# Pepsi paper labels on beer bottles question...



## carling (Mar 13, 2007)

Can anyone tell me the reason Pepsi put paper labels on Beer bottles?  And how rare are they?  Check out the two bottles on the right in the photo.  One aqua and one amber beer bottle.

 Found these two with more beer, soda, and milk bottles underneath a bricked-in front porch.  The other two Pepsi bottles on the left were found in attics.  All are Cleveland, Ohio paper labels.

 Thanks for any info!

 Rick


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## carling (Mar 18, 2007)

Bump!  

 Well..., shall I assume this is a hard question?  Or is it so easy that my pathetic lack of bottle knowledge is showing?[]

 Thanks!  Rick


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## bubbas dad (Mar 18, 2007)

i would guess some bottlers used what ever bottles they could get at a good price. did you find the amber bottle youself? i have seen green and amber paper lable pepsi bottles on ebay but i was always suspicious of them. they always had new looking lables.


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## carling (Mar 18, 2007)

John,  Thanks for the reply.  I found all of them myself, with maybe 70 years of various filth and dirt on them and in them, so they are definitely original.  They cleaned up pretty good, even with their various wear.  There were more, but these were the only ones with salvagable labels.   

 Your idea makes sense that they possibly used whatever bottles they could get, but would this be typical of a national brand like Pepsi reusing other bottles, given they had more of a national public image to maintain?  Someone told me they are from WW2 era and Pepsi probably used beer bottles because of war shortages.  I was wondering if anyone could confirm this, or know of another reason why they were used.

 Rick


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## whiskeyman (Mar 18, 2007)

RICK...prior to 1940 Pepsi didn't have a standardized bottle and bottlers used whatever they chose....
 Copied from the following website:
Another of Walter Mack's major accomplishments was the standardization of the 12 ounce bottle for the then-existing 341 franchised bottlers. The new bottle had the name Pepsi-Cola embossed in angled columns around the neck, and a paper label was applied to the neck and middle portion of the bottle. This bottle first began to appear around *1940*, and was used until the switch to applied color label bottles was made in early *1947*.

For more info about Pepsi bottles, click here ( The Museum of Beverage Containers website)

http://www.gono.com/museum2003/museum%20collect%20info/briefhistoryofpepsicola.htm


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## capsoda (Mar 19, 2007)

Yep, All you need is the green one and you will just about have them all. The site that Whiskey gave you is the best one for that answer.


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## carling (Mar 19, 2007)

Thanks everyone for the info!

 I looked up the Owens-Illinois mark, and it dates the amber one as 1938, and the aqua one as 1939.  So those dates fall into the pre 1940 embossed/paper label bottle era, according to the website you gave me.  Great info!

 Thanks again John, Warren, and Whiskeyman!

 Rick


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