Newbie with a Coca cola bottle questions

[daven2nl]

Just got back from an afternoon in the jungle. It was a rough one - got torn up twice by wasps. The first time were the smaller boonie bees - 8-10 stings. Mean suckers! The 2nd time by large yellow jungle hornets - 6-8 stings that time and they still hurt + sore. I'm not allergic to bees but I'm going to have to stay clear of the jungle for a couple days - I don't want to stung any more until I've had a chance to recover from this bout.

I haven't summed everything yet, but I figure I listed info from about 100 coke bottles. It's really tough to read some due to weak embossing/moss/hazing plus the heat/humidity makes it hard to keep sweat out of my eyes. I still need to hit 3 or 4 more places I know before I will have some good data for you.

I'll put any bottles aside that have letter codes instead of numbers so I can confirm once the bottles have been cleaned - the rest I'm leaving behind as they may have some historical significance.

The vast majority of the ones I listed today are the typical Owens Corning # -<|> # type with clear glass and small "Trade Mark" embossing. Most of these are from 1945, but again I really only sampled from one dump site.

I do believe I found one with "2N <|> 45" that I hopefully put aside.

In my collection at home I have the following:

9D <> 44 (Pat-D, Oakland CA embossed on the base, green glass)
5L <> 44 (Pat-D, No embossing on base, clear glass)
2C <> 44 (Trade Mark, no embossing on base except for a single raised dimple, clear glass)
8P <> 44 (Pat-D, no embossing on base, clear glass)
8R <> 44 (Pat-D, no embossing on base, clear glass)
5K <> 44 (Pat-D, Oakland CA embossed on the base, green glass)

I still need to hit the area where I found most of the Oakland CA bottles - there are probably more letter date codes there.

Give me a week to get as much data as possible, and I will summarize for you and Bill.

FYI all the manufacturer marks are Owens-Corning (vast majority), Chattanooga Glass Company (C in a circle), and a 3rd mark I have not been able to identify. This is on most of the newer bottles - early 50s. It appears to be a circle with a horizontal line across it, and two vertical lines extending from the top and bottom of the circle. It's really tough to see since it's so small and embossing isn't the greatest. I'll keep digging.

-Dave

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Dave ~

Wow! (or should I say "Ow" because of the bee stings?) You really earned your stripes this time! Thank you for the information. I will be sure to share it with Bill Porter. It will be interesting to see what you come up with regarding the 100 bottles you mentioned. Of special interest are the green ones, especially the ones with letters on them.

By the way, I just checked the time difference between Guam and the U.S., and when its 8:00 AM Wednesday here on the West Coast, its 1:00 AM Thursday in Guam.

The first chance I get, I am going to research the makers mark you mentioned, which at present I do not recognize. Maybe someone else who reads this is familiar with it.

I will be looking forward to hearing from you again, but no hurry. The bottles aren't going anywhere and neither are we.

Thanks again.

Bob

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

PS ~

When you say Owens-Corning, don't you actually mean Owens-Illinois?

Also, is the makers mark you described sort of like an H in a circle or something else?

Thanks.

Bob

 

[daven2nl]

Bob,

Sorry - I'm a doofus! I meant Owens - Illinois (not Corning; I don't know how that got stuck in my head)

Here are pictures of the unknown manufacturers marks:

The first, on a green coke bottle with a large "TRADE MARK" and no markings whatsoever on the base:

I have only found one with this mark, which is why I kept it originally.

Here is the second, which seems to be the only mark I am finding on bottles from the early 50s:

I have several with this MFR mark and I have not been able to identify either online. This is also a green bottle, with nothing embossed on the base, and with TRADE MARK REGISTERED IN US PATENT OFFICE

Could these be foreign bottle manufacturers? The 1st one looks almost like a "N" in a diamond, which may be a Japanese marking according to this page:
www.cokebottles.de/

I have (until now) mostly ignored the more recent (IE 1950s) hobblskirts but I know where there are several that I'll be checking out hopefully over the next few days.

Thanks,
-Dave

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Dave ~

It's probably mid-day where you are, but midnight here. So I only have a minute. I wanted to take this opportunity and commend you on the great pictures and say thanks. I have never seen either mark. Weird!. If the one is Japanese, then maybe there is something to be found here ...

http://www.sha.org/documents/Technical_briefs_articles/vol4article_02.pdf

I only scrolled through it real quick, so really don't know what all it contains.

I'll be back tomorrow with more comments. In the meantime, please keep up the good work. Very interesting and educational. I just forwarded your last two pictures to Bill Porter. Maybe he recognizes the marks.

Later.

Bob

 

[daven2nl]

Bob,

I've read that article over many times since Japanese bottles are what really interest me. It's about the only document I can find that describes Japanese WW2 era bottles.

Unfortunately it is not complete, however. I've found a couple different varieties here that are definitely not rare, but not included in that paper. Also, I've run across enough Dai Nippon bottled to deduce that one of the numbers on the base is the year of manufacture (in Year of the Showa). That is something I'm planning on writing up in the future. That info also is not included in the paper.

I probably am an outlier (well obviously I am) being on Guam and not North America. I suspect I'm finding lots of oddities because we're technically overseas and the rules are slightly different (like no embossing on the bottle's base). Today most of our stuff comes from North America - because of the Jones Act - but in the late 40s and early 50s I would imagine it would be quicker and cheaper to import things such as empty bottles from closer places, like the Philippines and Japan (not that Japan was rebuilt enough by 1950 to be a big exporter...).

Anyway, I'm having a blast!

-Dave

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Dave ~

Bill Porter isn't familiar with those marks either, but finds all of this to be very interesting. The collecting and researching of Asian Coca Cola bottles is a study unto itself, with apparently very little information available to collectors unless you can read a foreign language. I'm sure you have done your homework and likely know as much or more about Asian Coca Cola bottles than your average collector. Do you speak or able to read Japanese, etc? I sure don't.

For those among us who are inclined to do so, maybe those marks or some reference to them can be found on one of the following links which are to various Coca Cola bottlers worldwide, and specifically to Japan.

Please continue with more - I'm hooked! Especially regarding any of the green city/state bottles with letters, etc. on them.

Thanks again.

Bob

Main Link:

http://www.7xpub.com/coca-cola-websites-and-links/coke-clubs-collectors.html?start=40

Side Links / Japanese Coca Cola Bottlers

http://www.cccj.co.jp/

http://www.hokkaido.ccbc.co.jp/

http://www.mikuni-ccbc.co.jp/

http://www.minami-kyushu.ccbc.co.jp/

http://www.okinawa.ccbc.co.jp/

http://www.sendai.ccbc.co.jp/

http://www.shikoku.ccbc.co.jp/

http://www.tokyo.ccbc.co.jp/

http://www.tone.ccbc.co.jp/

 

[daven2nl]

Interesting stuff!

Check out this photo (large):

http://www.nww2m.com/wp-content/upl...ipan-Gift-of-Precilla-Porche_2001.464.021.jpg

The interesting thing to me are the Japanese prisoners in the photo who apparently worked at the bottling plant. They are the ones in front - and most are not showing their faces as they felt disgraced for allowing themselves to be captured.

I suspect on Guam a similar thing happened. Coke brought in bottling capability and a certain stock of bottles which were cleaned and refilled/capped like stateside. It's quite possible and likely that many of the bottles I see were used into the post-war years.

I seem to find a lot of 1944/45 bottles (clear) mixed in with a very few green bottles (some with the city on the base) from the mid 40's. I find very few bottles from 46-50 - maybe they were still using the older clear bottles. In the early 50's the numbers seem to pick up again. I still need to visit a bunch more places and get more data points before I can conclude this is the case.

Guam was under Navy control until 1950. So it would not surprise me that Coke used the same wartime bottling plants into the post-war years. I guess the question would be these manufacturer marks - tracking down where these bottles were made. I'm guessing likely candidates would be USA, Japan, or Australia. They did not make bottles here on Guam AFAIK.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Dave ~

There's no question the first bottle you posted a picture of is a "Nippon Glass Company, Ltd." bottle. You posted the home page to this site earlier but didn't emphasize that the identical mark is shown on the Hobbleskirt page. Scroll down and click on "Japan" and you'll see it. Here's the link again plus an altered picture I did to highlight the N. I haven't researched the company yet, but intend to and see what their connection to Coca Cola was.

N in a diamond
Nippon Glass Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan
http://www.cokebottles.de/framesr3.htm

Bob

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

PS ~

Dave ~

Have you scrolled through that website and looked at every mark from every country yet? I haven't but intend to tomorrow. That other weird mark might be found there.

Bob