefferson Ave, Greenwood, MS 38930, ph: (662) 455-9343, email: brschad@aol.com.

Wanted: H.L. Jackson strap sided flask from Blackstone, VA – any size. Virginia slug plate sodas in crown, hutch or blob.

Contact: Bruce Wadford, 362 Dobbins Rd, Blackstone, VA 23324, ph: (434) 6768942, email: mlwbwad@meckcom.net.

Wanted: Pre-prohibition brewery items from Missouri breweries. Also, any items from Capitol Brewery of

Bottles and Extras

Jefferson City, Missouri. Top prices paid for Anheuser, Lemp, Griesedieck, ABC, Columbia, National, Moerschel, Cherokee, Weiss,etc. Contact: Sam Marcum, ph: (573) 690-4992, email: brewshop2000@yahoo.com.

Wanted: Fredericktown, MO, Nov 16, 1915 Coke, Ellington, Mo, Nov 16, 1915 Like, Trenton, MO, Nov 16, 1915 Coke.

Any Missouri Hutchinson or blob soda or beer. Caruthesville, Mo W.P. Carter The Grand Opera Saloon – slug plate – flask. Contact: Arlin Cargill, 2750 E Highway 97, El Dorado, MO 64744.

Notice to Members

Take advantage of your membership benefits. Use your free for sale and wanted ads Send to: June Lowry 401 Johnston Ct., Raymore, MO 64083 (816) 318-0160 OSUBuckeyes71@aol.com

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FOHBC Sho-Biz

Calendar of shows and related events FOHBC Sho-Biz is published in the interest of the hobby. Federation affiliated clubs are connotated with FOHBC logo.

Insulator shows (courtesy of Crown Jewels) are indicated with an insulator. Information on up-coming collecting events is welcome, but space is limited.

Please send at least three months in advance, including telephone number to: FOHBC Sho-Biz, C/O June Lowry, 401 Johnston Ct., Raymore, MO 64083 or E-mail: OSUBuckeyes71@aol.com. Show schedules are subject to change. Please call before traveling long distances.

September 11 Arcadia, California The Los Angeles Historical Bottle Club’s 43rd Annual Show & Sale (9am - 4pm with early buyers at 8am), at the Arcadia Masonic Lodge, 50 West Duarte Rd, Arcadia, CA. Con- tact: Don Wippert (chairman), ph: (818) 3469833 or Dick Homme, ph: (818) 3623368, website: www.lahbc.org.

September 12 Lewes, Delaware Delmarva Antique Bottle Club’s 17th Annual Bottle, Advertising, and Collectible Show & Sale (9am - 3pm) at the Beacon Middle School, Route 24, Lewes, DE. Info: Kathy Moon, email: kdmoon@verizon.net or Michele Buckler, ph: (302) 645-0576, email: gemwrap@comcast.net.

September 11 Salt Lake City, Utah Utah Antique Bottle and Collectibles Annual Show & Sale (9am - 1pm, early buyers 8am), at the Redwood Multipurpose Center, 3100 South Redwood Rd, Salt Lake City, UT. Info: Bob Campbell, 1123 E 2100 S, Salt Lake City, UT 84106, ph: (801) 467-8636 or Rick Holt, email: rckholt@netscape.net.

September 17 – 22 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania The All-Dairy Bottle and Collectibles 13th Annual Show & Sale (Fri, noon - 5pm, Sat - Wed, 8am - 5pm) at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex & Expo Center, Harrisburg, PA. Info: Gary Gojsovich, ph: (717) 635-5067 or Lolly Lesher, ph: (717) 787-2905.

September 11 Leechburg, Pennsylvania Western Reserve Insulator Club’s 5th Annual Backyard Swap Meet (10am - late afternoon), at Mike Donnelly’s, 1650 Route 356, Leechburg, PA. Info: Tim Grantz, ph: (724) 845- 6488 or (724) 845-6488, email: tgrantz@windstream.net or Mike Donnelly, ph: (724) 991-5240, email: atv_mud@yahoo.com.

September 11 - 12 Merritt, British Columbia The Insulator Ranch. Info: Bob Scafe, ph: (250) 378-2787, email: bobscafe@ telus.net.

September 12 Pekin, Illinois The Pekin Bottle Collector Association’s 41st Annual Show & Sale (8am - 3pm) at the Knights of Columbus, 715 N 11th St, Pekin, IL. Info: Jim Searle, 1003 Illinois St, Pekin, IL 61554, ph: (309) 346-7804.

September 18 Jacksonville, Florida Antique Bottle Collectors of North Florida’s 43rd Annual Show & Sale (8am 3pm, with early buyers on Fri- day 5pm - 8pm), at the Fraternal Or- der of Police Building, 5530 Beach Blvd, Jacksonville, FL. Info: Mike Skie, 3047 Julington Creek Rd, Jack- sonville, FL 32223, ph: (904) 710- 0422 or Jackie McRae, ph: (904) 879 -3696.

September 18 Muskegon, Michigan West Michigan Antique Bottle Club’s 9th Annual Summer Show (9:30am - 1:30pm) at Jones Auditorium, 2300 Henry St, Muskegon, MI. Info: Elmer Ogg, ph: (231) 798-7335, email: elogg@comcast.net.

September 18 East Hampton, Connecticut Yankee Pole Cat Insulator Club “On Golden Pond 2010” Swap Meet (8am - 2pm), at the home of Larry and Mary

Jo Emmons, 68 Long Crossing Rd, East Hampton, Ct. Info: John Rajpolt, ph: (203) 261-1190 or (203) 261-1190, emai l : ra- jpolt@earthlink.net or Larry Emmons, ph: (860) 267-8584September 19 Albany, New York The Capital Region Antique Bottle Club’s Show & Sale (9am - 2:30pm) at the Polish Community Center, 225 Washington Ave Ext, Albany, NY. Info: Jason Privler, ph: (518) 453- 1445, email: nyscapitol@yahoo.com.

September 19 Kirtland, Ohio The Ohio Bottle Club’s 42nd Annual Show & Sale (9am - 2pm) at the Lakeland Community College, Kirt- land, OH. Info: Robert Smith, ph: (440) 285-4184, email: rts2ride@roadrunner. com or Tim Kearns, ph: (440) 2857576, email: tkearns4@aol.com.

September 19 Winchester, Virginia The Apple Valley Bottle Collectors Club’s 36th Annual Show & Sale (9am - 3pm $3, early admission at 7:30am $10, seniors 65 and over free), at the Mount Carmel Baptist Church, Family Life Center, 1309 Opequon Ave (just off Pleasant Valley Rd), Winchester, VA. Info: Richard Venskoske, 2038 Chestnut Grove Rd, Winchester, VA 22603, ph: (540) 247 -4429.

September 25 Albuquerque New Mexico New Mexico Historical Bottle Society and Enchantment Insulator Club’s 23rd Annual Insulator, Bottle, Barb- wire and Collectibles Show & Sale (8:30am - 4pm) at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, 9500 Constitution NE, Albuquerque, NM. Info: Mike Gay, ph:

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(More) Sho-Biz (505) 899-8755, email: cdn102@comcast.net or Tom Katonak, 1024 Camino de Lucia, Corrales, NM 87048, ph: (505) 898-5592, email: tkatonak@comcast.net.

September 26 Lowell, Massachusetts The Merrimack Valley Bottle Club’s 36th Annual Show & Sale (9am - 2pm), at the Lowell Elks Club, 40 Old Ferry Rd, Lowell, MA. Info: Cliff Hoyt, ph: (978) 458-6575 choyt48.home.comcast. net/mvbc.htm, or Maureen Crawford, ph: (978) 897 -7327, mcraw September 26 Depew, New York The Greater Buffalo Bottle Collectors Associations 12th Annual Show & Sale (9am - 2pm), at the Polish Fal- cons Hall, 445 Columbia Ave, De- pew, NY. Info: Dave Potter, ph: (716) 771-1581, email: pot- ter8151@roadrunner.com or Peter Jablonski, ph: (716) 4407985, email: peterjablonski@roadrunner.com.

September 26 Batsto, New Jersey New Jersey Antique Bottle Club’s Annual Batsto Show & Sale, (9am - 3pm) at the Wharton State Forest, Batsto, NJ. Info: Joe Butewicz, ph: (732) 236-9945 or Paul Delguercio, ph: (609) 352-7104, email: paulhavoc@ comcast.net October 2 Chesterfield, Virginia The Richmond Area Bottle Collectors Association’s Annual Show & Sale (9am - 3pm, early admission 7:30am $10), at the Chesterfield County Fairgrounds, 10300 Courthouse Rd, Chesterfield, VA 23832, info: Marvin Croker, ph: (804) 275-1101, email: RichBottleClub@ comcast.net or Ed Faulkner, ph: (804) 739-2951

October 2 Point Pleasant, West Virginia West Virginia State Farm Museum Bottle and Antique Shoe (9am - 3pm) at the WV State Farm Museum, 4 miles north on Route 62 of Point Pleasant, WV then one mile on Fairgrounds Rd. Info: Charlie Perry, 39304 Bradbury Rd, Middleport, OH 45760, ph: (740) 9925088, email: perrycola@suddenlink.net October 2 Grand Terrace, California Golden State Insulator Club’s 3rd Annual Double-D Insulator Tailgater Extravaganza (8am - 4pm), at Wilden Park, Grand Terrace, CA. Info: Dave Leforge, ph: (909) 783-3423, email: leforge@adelphia.net or Dwayne Anthony, ph: (909) 862-9279, email: insulators@open-wire. com, www.insulators.info/shows/dde/.

October 2 - 3 Savannah, Georgia Coastal Empire History Hunters Association’s 2nd Annual Savannah Civil War Relic and Bottle Show, (Saturday 9am - 6pm and Sunday 9am - 4pm) at the Shriner’s Alee Temple, 100 Eisenberg Dr, Savannah, GA 31416. Info: Rick Phillips, ph: (912) 663- 2382 October 3 St. Clairsville, Ohio The Ohio Valley Bottle Club’s bottle and table top antiques show & sale, (9am 2pm) at Sibs at the Ohio Val- ley Mall, St. Clairsville, OH, Exit 218 off I-70.

Info: Tom Chickery, ph: (740) 6952958, email: tchick52@netscape.net October 3 Chelsea, Michigan The Huron Valley Bottle and Insulator Club’s 35th Annual Show & Sale, (9am - 2pm), at the Village Conference Center, Chelsea, MI. Info: Mike Bruner, ph: (248) 425-3223 or Rod Krupke, ph: (248) 627-6351, email: michelek@mac. com.

October 8 - 9 Phoenix, Arizona The Phoenix Antiques, Bottles & Collectibles Club’s 27th Annual Show & Sale (Friday 10am - noon early admission $10, general admission $3, Friday noon - 5pm, Saturday, 8am - 4pm), at the North Phoenix Baptist Church, 5757 N Central Ave, Phoenix, AZ. Info: Betty Harnett, ph: (602) 317-4438, email: bettchem@cox.net, website: phoenixantiquesclub.org.

October 8 - 9 Santa Rosa, California Northwest Bottle Collector’s Association’s Show & Sale (Friday, noon - 6pm $10 early admission, Saturday 9am 3pm free), Finley Hall, Sonoma County Fairgrounds, Info: Beverley Siri, ph: (70) 542-6438.

October 10 Keene, New Hampshire Yankee Bottle Club’s 42nd Annual Show & Sale (9am - 2:30pm with early buyers at 8am) at the Keene High School, Arch Street, Keene, NH. Info: John F. Bemis, 28 Cross St, Keene, NH 03431, ph: (603) 352-5246 or Alan Rumrill, Historical Society of Cheshire Couty, PO Box 803, Keene, NH. 03431, PH: (603) 352-1895 October 15 - 16 Moncks Corner, South Carolina The Berkeley Citizens, Inc’s 4th Annual Antique Bottle and War Relic Show & Sale (Friday noon - 6pm, Sat- urday 9am - 1pm) at the Berkeley In- dustries, 132 Citizens Lane, Moncks Corner, SC. Info: Libby Kilgallen or Kate Singletary, PO Drawer 429, Moncks Corner, SC 29461, ph: (843) 761-0300 , email: 2010shows@bciservices.org October 15 - 16 Canyonville, Oregon The Jefferson State Antique Bottle Collector’s Annual Show & Sale at the

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(More) Sho-Biz Seven Feathers Casino Resort, Canyonville, OR 97530. Info: Bruce Silva, PO Box 1565, Jacksonville, OR 97530, ph: (541) 899-8411, email: jsglass@q.com.

October 17 Findlay, Ohio Findlay Antique Bottle Club’s 34th Annual Show & Sale (9am - 3pm, no early birds), at the Old Barn Auction House, 10040 State Route 224 West, Findlay, OH. Info: Fred Curtis, PO Box 1329 Findlay, OH 45839, ph: (419) 424-0486 or Marianne Dow, email: finbotclub@ gmail.com, website: http://finbotclub. blogspot.com/.

October 17 Scriba, New York The Empire Bottle Collectors Association’s 12th Annual Fall Show & Sale, (9am - 3pm) at the Scriba Fire Hall, two miles east of Oswego, NY. Info: Barry Haynes, PO Box 900, Mexico, NY 13114, ph: (315) 963- 0922 or John Golley, email: bygolley@msn.com October 23 Geelong, Victoria, Australia The Geelong Antique Bottle and Collectable Club’s Show & Sale (Setup Friday - early admission $15 with general admission $5) at the Geelong Showgrounds, Breakwater Rd, Breakwater, Geelong, Victoria, Australia. Info: Tracey Elso, PO Box 223, Lara, Victoria 3212, Australia, ph: 61 409957868, email: paradise@ncable.net.au, www. aabc.9.forumer.com.

October 31 Glendale Heights, Illinois 1st Chicago Bottle Club’s 41st Annual Show & Sale (9am - 2pm $3; No early admission) at the Ramada Inn & Suites Convention Center, 780 E North Avenue, Glendale Heights, IL. Info: John or Claudia Panek, PO Box 287, Deerfield, IL 60015, ph: (847) 945-5493, email: paperbottle1@aol.com

November 5 - 7 Springfield, Ohio Mid-Ohio Insulator 40th Annual Show to be held at the Clark County Fairgrounds, Springfield, OH. Info: Steve or Lois Blair, ph: (740) 852- 3148, email: csb50@sbcglobal.net or Glenn Drummond, ph: (334) 257- 3100, email: glenn@patent-1871.com or www.insulators.info/shows/ springfield.

November 7 Elkton, Maryland Tri-State Bottle Collectors and Diggers Club’s 38th Annual Show & Sale (9am - 2pm), at the Singerly Fire Hall, Routes 279-213, Elkton, MD. Info: Dave Brown, ph: (302) 738-9960, email: dbrown3942@comcast.net.

November 13 Belleville, Illinois Mississippi Valley Chapter of ABA and Gateway Chapter of BCCA pre- sent bottle and breweriana show & sale (9am - 3pm $2, early admission 7am $20) at the Belleclair Fair- grounds, Belleville, IL. Info: Curt Faulkenberry, ph: (636) 797-5220 or Kevin, ph: (618) 3462634.

November 14 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania The Pittsburgh Antique Bottle Club’s Annual Show & Sale ($2 9am - 2pm with early admission at 7am $25) at The Ice Garden, Rostraver Twp, Exit 46B off I70 to Rt 51 North, 4.1 miles. Info: Bob DeCroo, 694 Fayette City Rd, Fayette City, PA 15438, ph: (724) 326-8741 or Jay Hawkins, 1280 Mt. Pleasant Rd, West Newton, PA 15089, ph: (724) 8726013.

November 20 Dalton, Georgia Dixie Jewels Insulator Club’s Fall Swap Meet (8:30am - 3:30pm) at the Dalton Freight Depot, Dalton, GA. Info: John Henderson, ph: (423) 842-3568 or (423)

802-7549, email: rjhshrike@comcast. net or Bill Haley, ph: (423) 756-4106 or (423) 326- 9248, email: wgh@tnaqua. org.

November 21 Greensboro, North Carolina The 9th Annual Greensboro Bottle, Pottery & Collectibles Show & Sale (9am 3pm general admission $1) at the Farmer’s Curb Market, 501 Yanceyville St, Greensboro, NC. Info: Reggie Lynch, ph: (704) 221-6489, website: www.antiquebottles.com/greensboro November 28 Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Forks of the Delaware Bottle Collectors Association’s 37th Annual Show & Sale (9am - 3pm with early buyers 7:30am) at the Bethlehem Catholic High School, Madison & Dewberry Avenues, Bethlehem, PA. Info: Bill Hegedus, 20 Cambridge Pl, Catasauqua, PA 18032, ph: (610) 264-5945.

January 7 - 8, 2011 Palmetto, Florida Suncoast Antique Bottle Collectors Association’s 42nd Annual Show & Sale, (Friday early buyers 4pm - 7:45pm, $15; Saturday general admission 9am - 5pm, $4 - mention ad and receive $1 off general admission), at the Manatee Civic and Convention Center, One Habel Blvd & US Highway 41, Palmetto, FL. Info: George Dueban, ph: (727) 804-5957, email: Res08w341@verizon.net or Linda Buttstead, ph: (941) 722-7233, email: OriginalSABCA@aol.com.

Support this great hobby!

Attend a show this weekend!

September - October, 2010

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69

FOHBC MEMBERSHIP DIRECTORY ADDITIONS & CHANGES Additions

Richard Aldridge 3134 Panorama Rd Riverside, CA 92506 951-276-7184 Black glass, ship bottles, and bleach bottles Charles Betts 3988 State Route 414 Clyde, NY 14433 315-587-9614 CPB55@localnet.com Clyde Glass Works, fire grenades, and Wayne county, NY bottles Mark & Alastair Hanna 265 Hopi Pl Boulder, CO 80303 303-494-8975 mchanna1@comcast.net Cure bottles Tom Harman PO Box 4 Silverton, ID 83867 208-753-1351 VLHarman@hotmail.com Idaho and Montana mining camp bottles Paul & Jeanette Hoste 53454 33rd St Paw Paw, MI 49079 269-720-1027 phosrds@aol.com Glass insulators Lisa Ilapit 3713 Point Elizabeth Dr Chesapeake, VA 23321 757-362-1479 irissann@aol.com Fruit jars Mark Junker 3705 SE 13th Portland, OR 97205 503-231-1235 kamj923@clear.net Oregon bottles, pontils, work bottles, advertising crockery

Edgar LeTard 239 Maplewood Loop Daphne, AL 36526 985-788-6163 eandeletard@aol.com Pontil aqua colored bitters, pontil squat sodas, pontil colored medicines Ruth Madewell 613 W Woodridge Springfield, MO 65803 417-831-4990 bookworm69@live.com Fruit jars Jeffrey Purkey 730 W Cherokee Dr Jefferson City, TN 37760 865-475-5234 Brian Rea 2515 Fountain Hill Loop Lincoln, CA 95648 916-408-4317 barguru@aol.com Old drunk books, old liquor labels and advertising and some antique liquor bottles Joseph Terry PO Box 243 Bowling Green, OH 43402 419-686-0032 jterry18@woh.rr.com Michael Wilmuth & Sharon Tormey 33315 Inyo Rd Homeland, CA 92548 951-926-2634 jvfs1@myexcel.com Stephen Wallace 2557 Rainbow Dr Casper, WY 82604 mlkman427@bresnan.net Wyoming milk bottles Changes

Mike Kaszuba 13254 Idyl Dr Lakeside, CA 92040 619-561-8730 abaeterno3@gmail.com

Norman & Junne Barnett C/O Gary Barnett 9840 S 375 W Edinburgh, IN 46124 812-587-5560 thebarnetts@mach1pc.com Odd closured fruit jars

Russ Larson 7501 Riggings Ct Citrus Heights, CA 95621

Mike & Jackie Brodzik 26251 Koontz St Roseville, MI 48066

586-771-7111 bottlemike@wowway.com Michigan bottles from Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and St. Clair counties Thomas L. Buettner 2844 Valley Spring Dr SE Caledonia, MI 49316 616-554-9672 tbuettne@iserv.net Chicago beers and inks Steve DeBoode 1166 Corvette Dr. Jenison, MI 49428 616-667-0214 thebottleguy@comcast.net Michigan bottles

Chris Gebhardt 309 Orangewood Dr Healdsburg, CA 95448 707-433-7403 wineboy2@sonic.net Blob top sodas, whiskeys, bitters Mary Ann Griffin 843 S Britain Rd Southbury, CT 06488 Mgriffin023@charter.net Maine milk bottles David Hall PO Box 1745 Kodak, TN 37764 865-607-9740 smartassets@comcast.net Mini jugs, salesman samples, patent medicines, miniature gun, knives, coins, figural, & advertising Randolph M. Haumann 615 Woolsey St. San Francisco, CA 94134 415-518-4124 hawkeye751@comcast.net Colored and fancy bitters only Patsy Jett 71 Outlook Dr Hillsboro, MO 63050 636-948-3029 patsy-jett@yahoo.com Unusual closure fruit jars, Mary Gregory, tobacco items, older delft, bincentennial stuff‌.

Lynn Koehler PO Box 265 Niobrara, NE 68760 402-841-5031 botone@gpcom.net

Inks, coins, general bottles Bob Lane 221 W Routt Ave Pueblo, CO 81004 719-251-9712 Boblane221@comcast.net Pueblo items Andrew Loulis PO Box 16364 South Lake Tahoe, CA 96151 530-542-2655 aloulis@charter.net Nevada drugstore bottles Sam Marcum 37400 Clifty Spring Spur Russellville, MO 65074 573-690-4992 Brewshop2000@yahoo.com Pre-prohibition Missouri brewery items Jeff Mihalik 1233 Indiana Ave Monaca, PA 15061 412-276-5594 mihalikjeff@gmail.com Porters, inks, Pittsburgh pontils John Ronald 1512 McGregor Ave. Petaluma, CA 94954 707-762-8515 jlrantiques@att.net Bruce Schank PO Box 4 Pompton Plains, NJ 07444 973-214-5082 fruitjars@optonline.net Fruit jars Rick Simi PO Box 115 Downieville, CA 95936 530-289-3659 ricksimi@att.net Western fifths and bitters Stan & Kim Tart 1408 Apple Cross Ct Kernersville, NC 27284 336-992-3152 ktart1@gmail.com Veterinary medicines Bill Tropiano 207 S. 8th St. Lindenhurst, NY 11757 631-957-7968 batbottles@hotmail.com Labeled medicines

70 Richard Tucker Jr. 22982 Mill Creek Dr. Laguna Hills, CA 92653 949-380-0300 rmtucker@jamboreeol.com Historical flasks Dustin Unger 335 W Washington St Blandinsville, IL 61420 309-333-1694 Fruit jars Capital Region Antique Bottle & Insulator Club, Inc. Attn: John Savasitio, Treasurer 19 Forest Ave Cohoes, NY 12047 518-785-1874 blath@hss-info.com Findlay Antique Bottle Club Attn: Richard Elwood, President PO Box 1329 Findlay, OH 45839 419-442-3183 finbotclub@gmail.com

September - October, 2010

Greater Buffalo Bottle Collector’s Association Attn: Peter Jablonski, President 46 Court St Lancaster, NY 14086 716-852-6628 ctjstengel@verizon.net Kalamazoo Antique Bottle Club Attn: Charles H. Parker Jr., President 607 Crocket Ave. Portage, MI 49024 269-329-0853 crebel1862@aol.com Phoenix Antiques, Bottles, & Collectibles Club Attn: Brent VanDeman 7878 E Gainey Ranch Rd #55 Scottsdale, AZ 85258 480-661-0439 robrich5683@hotmail.com The State of Franklin Antique Bottle & Collectible Association Attn: Geff Moore, President 728 Fairway Dr. Elizabethton, TN 37643 423-833-3129

Statement of Ownership, Management and Circulation, as required by 39 U.S.C. 3685. Publication title: Bottles and Extras. Publication Number: 0052-62. Filing date: August 2, 20109. Published quarterly, 6 times per year. Annual Subscription Price: $30. Office of Publication: 401 Johnston Ct, Cass County, Raymore, MO 64083. Contact person: June Lowry, (816) 318-0160. Address of General Business Office of Publisher: June Lowry 401 Johnston Court, Raymore, MO 64083-9246. Publisher: June Lowry, 401 Johnston Ct, Raymore, MO 64083. Owner: Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors, 3706 Deerfield Cove, Shelby County, Memphis TN 38135. Stock holders holding 1% or more of total amount of stock: none.

The known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security holders owning or holding 1% or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages, or other securities: none. The purpose, function and nonprofit status of this organization and the exempt status for federal income tax purposes has not changed during preceding 12 months. Issue Date for Circulation Data Below: August, 2010. The average number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: a) Total number of copies - Net Press Run..... 1200; b) Paid and/or requested circulation- 1) Paid/Requested Outside-County Mail Subscriptions... 821; 2) Paid In-County Subscriptions... 2; 3) Sales through Dealers and Carriers, Street Venders and Counter sales, and other non-USPS Paid Distribution...0. Other Classes Mailed Through the USPS...149. c) Total Paid and/or Requested Circulation... 972; d) Free distribution by mail, samples, complimentary and other free copies... 1) Outside County... 0; 2) In-County... 0; 3) Other Classes... 0; e) Free Distribution Outside the Mail... 155; f) Total Free Distribution... 228; g) Total distribution... 1200; h) Copies Not Distributed... 0; i) Total...1200. Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation: 81%. Number Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date: a) Total number of copies - Net Press Run... 1200; b) Paid and/or requested circulation- 1) Paid/Requested Outside-County Mail Subscriptions... 813; 2) Paid In-County Subscriptions... 2; 3) Sales through Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendors, and Counter sales, and Other nonUSPS Paid Distribution... 0; 4) Other Classes Mailed Through the USPS...

138, c) Total Paid and/or Requested Circulation... 953; d) Free distribution by mail, samples, complimentary and other free copies... 1) Outside County...0; 2) In-County... 0; 3) Other Classes... 0; e) Free Distribution Outside the Mail... 249; f) Total Free Distribution... 249; g) Total Distribution...

1200; h) Copies Not Distributed... 0; i) Total... 1200. Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation... 79.25%. I certify that the statements made by me above are correct and complete. June Lowry, Publisher, 08/02/2010.

Bottles and Extras

Merrimack Valley Antique Bottle Club Presents the 36th Annual

Lowell Antique Bottle Show & Sale Sunday September 26, 2010 9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Early Buyers 8 a.m.

Early Buyer Admission - $15 General Admission - $3 Children under 12 Free

Lowell ELKS Club, 40 Old Ferry Rd, Lowell, MA (Take Exit 32 off US Rte 3 Then follow the signs.

Map also located on our web site)

80 Dealer Tables with Bottles, Postcards, Advertising, Stoneware, Fruit Jars, Insulators & Collectables Free Bottle Appraisals Free Parking Free Children’s Bottle Table Free $20 Door Prize Drawings For information contact: Cliff Hoyt: 978-458-6575 Maureen Crawford: 978-897-7327 Or visit our web site for: Maps, Directions, Dealer Contracts, Discount Coupons & more at: choyt48.home.comcast.net/mvbc.htm

“A Show with Moxie” Catered Lunch

Bottles and Extras

September - October, 2010

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September - October, 2010

Bottles and Extras

Membership Benefits The Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors cordially invites you to join a dedicated group of individuals and clubs who collect, study and display the treasured glass and ceramic gems of yesteryear.

The Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors (FOHBC) is a non-profit organization supporting collectors of historical bottles, flasks, jars, and related items. The goal of the FOHBC is to promote the collection, study, preservation and display of historical bottles and related artifacts and to share this information with other collectors and individuals.

Federation membership is open to any individual or club interested in the enjoyment and study of antique bottles. The Federation publication, Bottles and Extras, is well known throughout the hobby world as the leading publication for those interested in bottles and “go-withs”. The magazine includes articles of historical interest, stories chronicling the hobby and the history of bottle collecting, digging stories, regional news, show reports, advertisements, show listings, and an auction directory. Bottles and Extras is truly the place to go when information is needed about this popular and growing hobby.

In addition to providing strength to a national/international organization devoted to the welfare of the hobby, your FOHBC membership benefits include: • A full year subscription the Federation’s official bi-monthly publication, Bottles and Extras • One free ad per yearly membership of 60 words for use for “wanted” items, trade offers, etc.

• Eligibility for a discount at FOHBC sponsored shows (National or EXPOs) towards “early admission” or • Access to a knowledge of the world of antique bottle collecting unavailable elsewhere • Contact information for clubs devoted to the study of historical bottles • A forum for your writings, articles, and editorials regarding the hobby • Participation in the nomination and selection of Federation members for the Honor Roll and Hall of Fame • Federation-sponsored writing, show poster, and newsletter-design contests • Free publication assistance for your book or manuscript • And more...

dealer table rent

We encourage Affiliated Bottle Club memberships by offering these additional benefits to your group: • Display advertising in Bottles and Extras at an increased discount of 50% • Insertion of your bottle club show ad on the Federation website to increase your show’s exposure • Links to your club website free of charge, as well as assistance with the creation of your website • Free Federation ribbon for Most Educational Display at your show • Slide programs for use at your club meetings • Participation in Federation sponsored insurance program for your club show and any other club sponsored activities Finally…

We need your support! Our continued existence is dependent upon your participation as well as expanding our membership. The Federation is the only national organization devoted to the enjoyment, study, preservation, collection, and display of historical bottles.

The FOHBC welcomes individuals who would like to contribute by running for Board positions or by sharing their expertise and volunteering their talents in other areas of interest such as contributions to our publications, assistance with the Federation’s National and EXPO shows, or through membership promotion.

If you haven’t yet joined our organization, please do so and begin reaping the benefits. If you are already a member, please encourage your friends and fellow collectors to JOIN US!!

For more information, questions, or to join the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors, please contact: June Lowry FOHBC Business Manager 401 Johnston Ct. Raymore, MO 64083 816-318-0160 OSUBuckeyes71@aol.com

or visit our home page on the web at www.FOHBC.com

Isn’t That Dandy? - page 42

It’ll be a blast!

He walks a tightrope and blasts the target balls she throws from her basket — but didn’t she get glass shards in her eyes? This impressive circa 1898 advertising card for Liebig shows target ball shooting at its most colorful past. (The front of the card says: Tir sur une corde tendue, meaning “Shooting a gun on a highwire.”)

For more on target balls, see Ralph Finch’s new column starting on Page 20.

www.FOHBC.com