ATTENTION! FORUM MEMBER squirtbob ~ EARLY SQUIRT BOTTLING NEWSPAPER ADS

[squirtbob]

Bob

Great pics. Thanks for sharing them.

If the first 1938 Squirt bottle had a paper label, it's probably going to be a tough one to find. In connection with this, I am trying to determine ...

1. Exactly where in Wisconsin Herb Bishop's cheese distribution operation was located?

2. If the Manitowoc and Menasha bottlers were the first to bottle Squirt, why were those
locations selected over other bottlers?

3. Is there a connection between Manitowoc, Menasha, and Herb Bishop?

Reminder: The June 16, 1938 Manitowoc Herald-Times advertisement was cheese related.

I'm not convinced that the first 7 oz. squirt bottles had paper labels. I have seen the paper labels advertised and I have one but they are always for larger bottles ...perhaps?? marketed that way to be used as a mixer. One was sold recently on the bay but it was an obvious fake ... a "perfect" label on a green scratched up wrong date bottle. Of course it sold but not many ventured to bid. I'd bet that the first acl bottle with black script and blue caps lasted only a very short time ...one year or less. You never see a used blue cap and they are very plain and not too appealing. They gave way to red script on the bottle over the splash and the caps looked very similar. The advertising dept. got with it real quick.

 

[squirtbob]

The squirt crates shown here are very early. I would say the black script crate is from the late 30's. It does not advertise for any bottler and it has shallow cardboard separaters. The upper crate changes the lettering to red but still incorporates the blue color and is marketed [attachment=squirtcrates.jpg] [attachment=squirtcrates.jpg] as "the perfect mixer", very much in line with early advertising.

 

[squirtbob]

The bottles in this picture I call the west coast see-through wartime bottles. All of the red pigment is gone and the yellow is much lighter than normal, in some cases almost white, and the script is see-through on the splash and missing most of the time on the chest. I have about 12 of these and they were all manufactured at the Owens-Illinois plant (23) in Los Angeles. The earliest date is 1943 and the latest is 1946. They all list a bottler on the back and all are from the western states, CA, OR, WA, MT, NV, ID. If anyone has something different from this type bottle, please let us know.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Bob If you have a picture of "the first acl bottle with black script and blue caps" could you please share it with us. I have pictures of a lot of Squirt bottles in my photo files, but not one with black script. Thanks

 

[squirtbob]

Earliest squirt bottle 1938/9

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Bob If we have discussed this before I've forgotten - so please bare with me. But you indicated the black script bottle is dated 1938-1939. It that date-range because you can't make out the marks - or that it's not marked and you are dating it by the style? And does it have a city/state? Please tell us as much as you can about it. Thanks

 

[squirtbob]

My black script squirt was made at the OI plant (3) WVA and the bottler was in Joliet, Il. The date marking on the bottom is either a slightly misshapen 8 or a 9 with the loop closed on the bottom done when the bottle was being formed. With regards to the other bottle I don't feel at liberty to give specific detail but this much I can say. It was made at a different OI plant and the date mark is without question an 8 for 38. I can also say that I have seen the first style back of the bottle where the drink is touted as "Its delicious, Its different" on a 1939 bottle but with the script changed on the front to red. This is another indicator that the marketing department dumped the black script relatively quickly. Further, I have and have seen other 1939 dated bottles, made by at least 3 different manufacturers that list bottlers outside the midwest. The are all red script and have the advertising changed on the back that prominently notes the drink to be "a drink, a mixer" and shows the contents for the first time.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Bob

Thanks for the info on the black script bottle. Unfortunately, the archives I'm subscribed to does not include any newspapers from Joliet, so I did a search for anything and everything I could find regarding Squirt nationwide during 1939. Only three listings came up for that year, which were bottlers in ...

1. Manitowoc, Wisconsin
2. Algona, Iowa
3. Alton, Illinois

As I indicated earlier, Twin City Bottling in Menasha/Neehah apparently only bottled Squirt for a single year in 1938 because there is nothing showing them bottling it in 1939 or later, although they were still in operation at the time but bottling other brands such as "Tasty." The Appleton Squirt ads do not start to appear until 1940.

If they can be found, I think you best bet for at least two of the first Squirt bottlers are those from Manitowoc and Menasha/Neehah.

The articles are as follows ...

1. Kossuth County Advance ~ Algona, Iowa ~ April 4, 1939
2. Alton Evening Telegraph ~ Alton, Illinois ~ May 8, 1939

3. Post-Crescent ~ Appleton, Wisconsin ~ May 12, 1937
I'm including this one because it shows when Twin City Bottling was incorporated.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

By the way ... Once you get to 1940-1941, the newspapers explode with Squirt ads. But because my main focus on this thread is with 1938 Squirt bottles only, I don't feel it's necessary to bombard things with a never-ending list of Squirt advertisements from 1940 and beyond.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

However ... I thought this article fit into the scheme of things because it involves the year 1939. I guess you could call it a "wanna-be" 1939 Squirt bottler ... The Arizona Independent-Republic ~ Phoenix, Arizona ~ October 15, 1940 (Notice that Herbert Bishop's middle initial is shown as W. Now we have three different initials B-S-W) ???