trying to find out more on a possible Bluebird canadian bottle ?

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RCO

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was looking thru some of my bottle books and a listing intrigued me and seemed worthy of some further research

the initial listing that caught my attention was in a Canadian bottle book from the 70's
here is the listing -

Bluebird - top crown cap , Colour -clear , height 7 1/2 , neck - crest of bird with top hat - BLUEBIRD , back same , bottom ring - trade mark reg 6 FL OZ , pat Mar 2 1927

then i looked thru some more recent bottle books and was 2 listings that mentioned bluebird , one was for Kist which appeared to be more recent and another was from Toronto Ontario and seemed to fit the dates

The Star Beverage co - ( Blue bird , hires ) 1931- 1941 , older book lists them as starting in 1914 , so they operated for a while in Toronto

but since I haven't actually seen a bluebird bottle from Toronto , I'm somewhat just trying to fill in the blanks here and figure out if one actually does exist or not and according to listing in original book which is very accurate one does


anyone seen this bottle or have any other info ?
 

RCO

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from my google searches there is an American embossed/art deco bluebird bottle from RI/Mass area and it appears to be somewhat common

but it doesn't appear to be the exact same bottle described in original listing , don't see a top hat and patent date on American one is April 14 , 1925 , although they sound similar

but I'm willing to leave open the possibility they are somehow related as they do have the exact same name and around the same time period


bluebirdUS.jpgbluebirdUS1.jpg
 

RCO

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[h=2]


Sunday, June 8, 2014
[/h] [h=3]Blue Bird Beverages of West Barrington[/h]



After a long search, I was able to obtain an elusive RI deco soda bottle. It is embossed Blue Bird on the shoulder (embossed blue birds), and W. Barrington, RI on the bottom. My past research had turned up very little on this bottle, so I decided to try to track it down for good. The results were a little varied, but interesting!
The Blue Bird deco soda
Base embossing




Blue Bird was a grape flavored soda. The bottle design was patented in 1925 by the Citrus Products Co. of Chicago. This was the parent company of brands such as Kist and Chocolate Soldier.
Bottle design patent. Paul Ginter was a prolific designer of deco soda bottles


Blue Bird never achieved the success of brands like Kist, but it did well enough to make its way to the east coast.

http://ribottleinfo.blogspot.ca/2014/06/blue-bird-beverages-of-west-barrington.html
 

RCO

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It copied a little big but I found a blog post from RI that mentions some useful info , author seemed to think original bottle was patented in 1925 and was done so by a company related to KIST and that it was a smaller brand that never managed to become that successful but was sold in some different areas around US

still leaves me confused about the 1927 patent date bottle mentioned in original book as all the US bluebird bottles I see online are from 1925 , so the Canadian one seems to be a bit different
 

RCO

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so from reading that it appears anyone could buy the rights to bottle and sell " bluebird " , Chicago isn't that far from Toronto so it wouldn't be unrealistic to assume they signed an agreement to bottle it

the mystery is why does it appear there bottle is a bit different than the others ? why go to all the trouble of designing a new bottle ?
 

Canadacan

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The patent dates always seem to be later on Canadian sodas, probably to do with patent laws and being a different country right, so they (Dominion glass, Consumers glass) remake the bottle mold with the new patent date specifically for Canada. An example would be the Kist Deco 6oz USA- Jan 25 1927..... Canada Feb 19 1927...pretty close dates on that ...why the huge date gap on the Blue bird?...I don't know. The early bottles all had paper labels.
Some where I thought I had a clipping from Winnipeg for Blue Bird but I can't find it right now...pretty sure it was from Drewrys. I do have this ad though from my Kist research......

Kist- The Ottawa Journal, 20 Jul 1937, Tue....source newspapers dot com.

Kist-  The Ottawa Journal, 20 Jul 1937, Tue.jpg
 

RCO

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that ad is interesting that bottler only seems to have lasted for 3 years 37-39 according to book and after that I can't seem to find who did Kist in Ottawa

have you seen any bluebird bottles from Canada ? before , either the 1927 one or newer ones from kist ?
 

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No I have not....but believe they do exist, especially after finding that early SS Kist....and the Green River that showed up, and last year I landed a Canadian made 1930's NuGrape deco that came from a Winnipeg bottler.
 

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