I did some brief research involving various soft drink manufactures suing other soft drink manufactures and in many of the cases the losing party was ordered to proceed with ...
"The destruction of all materials bearing the proscribed phrase and the means whereby they were produced, and assessed."
I don't want to jump to conclusions, but if So-Grape was issued a similar order, it might explain ...
1. The name change.
2. The lack of So-Grape bottles - especially those with "The Taste Tells" on the label.
3. Hence, I might have stumbled onto an extremelyrare "So-Grape" bottle.
Hhhmm.. so they changed due to Nu Grape and So Grape were too similar?... Man...crazy stuff... Guess if NuGrape was first they didn't need to change...
Would be rough starting out.. putting all that money out for ACL bottles, crates, crowns, etc.. just to turn around and do it all again.
At this juncture, the so called evidence I have presented about the name change is purely speculative. However, even with that said, it seems mighty coincidental that the name change occurred at about the same time as the court case with NuGrape. If I were to write a synopsis about the name change possibly being related to the court case, I would be sure to emphasize that its a best guess scenario.
You're right about NuGrape being first. The NuGrape brand was invented in 1906, first bottled in 1921, and by April 1933, The National NuGrape Company was founded in Atlanta, Georgia.
The crates I posted pictures of were found on the Internet and not for sale, so it won't be possible to inquire about their dates. I saw the one on eBay - Please let us know what the seller has to say.
Here's some more stuff I found in my Internet searches ...
Cool sign with "The Taste Tells" / Date unknown but possibly 1945-46-47
Mystery Crate - Possible Transition - "O-So Grape" plus "The Taste Tells" plus "Rich In Dextrose" - Date unknown
Notice it has the So-Grape-type of font with the open 'g' and open 'p' ... Compare the font to that of the sign.
The seller on ebay said there was no date in the crate?.. he has like 18 crates for sale and a few are So-Grape.. So I asked again to please check as we're trying to get dates of when it was around and when O-So took over... we'll see... Love the So-Grape sign you posted...