Early Bubble Up bottles?

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JayBeck

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I was trying to research some local soda history today and discovered something that I did not know. Bubble Up was founded locally in Sandusky, Ohio in 1917 or 1919. So immediately I wanted to try to find a picture of one of these mythical early Bubble Up bottles and nothing turned up other than the later ACL bottles that I have seen before (although I have not seen one from Sandusky). So I figured I would start a thread hoping that someone here has an early Bubble Up bottle or even just a photo of one, whether it be embossed (never seen one) or paper label especially if it is marked Sandusky, OH.

I've never paid much attention to the Bubble Up brand and I never realized that it pre-dated 7-Up by at least 10 years. I also saw some information online that referred to Bubble Up as the FIRST lemon-lime soda. Can anyone verify or disprove that?
 

JayBeck

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I did a search looking for earlier Bubble Up items. Not much besides this bottle cap which has a registered U.S. patent office date of 1921.

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ConsDigginVids

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Jay the oldest bubble up that i have is from 1936 or 1938... this bubble up shown here is a 1952. Local collectors believe that The McConnellsburg Bottling Works started bottling it in 1936.. I will post a picture of that later...

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celerycola

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The Sandusky OH Bubble Up was a grape drink.

Here's a 1920 ad showing paper-labelled 'splits' bottle and the caption: "BUBBLE-UP, made from the pure juice of the grape.

Their grape orchards were in North Carolina.

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celerycola

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Close up of the bottle.

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celerycola

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Googled the Trade Mark Registration. Maybe the name applied to different flavors at first?

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JayBeck

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Cons, Morb and Celery, thanks for your input! From what I can gather so far, the earliest verfied date for the Bubble Up lemon-lime is 1921 (from the bottle cap). From the ad and trademark registration posted by Celerycola, it seems that the original beverage was a grape beverage. There were (are) quite a few wineries in the Sandusky area so that would make sense. Online sources state the lemon-lime Bubble Up as being introduced in 1919 and refers to Sandusky as the place of origin. I am thinking that the original Bubble Up was the grape beverage, which possibly failed, and then Bubble Up became the lemon-lime soda that still exists today. So that would mean the original grape Bubble Up probably only lasted from 1917-1919 and being a paper label bottle it is probably nearly impossible to find one. Celery, do you happen to know the source of that ad you posted? I would really like to see a more clear image of the label on the bottle in the ad. Also, how do you know their grape orchards were in North Carolina? There still are a lot of vineyards around here and on the Lake Erie islands plus there were even more around the turn of the century so they would have had an ample supply of grapes available locally. I think morb is correct about the earliest Bubble Up bottles having a paper label making them difficult to find today but I am hoping there is one still out there somewhere. I am most curious now as to what occurred between 1919 and 1921. I think the brand was sold at some point between those years and became the Bubble Up we are familiar with today.
 

SODAPOPBOB

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Just tagging with this example of a 1960 bottle. Note it has the "Since 1921" on it. The base is embossed with ...

23 <(I)> 60
10 A
1943-G

According to my chart the 23 represents the Owens-Illinois glass plant in Los Angeles, California, and that the plant began operation sometime around 1945. One of these days I'm going figure out exactly what the lower numbers represent, which I presently understand to be some kind of mold numbers. But on some bottles I have often wondered if they "might" have something to do with when the glass plant began operation or "possibly' when the acl of a particular brand was first introduced?

ConsDiggingVids ~ Is your 1936/38 embossed or an acl?

Interesting thread, and great stuff from celerycola ... as always.

SPBOB

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