From what I've seen the Pat D's have the year on the right from 1951 and older, and usually have the larger base lettering. Usually 1951 is the last year for Pat D bottles. Other 1951's I have are U.S. Patent Office and the date on these and newer switches to the left. Usually the base lettering (town name) is the smaller style lettering but not always. I have some 52's U.S. Patent Office that are on the right and left but generally 1953 and newer all have the date on the left side.
Most people think I'm nuts for picking them up, maybe I am but you wouldn't leave a dollar bill laying in the woods. There are some with value and like you said a lot of history there. Besides surrounding my office I'd like to one day build a window or make something out of them like I've seen others do when they find a cache of one kind of bottle. For some reason my most common year by far is 1953, wonder what went on around here that year? I sometimes give one to friends and family that is their birth year. Whenever I'm traveling I'm looking for older stuff but still like finding a hobbleskirt coke or a milk with the local town name on it. I've found lots of prop of coca-cola bottling works flavor type bottles but yet to dig my first straight sided coke!
If you start collecting ss Cokes let me know and I will round up some locals from around here.
The hobbs can be worth fair money sometimes and people can't hardly help being impressed by your display of them. I have a few hard to find locales and a few with really strange markings that no one seems to be able to help me with.
The soda waters I only collect to fill a gap in bottle company displays.
HERE IT IS
right off the antiquebottles.com/coke/ website[]
Hobbleskirt Coke
By 1917 Cokes started being produced in the familiar hobble-skirt shape which is still used today. The first hobbleskirts where patened Nov 16, 1915 and came in a variety of colors: clear, aqua, ice blue, and green. To see a rare 1915 that is blue on top and green on the bottom, click here
.
The first five versions of these hobble-skirt Cokes are identified by their embossing:
[ol][*]"NOV.16 1915" were produced from 1917 to 1928.
[*]"DEC. 25 1923" (called the "Christmas Cokes") were produced from 1928 to 1938. Must be careful since reproductions of the 1923 Cokes were produced in 1989. Easiest way to spot a repro is by looking at the base of the bottle. See
photo of 5 Christmas Cokes, one of which is repro - can you spot the repro? It's the one in middle of the bottom row. The City/State letters are smaller on the repro. Repro also has a circular line joining the State and City names.
[*]"PAT. D 105529" (called the "D-Patent Cokes") were produced from 1938 to 1951.
[*]"US PATENT OFFICE / MIN CONTENTS 6 FL OZ" were produced from 1951 to 1958.
[*]"US PATENT OFFICE / MIN CONTENTS 6 1/2 FL OZ" were produced from 1958 to 1965. [/ol]
Later hobble-skirt bottles (i.e. Dec 25 1923 patent and later) all have a green tint color. One exception are those produced during 1942-45; these were blue due to the copper shortage for WWII (copper gives the green color).
Hi, thanks for your replies. I looked at all the dates and they span from 1942-45 & all are from Philadelphia Pa except 3. By looking at the pic, does anyone think these are aqua blue? I find it hard to tell. I have nothing to compare it with. Sorry about the pic my digital cam is broke, so I had to use my cell.