EARLIEST "CROWN TOP" SODA BOTTLES 1892 - 1900

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celerycola

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Biedenharn was at best the third bottler of Coca-Cola. It was bottled in Atlanta in the 1880's by two separate bottlers according to Samuel Candler Dobbs who at the time he made the statement was President of The Coca-Cola Company. He was also Asa Candler's nephew and involved in the Coca-Cola business from 1888 onward.

Root did make Hutchinson bottles. As far as the crown Coke bottles they were made by many other glass companies as well as Root.

Hutchinson bottles were still being used in 1918 in the US. I've seen several with the contents embossed as required by the Gould Amendment. How quickly bottler's switched to crowns depended on local custom.

Hutchinson bottles were used only briefly in 1899 for Coca-Cola in Atlanta and Chattanooga because the rubber washer affected the taste of the drink. Most of the Hutchinson bottles embossed Coca-Cola were actually used for fruit-flavored soda water, even those with the script trademark. The Birmingham Coca-Cola plant started as a branch of Atlanta in 1901 and used crown bottles for Coke from the beginning. Crawford Johnson bought the plant in February 1902 and added the script Hutchinson bottles for the soda water flavors because that is what other local bottlers used at the time.
 

surfaceone

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DSC01015.jpg


Hey Bob,

Thanks for writing up this topic. It's one, in which I've been interested in for some time. I've been calling them transitional bottles in my mind's conversations. The above guy is a quart sized, turn moulded, crown top. I'm guessing a mineral water, rather than a soda, but close enough, I hope.

It was one of the last pieces to come out of my last lamented dump digging spot. The excavators filled me in the other day. This one was about 2 feet below the dated 1909 layer. Here's a not too good picture of the finish:
DSC01016.jpg
I was trying to illustrated the the concentric rings that highlight this guy, but didn't quite capture them.

Here's Bill Lindsey's synopsis on 'Turn-molds,' "Turn-mold (paste mold) - Refers to a mouth-blown bottle produced in a mold where the bottle is rotated in the mold to erase the mold seams and give the bottle a glossy sheen. Also called a paste mold since the interior mold surface had to have a lubricant added to facilitate the rotation. Both the terms "turn-mold" and "paste mold" were used by glassmakers to describe these bottles (Scholes 1952). Turn-mold bottles date at least as early as the Civil War through the later mouth-blown bottle era as they were still listed as late as 1911 in glass manufacturing catalogs (Putnam 1965). There are no machine-made turn-mold bottles to our knowledge. Contrary to the implications of the name, the bottle turned in the mold - the mold did not turn around a stationary bottle. This process is discussed in more depth on the Glassmaking & Glassmakers page." From. There's more over here.

max_ernst_arizona.jpg
 

SODAPOPBOB

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celerycola ~

Thanks for helping to connect some more of the missing links. It's starting to look as if I may have bit off more than I can chew here, as there doesn't appear to be a definitive method for recognizing the earlier, and especially pre-1900 crown soda bottles.

So what in your opinion is the best method for dating pre-machine-made crown bottles prior to around 1905 or so? You said (quote) ... "The Birmingham Coca-Cola plant started as a branch of Atlanta in 1901 and used crown bottles for Coke from the beginning." Are you saying they are only identifiable if they are embossed with a particular city, thus knowing when that specific bottler started would establish a date? Or is there some other method dependent on how the bottle was made etc? And lastly, do you happen to have an example of one of those 1901 Birmingham Coca-Cola bottles that you could share a photo of?

Thanks a million. I truly appreciate it.

SPB
 

SODAPOPBOB

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surfacetwo to surfaceone ... can you read me? Over! Lol [:D]

It looks like you were posting while I was typing. Thanks for the information. I'm beginning to think I need to take a closer look at is the finishes (lips) regarding how and when these early crowns first appeared. That blob-looking stuff under the applied lips may be a clue as well. Hmmm? The words "applied lips" rings a bell!

Also, thanks for the photos. I'm definitely a ... "one picture is worth a thousand words" kind of guy.

SPB
 

cyberdigger

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This is an interesting subject.. I have long wondered if the shape of a crown top was around in some other incarnation before the invention of the cap.. probably not, but maybe somewhere out there..
Here is the lip of an unembossed applied crown I dug up a ways back.. quite crude:


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cyberdigger

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Here's 2 of my favorite crowns, these local squats.. they've gotta be close to day 1 of cappydom...

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SODAPOPBOB

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cyberdigger ~

Thanks. You're cook'n some grits now! But other than being able to identify the brand/bottler itself, what about your two bottles leads you to think they may be from day one? And please know I am not trying to put you on the spot here, as I don't know the answers myself yet. So this question goes out to everyone ... "How can we know with certainty whether cyberdigger's two bottles are from 1899 or 1909? Or somewhere inbetween?"

Great photos, by the way, and exactly the sort of thing I have been looking for. And I agree, the just "gotta be" some of the first crown tops! But, speaking entirely for myself, I'm just "guessing."

Thanks again,

SPB
 

cyberdigger

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Well in the spirit of the quest for knowledge, I can make contributions only on my intuition and the age of the digs from whence some of these came.. I will look through things here and see if there aren't any other crowns in the hoarde which are suspiciously early and post them with pics, but I've got more Q's than A's right now.. [;)] BTW I find your enthusiasm catchy and enjoyable!! Just one thing... are those magic grits??
 

SODAPOPBOB

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cyberdigger ~

Nope ... not magic grits! Just everyday ground-up hominy. But your two "Red Bank's" are a couple Genie's in a bottle.

I was wondering if you would be interested in disecting them? By that, I mean to tell us everything you can about them, including the mold seam placements, makers marks, tooled lip, etc., etc. Maybe you/we can figure out something about them that would establish some kind of guideline for a better understanding of early crown-tops. Earlier, "appliedlips" mentioned that some of the early crowns were "squats," and likely was referring to examples like yours.

I hope to hear back from you soon. And if you are the ace photographer I suspect you are, maybe a couple of good closeups would help too.

Gracias,

SPB
 

SODAPOPBOB

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I ran across the information below, and was hoping someone could explain how to recognize those so called "shoulder air venting marks." This may be a significant clue in our continuing desire to date those earlier crowns. Regarding my "Godfrey Archer" bottle, (which is the only early crown I have), I just discovered it was actually made in a 4-piece mold, as opposed to the 3-piece mold I thought it was earlier. But other than the tooled finish on the lip/neck area, I don't see anything that looks like "air venting marks." HELP !!! Where's Red Matthews (the mold guy) when you need him?

Thanks,

SPB

~ * ~

"Some of the early crown bottles had tooled crown finishes and were blown in a cup base mold with multiple shoulder air venting marks."
 

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