WWII ACL RED PAINT RATIONING ~ FACT or FICTION

[hemihampton]

I know they put alot of Restrictions on Beer Can production during WW11. Most cans to cilvilian use came to a halt. Mostly only producing Olive Drab Camouflage cans for the Army or Military use. LEON.

 

[SODABOB]

Bob, Have you seen this example currently on eBay?
I cannot tell from my iPhone pics whether the ghost Orange is still there, or if it is all white.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/252518157825

Jb

Its good to hear from you again - and thanks for tagging along. I did not see the Georgia/Alabama bottle but just enhanced some pictures of it. I'll let the eye of the beholder determine if they think it has a "Red Ghost" label or not. As for myself, it appears to be a 1945 bottle and does appear to have a ghost label. Check it out and see what y'all think ...

 

[SODABOB]

Here's the Georgia/Alabama bottle label next to a typical label for comparison ...

 

[SODABOB]

I know they put alot of Restrictions on Beer Can production during WW11.View attachment 174528 Most cans to cilvilian use came to a halt. Mostly only producing Olive Drab Camouflage cans for the Army or Military use. LEON.

Leon

Thanks for the information about WWII cans. Later on I plan to do a brief focus on WWII Glass vs WWII Tin/Steel, which will hopefully add some additional insight on the topic.

 

[Jbeas31]

Agreed, Bob. Your enhanced image does, in my opinion, show the remains of a red label. It's very faded to me but alas it is there.

 

[Jbeas31]

Did you have a chance to view my little oddball "1943" bottle from Denver Co?

 

[SODABOB]

View attachment 174524
a View attachment 174526View attachment 174527

Jb

Yes, I saw the odd Denver bottle you posted with what appears to be a 4 beneath the 3. But regardless if its a 1943 or 1944, the embossed "Duraglas" on the base dates it to 1940 or later. I cannot fully explain what appears to be a 4 other than I know on some bottles they stamped a new date over the old date. This, of course, would have been done to the mold itself. It was cheaper to stamp a new date on certain bottles than it was to create a new mold. But I agree, its odd that the 3 = 1943 is on top of what appears to be a 4 = 1944. However, its possible that what we think is a 4 is actually a 2 ... ???

 

[SODABOB]

If you go back and open the Bill Lockhart article I posted on Page 1, and scroll down a ways, you'll find where it says this ...

[FONT=&amp]Subsequent observation revealed that the combination of one-digit numbers and periods were to be found on soda and milk bottles as well. Eventually, a pattern emerged with the following results. At some point in 1940, someone in the Owens Illinois Glass Co. seems to have realized that a zero could indicate either 1930 or 1940, so a new code needed to be developed. The answer was to add a period indicating a manufacture of 1940 or later. The stippling idea appears to have evolved about the same time, and all this was conceived in conjunction with the Duraglas process. Owens-Illinois continued the single digit numeral/period system until 1946, although the company began integrating a two-digit system as early as 1943, but the 43 date code is rare. That means 1940s bottles may have either a 0 or 0. marking, but 1941 and 1942 are almost always marked 1. or 2. Occasionally, these periods are difficult to see because they are concealed in the stippling, but periods are generally larger than the stippling dots. Bottles made in 1943-1946 may contain either single-digit numerals followed by periods or double digit markings, such as a 4. or 44 for 1944 (figure 1).

[/FONT][FONT=&amp]In several cases, the initial 4 has been added as an afterthought, frequently slightly out of alignment with the other digits associated with the logo. Occasionally, a mold engraver forgot to change the code. The initial bottle used by the Illinois Brewing Co. of Socorro, New Mexico, for example, was made in 1946 and has a single 6 to the right of the Owens-Illinois manufacturer’s mark but with no period after the number. However, I have found few exceptions to the period rule on returnable bottles. By 1947, the change to double-digit date codes appears to have been completely adopted by all the plants.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]Even though the Owens-Illinois engravers changed the date code each year, they did not create a new base-plate each time. On many Owens-Illinois bottles, it is fairly easy with minor magnification to discern tooling marks where the old date code was peened flat and a new one imprinted into the mold to appear as an embossed date. By the 1960s, the changes are virtually impossible to detect, probably because of improved technical skills.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]Peening out old marks seems to have been used pretty extensively. Mike Miller discovered an interesting colorless, soft drink bottle embossed “21 I-in-an-oval-superimposed- on-an-elongated-diamond 7” on the front heel. This mark was used by the Owens-Illinois Pacific Coast Co. (a subsidiary of Owens-Illinois) from 1930 to ca. 1954. The back heel, however, is marked 1 followed by a blanked-out triangle. The Owens-Illinois workers used an old mold from either the Illinois Pacific Glass Corp. or the Illinois Pacific Coast Co. (both predecessors to the Owens-Illinois Coast Co. and both users of the triangle logo) to make the bottle. The 7 to the right of the Owens-Illinois mark is a date code for 1937 (the final year the plant was open), so the mold had laid in storage at least seven years prior to its reuse. To remove all doubts, the factory code 21 is for one of the two San Francisco (former Illinois Pacific) plants.[/FONT]

 

[SODABOB]

If the missing red paint on 7up bottles was due to WWII rationing, then how do we explain these bottles from ...

1948





1949







1950

 

[SODABOB]

Of the eight 7up bottles pictured so far that have missing red paint ...

1. Three were produced at Owens-Illinois plant #3 in Huntington, West Virginia

2. One was produced at Owens-Illinois plant #7 in Alton, Illinois

3. Three were produced at Owens-Illinois plant #9 in Streator, Illinois
(All three are amber bottles)

4. One was produced by Glenshaw Glass in Glenshaw, Pennsylvania


Footnote: So far we have seen examples of the missing red paint bottles as early as 1937 and as late as 1950.