COCA COLA / 1915 PROTOTYPE / EARL R DEAN / RAY A GRAHAM

[SODAPOPBOB]

ORIGINAL: epackage

Bob I may have missed it previously but has any mention been made regarding the similar shapes, was there some sort of collusion during the design period?

Jim ~

I wondered the same thing because of the "somewhat similar" design of the two bottles. As far as I know there were no specific guidelines other than contents size and Coca Cola's request for a bottle "that could be recognized in the dark." I don't believe there was any cheating / copy-cating / or "collusion" going on. Nor do I believe that anyone knows what any of the other entries look like or how many there were.

Bob

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

P.S.

I will have to re-read the Dean book and see if I can find some answers there.

 

[epackage]

It's odd that all of a sudden two very similar, previously unused/unknown bottle styles would be produced for the same soda, at least to me. I'm guessing something funny may have happened, it was a different age and a more trusting time so it wouldn't shock me if there were shenanigans..

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Its the fluted columns and the bulge in the center that appear similar. If there were any shenanigans going on, I'd say it was someone in the Graham camp who was up to no good and not someone connected with Dean. That is, unless there was a spy in the Dean camp who "leaked" some design information to Graham. ???

Bob

 

[epackage]

I'm not trying to place any blame on anyone[] just hoping that some light can be shed on why the bottles have such similar forms. Hopefully you'll be able to enlighten me in the near future...[]

 

[cyberdigger]

Weren't they trying to make a bottle that looked like a cocoa bean?

 

[celerycola]

What I find amusing is that, in the case of the Coca-Cola adopting a design patent "hobbleskirt" bottle, Coca-Cola was the imitator.

One of the biggest imitators of Coca-Cola was Gay-Ola, based in Memphis TN. Gay-Ola was introduced in 1910 and a script logo was used on various types of straightside bottles. Over ten years time, Coca-Cola filed more lawsuits against Gay-Ola than any other brand. At one point, in 1913, Gay-Ola thought to distinguish their product from Coca-Cola by using a distinguishable, standard bottle for their franchises across the nation. The "Four-Ring" Gay-Ola bottle was design patented in 1914 and the courts determined that the bottle made Gay-Ola distinct and that lawsuit by Coca-Cola was thrown out.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

ORIGINAL: epackage

I'm not trying to place any blame on anyone[] just hoping that some light can be shed on why the bottles have such similar forms. Hopefully you'll be able to enlighten me in the near future...[]

Jim ~

I just got down my "signed" hardcover copy of Norman Dean's book that I acquired through Jeff Dean and plan to research it this coming week. I'll let you know if I find anything of interest related to your queries.

By the way, did you know that Earl R Dean designed "hundreds" of bottles for Root Glass and that two of them were ...

1. The embossed Nu Grape bottle.
2. The embossed Squeeze bottle.

I would scan and post images of the original design sketches from the book but promised Jeff I wouldn't so as to encourage others to purchase the book for themselves and read "the rest of the story."

Bob

 

[epackage]

ORIGINAL: cyberdigger

Weren't they trying to make a bottle that looked like a cocoa bean?

This states Dean drew up a Cocoa Pod design, but no mention of Graham so I wonder how they came to use a similar design...

http://www.sha.org/bottle/pdffiles/coca-cola.pdf

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

This is not a scan from the Dean book but rather from the Encyclopedia Britannica where Dean got the idea for his design ...