Agana Guam Hobbleskirt Coke

[SODAPOPBOB]

Regarding the accuracy of the dates related to the various Owens-Illinois charts ...

It has already been established in a previous forum discussion that the Los Angeles, California plant (#23) began operation sometime in the 1930s and not 1949 as every chart I am aware of shows it. Even Julian H Toulouse, who is considered the the godfather of such charts, list in his 1971 book "Bottle Makers And Their Marks" that the Los Angeles plant began operation sometime in the late 1940s. But this has since been proven to be incorrect by the examination of numerous bottles from L.A., some of which go as far back as 1937 and possibly even earlier.

Bob

Here is a image from the Toulouse book that I scanned myself from a 1971 copy of his book I own. Notice the (----- for Los Angeles starts just to the left of 1950.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Here's the base on a local (San Diego) bottle I own and know for certain was made in 1939. Notice the 23 <(I)> 9 mark which indicates it was made at Owens-Illinois Los Angeles plant #23 in 1939. This is just one of many examples I am aware of confirming that the L.A. plant began operation prior to 1949.

Bob

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

And here is the bottle itself, which is one of my rarest, most valuable, and favorite bottles of all time ...

 

[42station]

Bob...I got a response back from Coca-Cola and it sounds very promising. I can fwd it to your email if you want me to. Personally, I think this is the better route being that I know nothing of Coca Cola bottles and I would feel more comfortable, because you have the knowledge that I lack, if you directed me as to how I should proceed. Also, I was able to track down an email address and phone number for Philip Mooney though I have no idea if either is valid. I can send you that info as well.

 

[daven2nl]

Looks like I missed a lot of discussion during my overnight hours.

The name Philip Mooney sounds familiar to me, but I might be way off base. I ran into a gentleman at the Pacific War Museum last week who was very interested in the Agana Guam coke bottles. He told a story of how he purchased an old coke bottle mold and made/sold hundreds of candles using it until Coke called and told him to knock it off. Anyway, he said he had contact info for the Coca-Cola historian - might be talking about the same person. I've asked for followup but have not yet received a response.

Regarding 1944 dated green bottles I've found here on Guam - it is not just limited to Oakland. I have found green coke bottles, mixed in with the clears, from Oakland, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. All 1944. It makes sense because these were all shipping ports used by the ships that supported the war effort. I could see bottle orders being filled out with whatever they had (clear with green) also it could be that the green ones were loaded by the ships for their own crew's consumption that eventually got mixed in with the clear bottle stash.

I have found postwar bottles from 48, 50, and 52. So it also makes sense that they reused the clear bottles post-war, replenishing their stock periodically in the later years. It is quite possible that some of the bottles I am finding that were dated 1944 were not discarded until 1952, or later. Many of the sites I go to however were abandoned shortly after the war so most were probably consumed by soldiers.

There were 250K troops on Guam in 1945... lots of beverages were consumed. I'm sure they reused bottles but when you are in a war zone, you let things slide. Imagine what happened to the squad leader who got mad at his troops for throwing away soda bottles? No one probably cared.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Dave ~

It will interest you to know that forum member 42station is in the process of contacting a Coca Cola archivist. Matt and I composed an inquiry together, which includes several pictures from this and the other thread. Although we did not mention your name or anything about this forum, I hope you don't mind our "borrowing" some of your pictures. We wanted to present it to you as a sort of Christmas gift in return for your generosity of having brought all of this to our attention in the first place. I am also sending the same inquiry to Phil Mooney and hopefully will hear back from both with answers to the numerous questions that Matt and I came up with. It might take a while before we hear back from anyone, but hopefully when we do it will be good news. One of the questions we asked, which included the list of known codes I posted earlier, was ...

What do the number/letter codes embossed on the sides of the WWII era bottles stand for?

Merry Christmas

Bob

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

PS ~

You are absolutely right about GI's tossing away a bunch of worthless Coca Cola bottles. I'm sure they had a lot more to deal with and on their minds than something as trivial as that.

Bob

 

[daven2nl]

Bob,

Just got back from another jungle trip and got info from 20 or 30 more bottles. New letter too - "Q". I think you may have been confused by some of the data I presented earlier... for example the "18B" is in fact the embossing on the bottom of the bottle, in very small letters. "18 B" is what is on the bottom. On the side is 18 <(I)> 45. There are other numbers that make this up... you'll see the pattern when I present all the data.

Ran into an oddball one. A clear Chattanooga glass co bottle from 1941. I didn't think the clear bottles were made until 43. Nothing embossed on the base. I brought it home with me; unfortunately the top is broken off. This may either be a pre-war Guam bottle that made it into the supply chain with the 44/45 bottles after the liberation, or something else alltogether. It was mixed in a pile of coke bottles from 1944/45, including several other Chattanooga bottles (the other parts of the pile were primarily Owens-Illinois bottles).

-Dave

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Dave ~

I consider your clairification of my confusion a blessing in disguise. Meaning, because the bottle with the 18 on the side and the 18B on the base is double marked, it leads me to believe that the 18 <(I)> 45 is a clear indication of a standard plant number reference, with the 18 in this case being for the Owens-Illinois plant in Columbus, Ohio. And because it has the same number 18 on the base, which I suspect is not a coincidence and is directly related to the other 18, meaning "both 18s" refer to the plant location, then that just leaves us with the letter B to figure out its meaning.

However, my theory will be seriously flawed if you reply back and say you have seen examples where the side code and base code on any given bottle are both different. For example: A side code of 18 <(I)> 45 but with a base code of 11K. Have you ever seen it ocurr where this was the case in that a bottle had two entirely different codes ... or rather, two entirely different "numbers?"

Thanks.

Bob

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Goof up deleation - I accidently hit the quote instead of edit. ???