Applied color labels (acl) - hand painted labels & machines

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SODABOB

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P.S.

Just for the record, the Owens-Illinois mark for their Huntington, West Virginia glass factory is a 3 as in ...

3 <(I)> 4

.View attachment 184161

... which is what appears to be the plant number on Morb's bottle and possibly on the eBay bottle I bought. ???




 

bottle-bud

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Here are my earliest acl pop bottles. All dated 1937. The Cleo cola I see was posted earlier.
P1020343.jpg P1020344.jpg P1020345.jpg P1020346.jpg
 

SODABOB

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bottle-bud

Great pictures! Thanks for sharing. I love those early ACLs - especially the Cleo Cola.

Summary / Update

Based on what I've seen so far, I am currently of the opinion that ...

1. The likelihood of there being any hand-painted, hand-stenciled soda bottles is slim to none. (But keeping an open mind to their possible existence).

2. If any hand-painted, hand-stenciled bottles exist, they are some other type of bottle such as medicine bottles, etc; and especially milk bottles.

3. Recognizing a hand-painted, hand-stenciled bottle of any type would be extremely difficult if not down right impossible. Possibly the best way to pursue this aspect would be to find a document of some type where a bottler speaks about having hand-painted his bottles. Which is something I'm currently searching for, but so far have not found.

With all of this said, I would like to leap-frog ahead for a moment and draw attention to bottle painting/stenciling machines. Patent searches can be extremely time consuming and often complicated, especially when you have to keep leap-frogging from one patent to another because most patents are spin-offs of other patents. For example; the earliest stenciling machines I've seen thus far are for fabrics, cardboard, etc. Most of the glass stenciling patents I've seen include references to those earlier fabric and cardboard stenciling machines. In other words, early bottle stenciling machines are merely changes, alterations, and improvements to previously existing machines.

Long story short ...

The earliest bottle/ceramic/hard-surface stenciling machine I've seen so far is the one pictured below. Here's the link to the pdf file where you can examine other aspects of the machine and read the detailed text.

https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/9c/42/b3/b62b33f5d836ab/US2009098.pdf

Ironically, notice the type of bottle pictured ...

Filed: January 8, 1934
Granted: July 23, 1935


US2009098-1 (2).jpg

US2009098-1 (3).jpg


(To be continued)
 

SODABOB

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Now for the fun part ...

In Search of / Contest

I'm convinced that the introduction of Applied Color Labels/Letters for soda and milk bottles was such a big deal at the time that bottlers and dairymen would have advertised its arrival - such as the 1934 newspaper article I posted for the "Jumbo - A Super Cola" bottle. I gotta believe there are similar articles/ads for various other brands of soda pop and milk. I invite everyone who is interested in participating to conduct your own article/advertisement search - and the member who produces the earliest article/ad for either a soda or milk bottle that is dated* 1934 or earlier, I will send them a free** ACL book.

Notes:

* The date has to be on the page itself or within the periodical it derived from. (No guessing)

** I will only ship free within the continental United States - unless the winner is willing to pay the postage if they happen to live in Canada or some other foreign country. (It cost about $25.00 to mail a book to Canada).

Something like the following would not apply because the seller doesn't specify where he got the 1934 date - although I suspect he knows his milk bottles and probably got the date from a rim-code like the ones spoken about in the BRG article I posted. But he doesn't say where he got the date, (no confirmation) hence, it doesn't qualify. What I'm hoping will turn up is a pre-1934 print ad (magazine, etc.) with the date clearly visible on the page itself.

If nothing else, the text portion that follows might provide some word-clues to assist you in your searches.

Good luck to all, and may the best searcher/researcher win. (By the way, I'm exempt regardless of what I find).

https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/trpq-1934-salesman-sample-mt-vernon-1691966075







Milk Bottle Mt Vernon 1934.jpg
 

SODABOB

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And here's the text part with word-clues - various names for the ACL process by different glass makers ...

[FONT=&quot]Up for bids is a Mint!, 1934 (VERY EARLY FOR PYROGLAZE!!!) , tall, round SALESMEN SAMPLE / DISPLAY quart milk bottle, red pyroglaze MT. VERNON CREAMERY CO! on front, PASTEURIZED (picture of dutch girl in wooden shoes with yolk & wood milk buckets) MILK on back ... the dairy was located in Mount Vernon IL. near Fairfield Centralia Flora Salem Harrisburg Marion West Frankfort Benton Carbondale Herrin Du Quoin DuQuoin & Texico .... it comes with the original 100% intact 2-tone, cream colored interior paint (done by the milk bottle manufacturer) which shows the razor-sharp creamline when held to the light, this is how you can tell a real, vintage display bottle from a fake!... these bottles were used primarily by the various glass company salesmen between 1934 and 1939 to promote their sale to dairy owners and nothing drove that point home better than to show the dairy owner what his own dairy name & bottles would look like with the new colorful labeling!... In 1933-34, the glass companies had different names for the color labeling process, the Lamb Glass Co. of Mt. Vernon Ohio called it Lustro-Color - Owens-Illinois Glass Co. of Streator ILL. called it A.C.L. (Applied Color Labeling) and the Thatcher Manufacturing Co. of Elmira, N.Y. called it Pyroglaze which is the name most milk bottle collectors refer to today. T[/FONT][FONT=&quot]he beauty of these bottles has shown they practically sold themselves by the end of the 1930's and the process lasted until the use of milk bottles ended in the late 1960's-early 1970's[/FONT]
 

SODABOB

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P.S.

I'm limiting the contest to the month of September 2018 only. The earliest dated (1934 or earlier) ad/article/periodical/etc. will win. In the event of a tie (for example; two confirmed but different 1933 ads), I will send both members an ACL book.
 

SODABOB

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b-b

Fantastic find! You're currently in the lead with ...

December 30, 1933
 
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iggyworf

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Great work bottle-bud! My white swimsuit girl 7up bottle is dated Owens Illinois 1936.
7up white 8 bubble girl 1936 3.jpg

0027.jpg
 

SODABOB

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P.S.

I'm limiting the contest to the month of September 2018 only. The earliest dated (1934 or earlier) ad/article/periodical/etc. will win. In the event of a tie (for example; two confirmed but different 1933 ads), I will send both members an ACL book.


Please don't think ill of me, but I find it necessary to amend the contest rules. It just dawned on me that if multiple ads/articles are submitted for the same year, say 1933, that I would have to send multiple books. I don't think that would be fair to me or anyone else. So the new rule is, the earliest date by not only the year, but also by the month, would take president. In other words, bottle-bud is still in the lead, but if another 1933 date is submitted earlier than December 30th, then the earlier month and day would win.

Thanks for your understanding and patience, good hunting ...

Bob
 

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