Hoping to learn about Frostie-like bottle found in crawl space

[shadeone]

I have seen two sources of 1945 dated bottles of "Frostie Taste Treat" which would have been a non-root beer flavor line, but bottled by Catonsville bottling. Both examples say Catonsville Bottling on the front:

in 1947 the Catonsville location was removed as other plants were bottling by then. This one is 1947 from Kelly Bottling in Frederick MD:

There was also a white version of the Taste Treat bottle, but this one has the more familiar Frostie elf that was in all of their advertising, It is also from Kelly Bottling. I have found instances of this bottle from 1950 and 1952.

This 1950 newspaper article about Kelly Bottling indicates "new frostie flavors" so I'm assuming by then they got rid of the green "Taste Treat" bottles and bottled the flavor line in the white "Taste Treat" bottles as shown above this


The last instance of the flavors being mentioned anywhere is this little October 3rd 1952 newspaper ad:

I'm guessing they got rid of the white Taste Treat bottles in 1953 because I have found a few Frostie style bottles without the "root beer" part on the front:

 

[shadeone]

One other neat find is this little corner of a bottling truck brochure from 1948 that shows the Kelly Bottling trucks but doesn't say "Frostie", just "Old Fashion Root Beer":

 

[shadeone]

And since this has turned into the unofficial Frostie history thread, that picture of the various later bottles from Sodabob in a post on the last page was my collection previously, and was what I believe to be every bottle variant through 1960.

Here is a larger image (click):


And the details:
1948 - Hawes Bottling Works, Freeport, Il - Brown corners
1949 - Lotz Bottling Works, Binghamton, NY - Clear corners
1949 - Frostie Bottling Co, Wheeling, W VA - Brown corners, "mr frostie" above neck logo
1949 - Frostie Bottling Co, Wheeling, W VA - Clear corners, "mr frostie" above neck logo
1948 - Dr Pepper Bottling Co, Vincennes, Indiana - Brown corners, "old frostie" above neck logo
1949 - Hawes Bottling Works, Freeport, Il - Clear corners - "mr frostie" around running elf neck logo
1946 - Kelly Bottling Works, Frederick Maryland - Arched trademark line, slanted "you'll love it" line
Unknown - Ackleys Beverages Inc, Hempstead, NY - Brown corners, no neck logo
1953 - Frostie Bottling Co, Frederick, MD - Clear corners, no "root beer" line, dot on neck
1955 - The Frostie Company, Baltimore, MD - Clear corners, no "root beer" line, blank neck
1952 - Old Kerry Beverage Co, Haverhill, MA - Clear corners, "frostie" plain text on neck
1957 - Frostie Bottling Company of Southwest Florida, Tampa - Clear corners, blank neck
1957 - The Frostie Company, Baltimore, MD - Clear corners, "frostie" neck logo
1958 - The Frostie Company, Baltimore, MD - Clear corners, "circle R" trademark, blank neck
1959 - Sidney Bottling Works, Sidney, OH - Clear corners, "circle R" trademark, "frostie" neck logo
1959 - The Frostie Company, Baltimore, MD - Elf logo, white "frostie" neck logo
1957 - The Frostie Company, Baltimore, MD - Elf logo, red "frostie" neck logo
1957 - The Frostie Company, Baltimore, MD - Alternate "creepy" elf variant

Hopefully this helps any future people looking at this thread!

 

[SODABOB]

Shade

Fantastic post! I vaguely remember the earlier discussions you referred to. The part I remember most is about the jailhouse. Even though your timeline seems fairly accurate, I'm still confused at to what year the absolute earliest Frostie bottle is dated. As we know, most references claim they began the bottling operation in 1939. However, I believe their first product was Nichol Kola. Attached is the earliest newspaper ad I can find for the Catonsville Bottling Co. - which is for Nichol Kola from 1939. The Nichol Kola trademark was first recorded in 1936 and apparently not related to Catonsville Bottling. So, to reiterate my main question; is there an "Old Fashion" and/or "Frostie" bottle dated 1942 or earlier? If not, what is the earliest dated bottle? 1944?

Bob

 

[hemihampton]

I have one of these my Mom gave me, said it came from my grandma. It had one of those sprinkler tops on it for sprinkling laundry in the old days, common in the 1940's & 50's. Anyways, what I thought was odd was it was bottled from a very small local Michigan Bottling works. from Ferndale Michigan if I remember right. Which I live only a few short miles from. Would like to confirm but it's been boxed up somewhere for years. LEON.

 

[SODABOB]

This MIGHT be one of the earliest Frostie bottles. Even though it's hard to see it has Frostie embossed on the neck.

Notice that the base has ...

1. Kelly Bottling
2. B-Circle (Brockway Machine Bottle Co. logo)
3. The number 1 to the right of the B-Circle (Possibly a code for 1941)
4. But, then again, the 50 might be for 1950 - I'm not sure

I plan to research this some more is see what else I can find. One thing I know for certain is that a lot of the later Frostie bottles were made by Brockway and have the B-Circle on the base.

Bob

 

[SODABOB]

Based on the following I'm eliminating the quart Frostie bottle as being from 1941. I'm almost certain the 50 on the base is for 1950. I found several things about Kelly Bottling that may shed some light on things. Notice in the attached article from 1950 where it mentions a Guy E Kelly. I'm pretty sure he was the Kelly of Kelly Bottling.

According to the attached census (both of which are for Frederick, Maryland) he was born in 1914.

Also notice ...

1940 Census = Trucker Beverages (26 years old)

1950 Census = Proprietor Soft Drink Bottling Plant (36 years old)

Bob

 

[shadeone]

The earliest dated bottle with Frostie “root beer” on it I’ve seen in almost 10 years of collecting Frostie was one I posted on the last page from 1946:

The earliest confirmed bottle I’ve seen with just “Frostie” itself on it was the green Frostie “Taste Treat” flavor line bottles from 1945 (also posted above)

Kelly Bottling only got the franchise rights to Frostie in 1946 according to this 1950 ad:
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img922/3452/VntQdL.jpg
It also mentions the “new large family size bottles” and the base of that bottle says “1 pint 8 fl ozs”, so I think the 50 stamp on yours is correct.
That ad shows one of the large bottles and it appears to be a paper label bottle. Yours appears to have that texture that was used on some paper label bottles around that time.

 

[SODABOB]

Thanks, Shade

So, it appears the claims about 1939 are totally misleading. Apparently 1939 was when they started the bottling plant in Catonsville with Nichol Kola, but they didn't start bottling anything with the Frostie name until around 1945. If accurate, that's a six year gap between 1939 and 1945. Would it be possible for you to post base photos for the 1945 and 1946 bottles? I think it would be interesting to see exactly how they are marked.

Bob

 

[shadeone]

The 1946 isn’t in my collection anymore but I’ll try to get some from the person who owns them now.
The 1945 was found on the internet somewhere and I neglected to save the base pic but I’ll try to dig it up!