Pictorial Ginger Beers

[SergioWilkins]

Hey, all!

I've always had a soft spot for pictorial ginger beers. While I've seen a lot of the Canadian examples (a high proportion of the Ontario ginger beers that exist are pictorial), I don't think I've ever seen any American ones. Are there any? If any of you guys have some I'd love to see 'em.
I'm attaching a couple photos of the few that I have been fortunate enough to dig. The first is a local R. Taylor piece from Strathroy, Ontario. It's apparently considered to be one of Canada's most attractive ginger beer bottles. I admit I can see why! This piece was dug as part of our "soda works" dig in 2007 when I was a first-year in college. We dug the soda works at which the bottle would have been filled, and this piece was the only intact ginger beer recovered. It was dug beneath a 6" thick slab of concrete which formed the driveway in front of the house next door to where the soda works was.

Last year while I was on time out from my job up north I had only a couple chances to get out digging, but managed to turn up one pretty fantastic piece in a local wood lot dump. This piece was definitely a late throw, as this dump has not produced much in the way of this era in soda bottles. This piece is a fantastic T.H.Hutchinson one from St. Thomas, Ontario (the town which has a bad rep as being where Jumbo the elephant was killed). The pictorial, if you can't see it, is an image of a monkey shooting a seltzer bottle. This bottle was produced by Brantford pottery here in Ontario. Their products were notoriously low quality, as evidenced by all the crazing and generally poor quality of the ink transfer.

For more on these stories and others, check out:

http://www.ecbw.ca/

and check out the "digging stories" section.
Let's see those ginger beers!

 

[luckiest]

Wow, love the T.H. Hutchinson. do you still have both gingers in your collection?

 

[Bixel]

Due to the fact that I live with Barrett as a roommate, I can say he definately still has both bottles in his collection, and I dont think they are ever going anywhere.

 

[luckiest]

I like it when people keep their good finds, the only Ontario Gingers I have are Torontonian and practically valueless to anyone but myself.

 

[lexdigger]

Here's the One and Only I've ever dug. Kinda local to me... was dug here in Lexington, Ky. Love the Cherubs drinking Beers!!!

 

[SergioWilkins]

Awfully cool piece. That bottle has a piece of art on it!

 

[Wheelah23]

Two amazing bottles, Sergio! There's no gingers around here, except I guess...

 

[THE BADGER]

thats cool man,i think the gingers are nice.i know in england the gingers are very collectible and also codds.do you ever find the codds up in canada also. badger

 

[Bixel]

Codds are rare in Canada. While some companies did have them, they are few and far between. I can only think of a few from Ontario, and I know that Eastern Canada might have some varients as well, but they are not even close to as commonly used as stoneware ginger beer bottles.

 

[mctaggart67]

Given that ginger beer was very British and given Canada's strong historical connections to Britain, there was a strong ginger beer tradition in Canada right up to the middle of the 1900s. Yes, we have great pictorials from one coast to the other, though some specimens are a little dull, like the Brandon, Manitoba example I was looking at while attending an antique show today here in Calgary. Ginger beer was also bottled to a large extent in amber glass bottles, too.