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

[SODABOB]

Thanks Bad3555 & Shade

There seems to be some confusing and conflicting information about the original location of the Catonsville Bottling Company. Most sources say it was in an abandoned Jail. And yet the address they give is 22 Bloomsbury Avenue. As it turns out, the Bloomsbury address is for a Fire Station and not a Jail. I'm still working on this, but based on what I have seen so far those were two different buildings at two different locations. A 1928 article I found said the Jail was on Ingleside Avenue. I discovered that Bloomsbury Avenue turns into Ingleside Avenue with Ingleside being north of Bloomsbury. So I'm not sure what to make of this, but if we can figure it out we might be able to set the record straight - with the main questions being ...

1. Was the original bottling plant in the Jail or was it in the Fire house?
2. What is the correct address and/or location?
3. None of the above - we are missing something?

Bob

 

[shadeone]

22 Bloomsbury was a police and fire combo deal.

Article from 1967:

 

[SODABOB]

Thanks Shade

We may never know the whole story about the Police Station / Fire House, but there is no doubt about the original location ...

1940 Catonsville, Maryland Directory

Bob

 

[SODABOB]

I received my Catonsville bottle today (the squat one with no label) and it is clearly embossed with ...

Shoulder = CATONSVILLE BOT'G. CO. / CATONSVILLE , MD.

Base = CONT. 12 FLD. OZS. / 746 B - 42

It's in near mint condition with only minor case wear on some of the shoulder embossing. There is absolutely no evidence of ACL "ghosting" on the body and I'm almost certain that it originally had a paper label. I'm not sure what the 746 stands for - although I suspect it is a mold or catalog code. I'm almost certain the B is for Brockway glass and the 42 is for 1942. If it had a paper label I can only speculate about it. I'm thinking Nichol Kola, Old Fashion, or possibly one of the Tasty flavors. I hesitate to assume it is an early Frostie bottle because I have not seen a Frostie paper label earlier than the ones that have (C) 1947 on them. ???

Bob

 

[shadeone]

Hopefully some day a paper label version of that slick side bottle shows up so we can see what was really on it! Like the main bottle that inspired this thread, there's gotta be one sitting in someones walls

The creator of this thread did send me a couple shots of the bottom of the "Old Fashion" bottle that started this thread. Unfortunately the bottle appears to be like a few other later Frostie bottles I have seen where the markings are very faint and come across pretty much as just illegible bumps.

 

[shadeone]

Forgot about this one...

Comes from an archived ebay auction (https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/antique-root-beer-bottle-476430857). Though there is no picture, the seller states the bottom says: 7425-3B46 which should mean 1946.

I find this one interesting because if you look at the angle of the wording, it is more slanted than the later standardized Frostie bottles, slanted in the same manner as the "Old Fashion" bottles like the one in question from this thread. It also doesn't have the "trade mark reg" line right under the wording, centered like the later standardized Frostie bottles had. It's a bit smudged but you can see where it appears under the "Fashion" word just like on the "Old Fashion" bottles.
This appears to be sort of a link between the "Old Fashion" and "Frostie Old Fashion" bottles, and would make sense timeline wise.

 

[SODABOB]

Thanks Shade

It's too bad the base of the Old Fashion bottle isn't legible. Maybe another one will turn up eventually. I have been looking at some more directories and the earliest one I can find that mentions Old Fashion is from 1941 at their Edmondston Ave. location. You probably noticed Nichol Kola in the 1940 directory. As of 1943 they were still listing Old Fashion along with Nip and Tasty Flavors. I'm still looking for directories between 1944 and 1947 and hope to find a listing for Frostie in one of them. If they were bottling Frostie in 1943 it should be listed in this directory but it's not.

Bob

 

[shadeone]

I don't think you are ever going to find "Frostie" being advertised / in phone books as being bottled in 1943. It was still just "Old Fashion" in commercial production at that time.
Remember the Frostie trademark documents? "In commerce - April, 1946 (August 25, 1944 AS TO "Frostie")". The other one said "First use June 1942, in commerce October 1944"...
This should mean that they came up with the Frostie name as early as 1942 but only changed from "Old Fashion" to "Frostie Old Fashion" commercially some time between August and October of 1944 and only made the change on the actual bottles in 1946 from what we can deduce based on current evidence.

 

[SODABOB]

Thanks again

I agree = Sometime between 1944 and 1946 - but nada zilch nothing from 1939 as they claim!

This directory is from Winter 1938 / Spring 1939 - No listing for Catonsville Bottling whatsoever. Still looking for Summer 1939 / Winter 1939 ...

Bob

 

[SODABOB]

I couldn't find any more Catonsville directories so I switched to Baltimore directories. However, even those are kind of sparse. This one is especially interesting ...

Baltimore Directory - Summer / Fall 1946

The whole page came out blurry, so I cropped it into individual parts. Notice it is referred to as the Frostie Co., and yet the box on the lower right says Old Fashion and Large Frosty Bottle. Even though I can't say for certain, this might be part of the transition period that Shadeone has been referring to. ???

Bob