This is from the Vancouver city archives it's marked as Thorpe & co. 1935-sitting at desk, George Irwin. What's that in the window..Country? [attachment=Thorpe & co. 1935-... George Irwin..jpg]
This is also from the Vancouver city archives it's marked as Thorpe & co. 1935-standing by safe, George Irwin.See the reflection? Country Club!!!...and the safe with Thorpe & Co. ltd on it. [attachment=Thorpe.jpg] <Edit: Inserted image in post>
I don't think the pictures really prove anything we didn't already know, although I still think they're one and the same company. The reason they don't prove anything is that if you look at that window on the outside of the building, that's a pretty small sign on one of the second storey windows. Thorpe's probably would have been painted at the top of the building and then at the top of each of the three windows would be "Delaware Punch", "Country Club", "Cal-Ade" or something like that. Putting Country Club in the small window would be weird if it was their principal sign because it would be really small, and putting it in the window if they had a larger sign would also be kind of weird unless they just wanted to plaster their name on the building as much as possible.
Pretty interesting to see the inside showing the lettering on the windows none the less. It does make one wonder what was on the other windows...and we may never know just a partial clues. They had an excellent location in 1935 being at the foot of the newly constructed Burrard st. bridge...it opened in July 1932. They may have been more visible to pedestrians then auto traffic though.Here is a rare glimpse of that building in March 1931 (before the bridge opened) showing at least at the time they had no signage attached to the facade. [attachment=Thorpe-1931- Copy.jpg]
I just about freaked today when I was going through a box bottles I saved from 1995-2001 ...there is a set of Hansen's soda's a set of Pirate's Keg...and several Stewart's, but in the box I discovered I have two ACL Thorpe's bottles! from 1995....one is a Grape Float and the other is Cherry Cola...been boxed away for 20 years, geesh where did that go? Well the interesting thing about them is for one , they are the only Thorpe's ACL's that I know of, two, the Cherry Cola bottle was made for export to the USA! It shows 12 floz & 355ml on the front and the back has the CASH REFUND -CT-DE-MA-VT-NY-ME-IA-OR-5¢ M 10¢I wonder how many states is really made it to?The product was put out by Silvan Beverages, Langley BC........I only wish I had the full flavor line [] but It's pretty cool that the brand name was resurrected ...all be it for a short time. Well at least they got the since 1889 part right...and they also made mention of being a medal winner at the 1893 World's Fair. [attachment=Thorpe1995.jpg][attachment=Thorpe-1995.jpg]
Whoa, that's not something I ever expected to see! I had no idea those existed. Must not have been too successful. Are you sure they're both from 1995? The one on the left looks older. Never heard of Silvan Beverages either, did they put out anything else?
Thinking back I know they were very short lived, and they are both from 1995...I bought them at the same time, and I would have bought other flavors if they would have been in the store at the time. Not to sure what else Silvan Beverages put out on the market. I know this now...try and find these bottles anywhere!...but somewhere in a persons basement or crawl space they are waiting to be found I hope[]Why the left bottle has a crown and the other a screw cap?...there was a change over back to the crown...all my Cokes from about 91-97 have screw caps and they were switching back to crowns. Ivan