My first cobalt soda! Plus bowling pin milks, pictorial sodas, and druggist bottles!

[CanadianBottles]

I've been having some great luck with Facebook Marketplace lately, but this one absolutely hit it out of the park. It seems like it's way better than Kijiji these days in terms of me actually being able to message the seller before someone else already has. Ended up with 12 Montreal bottles, the star being this cobalt Joseph Christin applied top soda:

View attachment 187720
No idea how rare it is, Christin was one of Montreal's most long-lived and prolific bottlers, but I can't remember ever seeing this one in person before. Cobalt sodas in general are not at all common in Canada, I'm actually not 100% sure that this isn't the only dark cobalt bottle from Canada, although I suspect that Southern Ontario has a few. The condition of it isn't great - it's very worn and has a small crack - but I'm not complaining!


I don't know much about Quebec milk bottles, but I suspect that a couple of these may be pretty good ones. The A.D. Buchanan from Westmount and the Maple Hill Dairy from Montreal are both variations which aren't pictured on the Quebec Dairies website, and that website is extremely thorough in documenting everything known to collectors from the province. The Buchanan has a top which I've never seen on a milk bottle before, but unfortunately it's in pretty terrible condition. I suspect the Guaranteed Pure Milk Co bottle is fairly common as they were a huge dairy - their milk-bottle shaped water tower is still an iconic part of the skyline - but I love the pictorial embossing. John D. Duncan I hadn't previously heard of, apparently he was bought out by Guaranteed Pure in 1920.


Four Montreal sodas ca. 1910. Rowan Bros, Stewart Bottling, Millar's, and Goulet Frere. The Goulet bottle features the Jacques Cartier statue in Place D'Armes.


BE McGale, Dr. Leduc Drug Co, and Cavanagh (with unusual goat and crown pictorial embossing) druggist bottles. The Dr. Leduc is pretty common but I don't think the other two are.

 

[shotdwn]

Nice bottles. I like the cobalt soda. Of course I wouldn't be disappointed with the druggist bottle either or any of them for that matter.

 

[RCO]

I've never used facebook marketplace but I agree kijjii can be tough to finalise sales sometimes


not that familiar with Montreal bottles , have seen Rowan bros bottles before , don't recall seeing the other ones but likely many Montreal bottles I've never seen . all seem to be good finds

 

[goaliewb]

Awesome catch!

 

[hemihampton]

Nice finds. Congrats. LEON.

 

[CanadianBottles]

Thanks for the replies folks! I definitely think Facebook Marketplace is worth keeping an eye on, the seller to buyer ratio seems way better than the other classified sites. I've also noticed that it seems to do a good job of showing me things that I'm likely to want even when I'm not specifically looking for them, probably as a result of Zuckerberg's creepy algorithms. Now I've got to keep an eye out for one of those cobalt druggists...

 

[vt910815]

Nice!

 

[iggyworf]

Good stuff!