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

[celerycola]

If you had met J. L. Jones as I did at the '73 Greer SC Bottle Show you would understand his sense of humour.

 

[sandchip]

ORIGINAL: epackage

ORIGINAL: SODAPOPBOB

I heard from Bill Porter who had this to say ...

A blob or Hutch cannot share a mold with a crown top.

I have the utmost respect for Mr. Porter and his contributions to this hobby, they are unrivaled, but he will have to explain this to me.... This has nothing to do with the Coke just to clarify...[]

I'm not saying yea or nay here, but those two bottles were blown in two different molds.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Even though I am 99% convinced the Augusta, Georgia Coca Cola blob-top bottle is not genuine, there is still that remaining 1% of uncertainty that keeps tugging at my brain. As Bill Porter and others have said, if it was genuine you'd think one would have surfaced by now. But just because there is no known example today, does this automatically mean that a particular grocer in the Augusta, Georgia area didn't request a shipment of them be made for a particular niche of his clientele? How else can we explain Jim/epackage's two bottles, both of which were apparently made in 1911? (I say "apparently" because I'm not certain if 1911 is when the bottles were made or if 1911 is the date when the company was established). If Jim's two bottles were 'made' in 1911, then why would a bottler do that? Crown closures have been around since the mid 1890s, so why produce a blob-top in 1911?

Bob

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

P.S.

Speaking of molds ...

Not all bottle molds contained the lip/closure/finish portion!

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Example two ... (I'm currently searching for a typical, non Coca Cola blob-top mold)

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Jim / epackage

I forgot to ask ...

Are your 1911 bottles BIM, Machine Made, or one of each?


~ * ~

The image below is the best I could find related to a blob-top type of mold. Notice it does not contain the lip/closure/finish, which would have been 'applied' later.

http://www.sha.org/bottle/soda.htm

[ Post Mold ]

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Speaking of 'Post Molds' and 'Blob-top' soda bottles ...

From: http://www.sha.org/bottle/soda.htm

Where it says ...

"The brilliant blue-green mineral water bottle pictured above left is a very early California Gold Rush era soda/mineral water bottle embossed (in a plate) - LYNDE & PUTNAM / MINERAL WATERS / SAN FRANCISCO / CAL. A. It has an applied blob finish, faint iron pontil scar on the base, and was blown in a post-bottom mold with no air venting in evidence."

~ * ~

I realize this particular bottle predates the one's under discussion - I'm posting it because of the type of mold it was made in and not because of the bottle itself. The primary emphasis being that a lot of molds did not include the lip portion, which might explain what took place with Jim/epackage's 1911 bottles. In other words - same mold but with different 'applied' closures.

Bob

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

P.S. ~ P.S.

If it turns out that Jim/epackage's 1911 bottles were machine made, then I guess I'll have to go back to the drawing board because I never heard of a bottle machine that made blob-top soda bottles. I'm betting they were (BIM) 'blown-in-a-mold.'

Bob

 

[morbious_fod]

The bottle and the top have been in different molds since the beginning of molded bottles. Early on and tools were used to create the crown, blob, or whatever top; however, when Owen's Machine was created a separate mold was created just to create the closure, this is why many of these early machine made bottles have seams that seem misaligned on the closure as compared to the rest of the body. Eventually they were set up to be more uniform, but still two molds were employed. The molds you are showing are only the body, and bottom molds. In other words you are missing a piece.

As for the two bottles made in 1911, I'm betting the company in question also bottled beer, many bottled both especially up north, which during that time was traditionally bottled in a blob top bottle. This wouldn't have happened in a script Coca-Cola bottle which was to be strictly used to bottle Coca-Cola.

 

[morbious_fod]

They were indeed bottling beer, and ended up having to sell a new machine in 1915. Given the trend going on at the time, this was most likely due to New Jersey joining the other states in prohibition before the actual constitutional amendment came into being. West Virginia did it in 1914, and Virginia did it in 1916, not sure when Jersey did it, but I would put money on 1915.