What's the earliest "Deco" soda you've heard of?

[morbious_fod]

http://books.google.com/books?id=-YQ-AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA76&dq=%22RANSLEY+%26+Son%22&hl=en&ei=9qMxTva-M4rt0gHdxpCVDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&sqi=2&ved=0CD4Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=%22RANSLEY%20%26%20Son%22&f=false

You might find this interesting, its a centennial history of the town in question, and includes an ad from this company circa 1907.

 

[fishnuts]

A tidbit about the 'G 23' icon on the heel...

During my studies of Owens Illinois bottle codes found on the bases and heels, I have noticed that many have a code with a 'G' plus a number. On painted bottles they are usually on the base and can be found configured in the following ways:
G - 1234, G 1234, 1234 G. The "G' preceeds the number and sometimes follows the number. Sometimes with a dash between and sometimes not. I've no information yet acquired as to specific plant locations relating to the type of code format used...my sample is still too small.
On embossed bottles the 'G' and it's '1234' number are in the bases and sometimes found on the heels. I believe that, by and large, that the older samples have it on the heel and newer bottles have it on the base.
I'm becomming pretty sure that this "G with number", or G-code is a style, or model number of the bottle design. An in-house Owens/Ilinois thing. I've got several pairs of same designed bottles with different bottlers having the same G-code, so it seem likely that the G-code identifies the shape and/or design of the bottle. I don't have enough samples to understand if the codes are alike for different sized bottles of the same design. Yet.
One obvious thing about these G-codes is that the newer the bottle, the higher the number attached to the G-code. Almost all I have seen use a three or four digit number with the 'G'.
I have noticed some early embossed with low three digits and a few with two digits.

What I'm getting to ,is that this might be an early Owens made soda. It would stand true that the G-code would be on the heel as you describe. As a 'G 23', this could indicate that this bottle was produced long before the conventional wisdom 3 number plus logo that we're all used to seeing. Often these earlier bottles have marks, letters, cities or images refrencing the bottler on the base and absolutely no O/I (or simply Owens Glass) indicators...except sometimes these G-codes on the heel edges to possibly tie them to that manufacturer.

If you,too, are interested and want to help solve O/I mysteries, please contact me.

 

[fishnuts]

One more thing...fyi
In Bottle Makers and Their Marks under the section on Gayner Glass, ppg 218, there is no mention of them making soda bottles, only " green fruit jars, bottles, and other jars" then added battery jars in 1912. Further, the plain 'G' logo was in use about 1900 and by 1920 the 'G' was enclosed in a ring , or inside a bottle-shape.
In 1957 the company became the property of National Bottle Corp. and made only flasks and liquors.
By that, it can't be a Gayner made bottle.

 

[Wheelah23]

ORIGINAL: morbious_fod

Are you ready for the monkey wrench? I found a referance to the Ransley's Inc. in the Industrial Directory of New Jersey copyright 1940. It is listed as producing carbonated Beverages.

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&safe=off&q=%22RANSLEY%27S+INC%22&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=3735l5993l2l6240l2l2l0l0l0l0l197l353l0.2l2l0&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbo=u&tbm=bks&source=og&sa=N&tab=wp&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=830b8b720cf043d7&biw=1654&bih=909

That is indeed a kicker. I had no idea that the company survived so long after I thought they closed. That means I was right in surmising these bottles to be after 1915. I can find considerably less information about "Ransley's Inc." than I can about J.W. Ransley. Maybe I'll look at 30's or 40's maps of E. Orange, as I know where Ransley's factory was.

ORIGINAL: fishnuts

A tidbit about the 'G 23' icon on the heel...

During my studies of Owens Illinois bottle codes found on the bases and heels, I have noticed that many have a code with a 'G' plus a number. On painted bottles they are usually on the base and can be found configured in the following ways:
G - 1234, G 1234, 1234 G. The "G' preceeds the number and sometimes follows the number. Sometimes with a dash between and sometimes not. I've no information yet acquired as to specific plant locations relating to the type of code format used...my sample is still too small.
On embossed bottles the 'G' and it's '1234' number are in the bases and sometimes found on the heels. I believe that, by and large, that the older samples have it on the heel and newer bottles have it on the base.
I'm becomming pretty sure that this "G with number", or G-code is a style, or model number of the bottle design. An in-house Owens/Ilinois thing. I've got several pairs of same designed bottles with different bottlers having the same G-code, so it seem likely that the G-code identifies the shape and/or design of the bottle. I don't have enough samples to understand if the codes are alike for different sized bottles of the same design. Yet.
One obvious thing about these G-codes is that the newer the bottle, the higher the number attached to the G-code. Almost all I have seen use a three or four digit number with the 'G'.
I have noticed some early embossed with low three digits and a few with two digits.

What I'm getting to ,is that this might be an early Owens made soda. It would stand true that the G-code would be on the heel as you describe. As a 'G 23', this could indicate that this bottle was produced long before the conventional wisdom 3 number plus logo that we're all used to seeing. Often these earlier bottles have marks, letters, cities or images refrencing the bottler on the base and absolutely no O/I (or simply Owens Glass) indicators...except sometimes these G-codes on the heel edges to possibly tie them to that manufacturer.

If you,too, are interested and want to help solve O/I mysteries, please contact me.

This info, in combination with what morb posted, makes me confident that the bottles are from 1923. I had no idea that the Owens glass factory made bottles without marking them with an "O" in a box. If you'd like more pictures of the bottle, I could do that. I'd like to help you solve whatever mystery you are interested in.

 

[bottleopop]

Wheelah23,

This design patent might interest you. I thought that bottle looked somehow familiar. Note the date; 1927. Of course, this doesn't necessarily contradict the "G23" indication that the date is 1923 since a manufacturer could have used the design well before a patent date. For instance, Coca Cola apparently never used the actual 1915 cocoa pod design in production and instead used a design patented in 1923.


On the deco thing, I take a less official stand on it. I tend to think of these soda bottle designs as "decorated", not "deco". As opposed to buildings, houses, and other art forms, soda bottles had their own pages of design history. Coca Cola purposefully started the movement from straight side, slug plate bottles to bottles with sufficient decoration on them that they "could be recognized even if felt in the dark" as per the Coke bottle history site I referenced a few posts up from here. They weren't specifically going for the 'deco' art movement. It was more of a brand-recognition or design-branding movement. So I tend to include all the special soda bottle designs, whether curvy or straight, natural or geometric.

 

[epackage]

Great job BoP, I know Connor is gonna like seeing that link, this site rocks !!!
Jim

 

[Wheelah23]

I think bottleopop has solved the mystery! That patent matches the bottle's design perfectly. Even more convincingly, the patent was assigned to Franck R. Miller of the GRAHAM GLASS COMPANY. This fits perfectly with the makers mark information on the myinsulators.com website:

"[*]G 23, G 24, G 25, or similar configuration, embossed along the lower heel area of soda bottles (usually seen in light aqua or light green glass), this number is normally found within a string of several other letters and/or numbers. Graham Glass Company, Evansville, Indiana. See Graham. "

"[*]Graham Glass Company, Evansville, IN; Loogootee, IN; and Okmulgee, OK (1907-1929). Another plant location also was operated at Chekotah, OK until 1923. Graham owned by Owens Bottle Company after 1916, plants became part of Owens-Illinois in 1929."

I'd like to thank all of you for screwing up what I thought I knew about Ransley. [] But seriously, thanks guys. Without you I wouldn't have been able to find out the history of this bottle. So if this bottle is definitely from 1923, and we found that they were still in business in 1940, then there's still a lot of information I need to find out about this bottle.

What I highlighted in the second quote should be of interest to fishnuts. It seems Graham Glass company manufactured the bottles for the Owens Bottle Company, but continued to use their own date codes on them, which would explain the absence of the "O in a box" trademark.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Wheelah23 ~

I haven't been around much lately, but your topic intrigued me enough to bring me out of hiding. It's an interesting question and one that has been the subject of debate for some time now. My personal response as to which was the earliest deco soda bottle involves a slight detour that goes back to 1889 Paris and the opening of the Eiffel Tower. A lot of people don't realize the impact the Eiffel Tower had on world t the time, but it was such that it caused quite a stir. Some people even looked upon it as a major eyesore and wanted it torn down. Little did they know at the time that it would still be standing today.

My reasons for mentioning this might seem to have little if anything to do with deco soda bottles, but it has a whole lot to do with a symbol that ushered in an entirely new form of design, as well as a new form of thought. This new form of thought I am referring to also included the likes of Claude Monet (1840-1926) and others like Vincent Van Gough. But it was Monet who was the true father of impressionism art. And it was the Eiffel Tower that symbolized the birth of a new, modern world.

In 1889 when the Eiffel Tower was completed, there wasn't another structure of it kind anywhere in the world. And to think that it's now famous design was simply the result of being able to withstand the wind forces and not topple over.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower[/align]

And then in 1925, the Paris Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts opened, ushering in another phase of moderism. Which is considered by many as the birthplace of the Deco Arts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Exposition_of_Modern_Industrial_and_Decorative_Arts[/align][/align]

But for me ... it will always be the Eiffel Tower that is the" Grandaddy" of all things modern. And as far as deco soda bottles are concerned (another debate regarding design) the "Grandaddy" of them all for me will always be the 1915 "Coca Cola" contour/hobbleskirt. And when you stop and think about it, and study them a little bit, I'll be dang if they don't have a few things in common ... hmmm, I wonder?

SPBOB
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[SODAPOPBOB]

Grandbaby ~

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

It wouldn't surprise me if the hobble skirt dress was the result of Paris, France design influence.