RARE SODA BOTTLE BOOK ~ By J. L. JONES ~ COPYRIGHT 1972

[morbious_fod]

ORIGINAL: SODAPOPBOB

Kingsport, West Virginia newspaper article ~ September 20, 1934

Er. That's Kingsport Tennessee Soda. GGGG

 

[morbious_fod]

ORIGINAL: SODAPOPBOB

Morb ~

Here's something I never mentioned before and would like to bring to your attention now. Please scroll to Page 434of the following 2010 pdf article by Bill Lockart of the Bottle Research Group (BRG). Notice where it says ...

"An unpublished study conducted by Bob Brown never found a single ACL bottle with a 1934 date code"

I submitted this information to Bill Lockhart after member Wonkapete submitted his 1935 7up bottle to my earliest acl thread, and at which time I thought the thread was over and done with. It wasn't until sometime later that you submitted your 1934 "Jumbo - A Super Cola" bottle. Immediately following your "Jumbo Cola" contribution, I sent the information to Bill Lockhart who assured me that at some point he was going to correct my earlier submission about the 1935 7up. But I guess Bill never got around to it. In any event, I wanted both you and Wonkapete to know that I clearly pointed out to Bill on both occasions that it was not I who found the 1935 7up nor the 1934 Jumbo Cola, but that it was you and Wonkapete who had found them. Bill's response to this in an email to me was that what mattered to him wasn't so much who "found" the information but rather who "provided" him with it. He added that history/research is full of people who obtained information based on what others before them had found originally, and that my contribution was no different - since I was the one who brought it to his attention that I was the one he intended to give the credit to.

Anyway, I just wanted both you and Wonkapete to know I tried to give you guys the credit but failed.

Sincerely,

Bob

[ Please scroll to Page 434 ]

http://www.sha.org/bottle/pdffiles/EPChap10b.pdf

I appreciate the thought, but honestly I don't really care about the credit. The research is the thing that will out last any of us, credit is a fleeting thing.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

All things considered - good, bad, or indifferent, I am happy to have have accomplished my primary goal with this thread of spotlighting the 1972 J.L. Jones book, which could very well be the earliest soda bottle collecting book ever published to devote a large portion of it's pages to applied color label (acl) soda bottles. If there is an earlier book containing acls, I am not aware of it.

I acquired my copy of the book in 1977 and at the time was mainly interested in straight sided Coca Cola bottles and not particularly interested in acls. I was living in Spokane, Washington and purchased the book from a store called "Ye Old Bottle Shop" which was located in the downtown section of Spokane. The book was five years old in 1977 and I believe I paid about $3.00 for it. I remember the old timer who ran the store and the thousands of old bottles he had for sale. In a back room he had cases upon cases of hobbleskirt's stacked from floor to ceiling that he was selling for $5.00 per case which included 24 bottles each as well as the wooded cases they came in. I also remember one particular shelf where he displayed his 7up bottles, about a third of which were amber, squat varieties. I remember him telling me one day that I should buy one of them because, in his opinion, they would someday increase in value. As I recall they averaged at about $5.00 each, but I never did buy one because, as I said, I was mainly looking for straight-sided Coca Cola bottles. In hindsight, I should have purchased every bottle in the store.

But the story about the book doesn't end here. Somewhere around 1990 the book mysteriously disappeared during a move my wife and I made from one state to another. Although I looked for the book among our packed boxes, it never turned up so I just discounted it as a loss. And then just a couple of weeks ago I was talking with my oldest daughter about some stuff she had received several years ago when her mother passed away. My wife was also into collecting soda bottles and I knew my daughter had inherited some of the bottles which had been packed away for a number of years. But upon inquiring about them with my daughter, I discovered the bottles were still boxed and that she hadn't even opened them yet and instead just put the boxes on a shelf in her garage. The long story short of it is, my daughter found the J.L. Jones book in one of the boxes.

The reason I didn't mention the book in my last thread is because, not having seen it in almost 25 years, I couldn't recall the exact date it was published other than I purchased it in 1977 and that it was a used book at the time. Nor could I recall the title or the author's name. The only thing I actually remembered about it is that all of the pictures were black & white and that there were a ton of them. I am happy to report the book is now back with it's original owner, namely me, and that it will be cherished for a long time to come, but not only for the pictures and information it contains, but more so because of the memories it brings to mind from the early days when my wife and I loved collecting soda bottles together.

Sincerely,

Sodapopbob