Cross & Co. Vancouver B.C. 1894-1963

Welcome to our Antique Bottle community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Canadacan

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 21, 2014
Messages
1,902
Reaction score
950
Points
113
Location
Canada
It's been a while since I've had anything to add, and I do now but almost forgot about this thread because of other distractions!
So last year I was able to pick up one of those Cross's cartons that Bob had posted way back, and earlier in the winter I was able to fill the carton with bottles from an auction I won.
I had seen this carton in our local shop a couple of years ago filled with the 10oz blue cross bottles, passed on it due to the price at the time. But I'm really not sure if it truly is a late 50's carton?...for some reason I keep thinking it could have been filled with the 1940's style 8oz bottles...it just seems to be a better match, but I may be wrong.

Another auction win was a Lot of soda crowns in pretty dirty condition, but it paid off because in it were several Cross's crowns! There were a few rare Whistle ones marked Cross & Co. Vancouver B.C....I believe they are 1930's and not from the paper label era but were most likely on the curvy fishnet embossed, and also several Cross's Extra Dry Ginger ale...they really do seem to match the 8oz 1930's-40's style bottle.
The other most significant find was the early Wynola crowns marked Cross & Co Vancouver B.C., I knew Wynola had to be bottled out here but never knew by who. The last two are probably a bit later, one is a Lime Rickey and the other is Orange.

20180405_222503.jpg


20180405_222415.jpg


20180405_222346.jpg
 

Canadacan

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 21, 2014
Messages
1,902
Reaction score
950
Points
113
Location
Canada
It has been a long time since I've had anything new to add to my Cross collection. This is a clear quart I recently picked up from a friend, the ACL label matches the 7oz bottles that have the 'Non Alcoholic' statement, it has an odd size listed 29 fluid ozs.
I have a green glass quart on hold with the same label but cant recall the size listed on the back.


20190517_152441.jpg

20190517_153149.jpg
 

CanadianBottles

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 24, 2014
Messages
4,639
Reaction score
2,368
Points
113
Just came across this and thought it was interesting. Not only did they rip off Coca Cola on the back of the blue ACL, but that red ACL was a blatant ripoff of Schweppes.
16-schweppes1.jpg
 

Canadacan

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 21, 2014
Messages
1,902
Reaction score
950
Points
113
Location
Canada
Just came across this and thought it was interesting. Not only did they rip off Coca Cola on the back of the blue ACL, but that red ACL was a blatant ripoff of Schweppes.
Well that's pretty cool!...but I'm not so certain it's not a rip off. Remember that glass companies supplied generic bottles right?, they did so to with generic labels.
Here are a couple examples from Double Header Drink and Double Drink, then Drink Canora and Drink Lee's, there was also Dr. Wells and Crown Beverages...but with that one I'm not certain Crown was authorized to use it. There are more but I can't think of them right now.
It's possible that label on Schweppes precedes the Cross's...or more than likely does, and they never continued with it's use.
Anyways this is pretty facinating!

20191024_214809.jpg
20191024_214825.jpg
 

CanadianBottles

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 24, 2014
Messages
4,639
Reaction score
2,368
Points
113
The reason why I'm assuming it's a rip-off rather than a generic label is that as far as I know the generic labels were all used by small Canadian companies within Canada, whereas the Schweppes label is British. Schweppes is also a major, widely-recognizable international brand which would not be using any sort of generic designs. It's definitely possible that Cross only started using the design after Schweppes abandoned it and that's why Schweppes never sued them though. As for Dr. Wells and Crown I have a feeling that Crown was not authorized to use it, though I'm not sure what motivation there would have been for them to rip of Dr. Wells - would Canadians at that time have even known what Dr. Wells was?
 

Canadacan

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 21, 2014
Messages
1,902
Reaction score
950
Points
113
Location
Canada
Ok starting with the Dr. Wells. It was bottled by Crown Beverages in Winnipeg...I'm assuming they adopted or borrowed the ACL style from Dr. Wells because latter bottles have a different ACL all together.

29386376_2097008056983808_2042836271616753664_n.jpg


So I did not realize the photo you posted is featuring a sign from the UK. I can't seem to locate any Canadian Schweppes ads with that style, and I'm beginning to think that was used exclusively outside of Canada because any ads I find are from London, and many from Australia. I wonder when the product was introduced to western Canada on a large scale. I also noted that label was used by Schweppes in the 30's right into the late 50's. Also keep in mind this label was for their 'Dry' ginger ale.
So if this label was a mainstay for Schweppes why did they not pursue Cross's to stop them, or maybe they did?

Here is some type of Art ad, I assume it's from the 30's and depicts several of their labels.

Cross vs Schweeps labels.jpg

London News 1930
Schweppes-London news 1930.jpg

And a Uk magazine ad from 1954
Schweppes-1954.jpg
 

CanadianBottles

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 24, 2014
Messages
4,639
Reaction score
2,368
Points
113
Oh I didn't realize that Dr. Wells was bottled by Crown. Yeah that's a really interesting case then, I think it's the only example I've seen of a franchisee using the label design of their franchise product for their own other flavours. I'd really like to know the story behind that one.

Yeah I'm not sure when Schweppes started having a real presence in Western Canada. Do you know when Schweppes started being bottled in Canada at all? I only know of their Canadian ACLs which showed up in the 50s or 60s, and before that I've only seen the British bottles, though those were clearly used fairly widely in Canada. It's possible that Schweppes wasn't really marketing their products in Western BC at the time and they were only available in hotels and such as imports. If that's the case they might just have never noticed that Cross had copied their label design, or if they did didn't care because of how little they were really trying to capture the market in BC. I'm honestly more surprised that Cross got away with that Coca Cola script, considering how harsh Coke was about suing anyone coming close to copying their trademarks.
 

SODABOB

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 10, 2016
Messages
2,121
Reaction score
479
Points
83
Schweppes ...

I heard my name mentioned and thought I'd share a some tid-bits of information and a few pics ...


Schweppes Story - Established in 1794 - Three Parts - Best I've seen with some cool pictures of various bottles

http://mikesheridan.tripod.com/schweppes1.htm




eBay paper label bottle - $425 (see attachment)


https://www.ebay.com/itm/Extremely-...981494?hash=item3d34641db6:g:XEUAAOSw9mFWJ8-Z


Lemon Squash Ad - $856.84 in U.S. currency (see attachment)


https://www.joseflebovicgallery.com/pages/books/CL171-36/schweppes-palarino-and-lemon-squash


Attachments ...

1. Earliest newspaper reference I could find - Scotland - 1799
2. Earliest U.S. newspaper reference - 1840
3. Earliest Canadian newspaper reference - 1880
4. Lemon Squash Ad - 1931 - I wonder if examples of these bottles exist? I looked around but could not find one.
5. Lemon Squash ad - circa 1930s - $856.84 - (see link)
6. eBay paper label bottle - $425 - (see link)

Schweppes 1799_The_Caledonian_Mercury_Edinburgh_Scotland_Thu__May_2__1799 (2).jpg

Schweppes 1840_The_Evening_Post_New York_New York_Tue__Sep_15__1840.jpg

Schweppes 1880_The_Gazette_Montreal_Quebec_Canada_Fri__Jul_16__1880.jpg

Schweppes 1931_The_Gazette_Montreal_Quebec_Canada_Mon__Jun_22__1931.jpg

Schweppes Lemon Squash Ad circa 1930s $856.84.jpg

Schweppes Bottle eBay October 2019 $425.jpg





 

Staff online

Members online

Latest threads

Forum statistics

Threads
83,217
Messages
742,901
Members
24,231
Latest member
rrenzi
Top