Earliest ACL Royal Crown Cola redux

morbious_fod · Oct 3, 2014

Before the forums were upgraded and thus locking all older threads there was a discussion about finding the first acl Royal Crown Cola. The poster had a line of bottles starting from 1936, and was wondering if there was one from 1935. This turned into a twelve page thread; however, I have yet to be able to ascertain whether or not they actually identified a 1935.

Sodapopbob was trying to verify it through ads on the Newspaper Archive site, which from experience I know is grossly lacking when looking for a complete source of newspapers, which is why I dropped them after a year; however, Squirtbob actually provided something that actually gave me pause when he posted one of his Upper 10 bottles marked G1 on the bulge under the lip.

The reason I was even researching this is that I was looking up the date codes for Glenshaw glass to attempt to date my clear glass embossed pointy pyramid Royal Crown Cola that I picked up today. This bottle was from Louisville, KY and the town name is in large thick letters which is unusual for the Royal Crown Colas that I have seen even from the period. Of course the "Good Housekeeping Bureau" seal is on the back. Just as Squirtbob's Upper 10 mine does have G1 on the buldge, and from the dating table in the third edition of the Painted Label Soda book, that makes it a 1935.

Not sure what the 1 means, or if it is even relevant, but I'm sure the 23 embossed on the other side isn't the date. I will take pictures when I get a chance. The original thread link is below and will take you to the page that Squirtbob posted the photo of his G1 bottle. If this does make it 1935 then it is the second oldest ACL I own, my other early embossed neck ACL is a 1937.

http://www.antique-bottle...Bottle-m650674-p3.aspx

morbious_fod · Oct 3, 2014

Ok, I have something to offer which might actually help out in discovering when exactly these pointy pyramid bottles were likely introduced. Well I wanted to post the published trademark for the RC letters in a pointy pyramid; however, with this system if you try to delete a photo because it was too large and then try to re-upload it again in a smaller form it freaks out and won’t let you upload anything. How annoying. The date it was filed on was November 2, 1935; however, the claimed usage date is September 1, 1935. So it appears that the pyramid embossed logo didn't exist until late 1935, and while some may have been used with a paper label it is more likely that they registered this trademark to be used on this particular bottle because the ACL neck label process hadn't been perfected or introduced yet. Since it was late in the year when they introduced these bottles, and most likely the ACLs themselves, they simply didn't have the advertising ready for them until the the following spring when the bottling season got into full swing again. As with all early ACLs not everyone jumped on board immediately, and this is why we still see paper labels being attached to these bottles in ads.

squirtbob · Oct 4, 2014

I just looked at three bottles that I picked up a couple years ago at the same location, an old junk store where bottles had been sitting outside for decades. Three of the bottles had the exact same appearance. They are all embossed at the base "MIN.CONTS.6-FL.OZ. (over) PROPERTY OF NEHI BOTTLING CO. They all have a visible ring that protrudes around the neck. Two are Upper 10 bottles, the other one I can't determine but since it came from the same spot I'm assuming it is also an Upper 10. What is interesting is that two bottles are Glenshaw G1 and the other is an Owens-Illinois bottle dated 1936. Is it possible that G1 stands for 1936 and a G by itself was 1935 and then in subsequent years they decided to go with the alphabet in ascending order? My earliest Glenshaw produced squirt botttle, shown in a previous thread, has a clear marking of "K" for 1939. The advertising on that bottle is consistent also with that date. Sometime recently I saw a Glenshaw bottle with a "J" on it and I believe it had a Good Housekeeping label on the back, so I believe that was a 1938 marking. I can't remember what it was, perhaps it was an RC bottle. My questions related to this thread are, "Has anyone seen a Glenshaw bottle with an H or an I"? (I haven't), and secondly "has anyone seen this good housekeeping label on a bottle earlier than 1937. I happened upon on a very poor condition RC bottle yesterday with the Good housekeeping label and it was an OI bottle from 1937. I left it in the store.

squirtbob · Oct 4, 2014

Sorry. I'm not sure how my post got to the top of this thread. If someone can correct that go ahead.

SODAPOPBOB · Oct 4, 2014

Morb

I'm glad you re-opened this discussion because I came across the following information recently which caused me to question whether the Glenshaw codes we keep referring to are accurate or not. I even thought about adding this to the original Royal Crown thread but changed my mind when I discovered it was locked down. Please note I'm not saying the following information is 100% conclusive, but I do feel it is worth consideration and that a closer look at the whole Glenshaw picture might be in order. Check it out and see what you think ...

Http://njbottles.com/index.php?topic=735.0 Edited because image was sideways and trying again ... but not sideways when I initially posted it ??? Last attempt to straighten image ... ??? It appears there might be a glitch in the posting format ... ???

SODAPOPBOB · Oct 4, 2014

Here's the Glenshaw chart that most of refer to for the various codes. But notice where I underlined in red where it says ... "That may have been the introductory year for the first Glenshaw applied color label." So it appears that whoever compiled this chart wasn't 100% certain about the codes either.

SODAPOPBOB · Oct 5, 2014

Morb I wanted to let you know I'm working on a new (separate) thread that I'm currently gathering information for in an attempt to try and understand the Glenshaw Glass Company codes and whether they started using the lip (reinforcing ring) codes in 1935 or earlier. I still have some work to do before starting the thread, but have already found some stuff that raises a number of interesting questions. In the meantime I wanted to share the two images below to show that the G on a Upper 10 Bottle and the G on the bottle I posted earlier are similar enough in style to warrant a closer look at things. The third image with the 31 on the reinforcing ring (lip) will be discussed in more detail when I start the new thread, which I hope to post within the next couple of days.

hemihampton · Oct 5, 2014

Here's a link to the old post. Interesting. LEON. https://www.antique-bottles.net/forum/Oldest-ACL-Royal-Crown-Cola-Bottle-m650674.aspx

morbious_fod · Oct 5, 2014

SODAPOPBOB said:
Morb I wanted to let you know I'm working on a new (separate) thread that I'm currently gathering information for in an attempt to try and understand the Glenshaw Glass Company codes and whether they started using the lip (reinforcing ring) codes in 1935 or earlier. I still have some work to do before starting the thread, but have already found some stuff that raises a number of interesting questions. In the meantime I wanted to share the two images below to show that the G on a Upper 10 Bottle and the G on the bottle I posted earlier are similar enough in style to warrant a closer look at things. The third image with the 31 on the reinforcing ring (lip) will be discussed in more detail when I start the new thread, which I hope to post within the next couple of days.

I don't think I would get that drawn into that number on the reinforcing ring. If that was a date code then my Royal Crown ACL bottle would be dated 1923. I think that number refers to something other than date.

morbious_fod · Oct 5, 2014

[attachment=12ozroyalcrownpointy.jpg]

Here's the bottle I am talking about.

While the G1 possibly representing 1936 is an interesting possibility then there should be a G11 or G2 bottle to represent I; however, we have nothing of the sort. The fact that an H or an I hasn't been seen by us doesn't mean that they don't exist. Then there is the fact that the letter code system does continue from the G with no apparent breaks into the fifties.

My money is that the G1 refers to the first year they used the G, which has been shrunken and moved further up the reinforcing ring, while they had originally used it as one of their brand marks. I have an ad that will blow Sodapopbob's mind.

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