shoulder script coca cola Graham glass company?

[Dragon0421]

I am curious does the bottle have the logo on the bottom of it too.

 

[cokebottle1916]

My Graham bottle does not have the logo . I has ATLANTA GA. Buzz

 

[fer_de_lance]

I thought this would fit well in this post string. I've got a Graham watch FOB that was posted earlier but it's not near that nice

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

As many of you know, the Graham Glass Company logo depicting an upside-down bottle was the result of specially designed machines which molded their bottles neck-down. Graham claimed this process added strength to the bottle's lip, neck, and shoulder, thus insuring less breakage. As far as I know, this upside-down molding process was Graham's only claim to fame.

However, if I understand the following newspaper article correctly, it appears that the Graham Company might have stolen the upside-down patent idea from the Owens Machine Company. If this is in fact true, then it suggest to me that the Graham Company wasn't entirely on the up-and-up. It looks like they might have been making millions of dollars producing bottles on machines that weren't their's and that they were not paying patent rights for, which is a big no-no in the manufacturing world. Notice in the article the amount that the claimant (Owens) was asking as a settlement.

The ironic part is, the Owens Machine Company ended up buying the Graham Glass Company about a year after the lawsuit was filed and I suspect the lawsuit was dropped during the buy-out period. I looked for a follow up article to the lawsuit but never found one. The attached newspaper article is dated September 9, 1915. The Owens Machine Company bought the Graham Glass Company in the summer of 1916 (July).

If the Graham Glass Company was in fact making bottles with Owen's patented machines, and doing so illegally, then I'd say there is a possibility that Graham's 1916 Coca Cola prototype bottle was illegal even before it was entered as a competitor at the January 1916 Coca Cola convention in Atlanta, Georgia. With so much going on between Owens and Graham at the time, its not surprising that no one paid much attention to a missing contest bottle - especially a non-winning contest bottle. If the missing contest bottle was a major concern you'd think someone would have filed a theft report to investigate the situation which, as far as I know, was never done. So I guess the point of this story is that the Graham Glass Company might have had more to hide than did the person who took the Coca Cola prototype bottle from the convention table way back in January of 1916. Note that the lawsuit against Graham was filed before the convention.

Article ~ September 9, 1915
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[SODAPOPBOB]

(2 of 2)

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

P.S. ~ If you're thinking my initial comments were confusing, consider the fact that Graham's Coca Cola contest bottle wasn't patented until after the January 1916 convention, and also after the July 1916 buy-out. So you gotta wonder who actually owned the patent rights for the bottle that was entered at the convention in January of that same year - was it the Owens Company or the Graham Company? Remember, Graham was alleged to have been using patented Owen's machines at the time. https://www.google.com/patents/USD49924?pg=PA2&dq=49,924+bottle&hl=en&sa=X&ei=GnG0UrfGIsK0yAGj0ICQBw&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAA Filed ~ June 30, 1916Patented ~ November 21, 1916

 

[Dragon0421]

I have went through all of my bottles and spoke to other collectors of coca cola and I can find another example of a coca cola bottle with the embossing like the one one my bottle. It is odd that the embossing is on the bottle like that. Just wondering if there is any other brands or any other bottles that have that embossing on it. I wonder how many diffrent contracts coca cola had to have there bottles made which raises another question in the mix.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

I wonder how many diffrent contracts coca cola had to have there bottles made which raises another question in the mix.

Dragon: There's this - which is the most comprehensive list I am aware of ... http://www.glassbottlemar...marks-on-coke-bottles/

 

[fer_de_lance]

Here is a different spin on the Graham/Owens relationship.Read Chapter 3. They definately were not trying to hide their use of the design,it would seem if Owen's had patent of the technology it would have been an easy win for themhttp://books.google.com/books?id=AzEyTU_S8EUC&pg=PT36&lpg=PT36&dq=graham+glass+history&source=bl&ots=BZMCcy4oY0&sig=atrEjXkoCnfjPQ7ATGh3Uwz5sac&hl=en&sa=X&ei=pFy2UqmTKInCywHLjoHQCQ&ved=0CCgQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=graham%20glass%20history&f=false