Sussex Mineral Springs & Sussex Ginger Ale, New Brunswick, Canada

[RetiredChef]

Hello, I'm hoping by some stroke of luck there might be someone in this knowledgeable group who is located in Atlantic Canada and might have some helpful hints about these bottles. Here is what I know about the Sussex Mineral Springs Co."In 1895, mineral waters were discovered on Church Avenue by S. H. White. White formed a partnership with G. Armstrong and started the Sussex Mineral Springs Company. Sales improved when carbonation, sugar and flavourings were added to the water. In 1910, the company built this building on Pleasant Avenue to house the business. In 1911, J. Howard Pearn and G. Percy Bolton formed P & B, a bottling company that was in direct competition with Sussex Mineral Springs Company. In 1929, the two firms merged to form Sussex Ginger Ale Ltd. In 1930, renovations took place at this building to double the capacity from 5000 bottles a day to 10,000 bottles"I love these old crates and the bottles are most interesting. It might appear that whatever ate through the labels had a propensity for that particular ink colour. I'm pretty sure I can make out:
Strawberry, Grape, Lime & Lemon, Orange, and Root Beer
Such an exciting find. Thanks for your help.

 

[RCO]

sussex was a major bottler in New Brunswick , mostly known for ginger ale , it would appear they had several other flavours based on your paper label bottles . not sure what other info your looking for , seen a fair of this bottler over the years but don't have any of there bottles

 

[RetiredChef]

Yes, I was hoping to find out more about what vintage these may be and whether they have any value. I find none like these for sale anywhere on the internet, nor can I find the crates anywhere out there.
Thanks for your input.

 

[nhpharm]

That's very cool-I've seen the bottles but not with the labels. You can still buy Sussex Ginger Ale and it is mighty good...we always load up when we are up in NB because it is better than anything we can get in the US. I've dug those bottles typically in mid 1930's stuff.

 

[CanadianBottles]

Great find! Photos of the top and the base would be helpful in terms of dating them, my guess is probably around the 30s, give or take a decade. I'm sure they have some value, couldn't say how much. Not many paper labels survived so it's possible yours are the only ones of that type known, although for such a major bottler it's likely that others survived somewhere out there.

 

[Len]

I wouldn't rule out human inflicted damage on those labels...

 

[BottleDiver94]

Some are commenting on the label's damage from people or whatever. I would suspect it is from some kind of invertebrate. I know Silverfish will eat certain types of ink from a paper label and sometimes the paper right through on an exposed document. I used to see it all the time in my father's plumbing shop which was deep in a hot Boiler room in Alberta Canada. I have also seen slugs and land snails eat certain types of paper and ignore others based on glue on them or different types of ink printed on them.

 

[RetiredChef]

Great find! Photos of the top and the base would be helpful in terms of dating them, my guess is probably around the 30s, give or take a decade. I'm sure they have some value, couldn't say how much. Not many paper labels survived so it's possible yours are the only ones of that type known, although for such a major bottler it's likely that others survived somewhere out there.

I finally found a moment to try to photograph some bottle details. Not sure if I can reply more than once to your comment, but I will start with the Orange bottle. The letters on the bottom are "R inside a triangle" and A204 9
The "R in a triangle" could be Reed Glass Company, Rochester New York?
Each of the different flavours seems to be possibly from different eras. Will try to reply again with a different flavour.

 

[RetiredChef]

Grape bottle details. The letter on the bottom is a D in a diamond (Dominion Glass I presume)

 

[RetiredChef]

Root Beer Details