Cheerwine from Asheville, NC

[morbious_fod]

"CHEERWINE quickly began to grow and became a popular drink thoughout the peidmont of North Carolina. As the company's success grew, Mr. Peeler had the CHEERWINE trademark registered in 1926. Peeler knew he was onto something special and started focusing on the company's future. In 1927 he started another bottling company in Charlotte, NC (which was later sold to Sun-Drop Bottling in 1976) that helped extend the market." www.blakescheerwineoldies.com via the wayback machine. Unfortunately his site is down.

 

[morbious_fod]

I stand corrected. The Gastonia bottling company in question wasn't a branch plant of Cheerwine of Charlotte. It was actually established as a Bludwine franchise in 1917 according to their own history, so it appears they and the Charlotte plant shared the county in question as I suggested.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Morb All things considered, why are the Asheville, N.C. Cheerwine bottles so rare? In fact, the only one I am currently aware of is yours, plus some unconfirmed references to a few others. If you look on eBay and other picture-providing sites, Gastiona N.C. Cheerwine bottles are in relative abundance. But no Asheville bottles! Why?

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

P.S. I checked population totals for 1950 and 1960 and found ... (Even Numbers) Asheville1950 = 53,0001960 = 60,000 Charlotte1950 = 134,0001960 = 200,000 Gastonia1950 = 23,0001960 = 37,000 Please note, this is just an observation and nothing more. Shouldn't a larger population translate into more bottles? Asheville had a larger population than Gastonia in the 1950s and 1960s, and yet there are more Gastonia Cheerwine bottles available today than Asheville bottles. How do we explain this?

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Just for the fun of it! []
I realize this isn't entirely fair because the newspaper archives for Asheville only go to 1917, but I still found it interesting.

The archives contain Cheerwine ads as follows ...

1. Grand Total Entire Archives = 857
2. North Carolina Only = 812
3. Gastonia Only = 333
4. Asheville Only = 0

Of the newspapers on the site, the Gastonia Gazette has more Cheerwine ads than any other newspaper. So much so that in some cases they appear almost daily, but mostly once weekly. The Gastonia Cheerwine ads start in 1947 and end in 1974.

The one pictured here was very popular and ran many, many times during the mid 1950s.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

I wanted to post this link before I lost track of it and thought others might like to tap into as well. It contains more information than I have time or megabytes to spare at the moment. Maybe there is something among these files that will help solve the mystery. Check it out! https://archive.org/search.php?query=asheville%20AND%20collection%3Aamericana

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

This is dated 1969 but I thought it fit the criteria and had some pertinent information. From ... The Gastonia Gazette ~ May 23, 1969

 

[morbious_fod]

Morb All things considered, why are the Asheville, N.C. Cheerwine bottles so rare? In fact, the only one I am currently aware of is yours, plus some unconfirmed references to a few others. If you look on eBay and other picture-providing sites, Gastiona N.C. Cheerwine bottles are in relative abundance. But no Asheville bottles! Why?

Most likely because the company who bottled it didn't bottle it very long, which is why I speculate that the company that bottled it went out of business by 1952, while Gastonia bottled it for quite a long time. It's the same reason Pat-D Coca-Cola bottles from Kingsport, Tennessee are as rare as they are. The company started in 1951, and by 1953 the bottle had changed to the "in patent office" bottles. Instant rarity.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Morb All things considered, why are the Asheville, N.C. Cheerwine bottles so rare? In fact, the only one I am currently aware of is yours, plus some unconfirmed references to a few others. If you look on eBay and other picture-providing sites, Gastiona N.C. Cheerwine bottles are in relative abundance. But no Asheville bottles! Why?

Most likely because the company who bottled it didn't bottle it very long, which is why I speculate that the company that bottled it went out of business by 1952, ...

That seems to make the most sense and would explain a lot. Have you been able to narrow down which of the Asheville bottlers that might have or did go out of business around that time?

 

[morbious_fod]

Morb All things considered, why are the Asheville, N.C. Cheerwine bottles so rare? In fact, the only one I am currently aware of is yours, plus some unconfirmed references to a few others. If you look on eBay and other picture-providing sites, Gastiona N.C. Cheerwine bottles are in relative abundance. But no Asheville bottles! Why?

Most likely because the company who bottled it didn't bottle it very long, which is why I speculate that the company that bottled it went out of business by 1952, ...

That seems to make the most sense and would explain a lot. Have you been able to narrow down which of the Asheville bottlers that might have or did go out of business around that time?

I have given possible suspects at least twice in this thread.