# OLD unusual Milk Bottles in Crate - any info or value?



## jessicaleigh (Oct 3, 2011)

We purchased these from a man who collects milk bottles, but he didn't know anything about these.  I believe the crate was seperate from the bottles as it doesn't seem to go with them.  I want any information and values on all the items.  The crate says Sterling Cry and then a city name that is hard to read, I believe it says Wauseun, then OHIO.  
 Inside, there are 12 bottles that say Clausen Snider Dairy and a phone number of 29R.  They have sort of a pinkish color to them when you hold them up to the light and are square shaped.  The inscription is near the top, instead of in the middle, like most.  They are half pint size.  I was told these are rare and hard to find, but I'm not sure.  There are 8 bottles that have a red, middle inscription of Shonk's Dairy.  They are also square shaped half pint bottles.
 There are 6 square shaped half-pint milk bottles with no markings or inscriptions.
 Then, there are 2 round that just have an embossed "half pint" on them.  
 ANY INFO?  I would also like an indication of value!  
 I have several pictures, but they are too large to upload!  I can email them to you if needed!


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## RED Matthews (Oct 3, 2011)

Hello jessicaleigh,  There was a tendency to use Selenium as a forming aid in early milk bottles.  It gave the glass a pinkish color which would make the milk look whiter when poured out of the bottle.  It also helped the glass distribution thickness wit assistance to the forming blow out - especially in the case of embossed bottles.a  RED Matthews


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## David Fertig (Oct 4, 2011)

Welcome.

 Here's the crate.   Probably has a value between $5 and $40.  Most likely $5 to $10 or $15, unless someone really wants it.

 http://ocj.com/ffa/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/DLivestock26.pdf

 BY KYLE SHARP
 For more than 80 years, a milk plant has
 existed at 220 N. Fulton St. in Wauseon, the
 county seat of Fulton County. Thanks to
 community pride, and the efforts of the
 plantâ€™s employees and community members,
 the facility is still processing milk and
 dairy products today.
 In 1926, Peter Goldsmith and his brother-
 in-law started selling eggs, cream and
 poultry on the site. Six years later, the pure
 focus became dairy products, with the
 business known as the Sterling Creamery.
 ASwiss immigrant who helped start
 the dairy brought his knowledge of dairy
 processing with him from Switzerland. His
 recipes and techniques for making sour
 cream and cottage cheese are still used by
 the plantâ€™s current employees.
 In the 1950s, the business became the
 Sterling Milk Company and led changes in
 Ohioâ€™s dairy industry. The company created
 a cash-and-carry milk business with
 about 30 convenience stores throughout
 northwest Ohio and pioneered the use of
 hard plastic milk bottles in the â€˜60s.
 In the 1980s, Sterling Milk Company
 conducted a contest to name its 11-foot
 fiberglass cow mascot that promoted the
 company in local parades, at fairs and
 other events. Sterlena was chosen, and
 the cow developed a loyal following in
 the community.
 The company eventually changed its
 name to Sterling Stores when it was sold to
 a Wisconsin company. In April 2007, it was
 announced that the plant was to shut
 down in June, and the companyâ€™s convenience
 stores were sold to Circle K.
 â€œRumor was the cow (Sterlena) was
 going to go to Wisconsin, so some local
 students started a Web site to save
 Sterlena,â€ said Dale Nagel, who was in
 charge of quality control at the plant.
 â€œMore than 320 teens pledged about
 $10,000 to buy the cow and keep it local.
 All those kids grew up with the cow in
 their parades and things, and there was a
 groundswell to keep it here.â€
 That pride in the mascot and a strong
 product loyalty within the community
 prompted employees at the plant to look
 into buying the facility and operating it as
 an employee-owned company, Nagel said.
 The idea eventually shifted to a locally
 owned cooperative with 50 common
 shareholders as voting members and a
 few preferred shareholders who are not
 voting members. A group of local people
 or people with local ties, including plant
 employees, dairy farmers, business people
 and city leaders, began to form.
 The new effortâ€™s steering committee
 consisted of Nagel (secretary and quality
 control manager), Randy Baker (production
 manager), Monty (president) and
 Jessica Lorntz, Steve and Lynda Bachelor,
 Roger and Mabelann Crossgrove, and
 Bruce (vice president) and Ruth Ann
 Yancey. Together with the Fulton County
 Economic Development office, county
 commissioners and USDA Rural
 Development, they worked on the development
 of a business plan, and helped
 recruit members and secure financing.
 â€œI think we sold our last common shares
 in the middle of the summer, and most of
 them came to us through word of mouth,â€
 Nagel said. â€œWe didnâ€™t have to advertise.â€
 USDA Rural Developmentâ€™s Debbie
 Rausch setup the coop structure and guided
 them through the creation process. On
 Nov. 28, 2007, the newly formed cooperative
 bought the Wauseon plant.
 â€œIn honor of all the kidsâ€™ efforts to
 save Sterlena, we decided to name the
 new cooperative Sterlena Pride,â€ Nagel
 said. â€œWhen we bought the plant, the
 cow was part of the deal.â€
 The processing plant started up again
 on Feb. 15 of this year, and a week later,
 the new coop celebrated a grand reopening
 with the community. The plant, with
 12 employees, processes four to five days
 a week. About 350,000 pounds of milk
 per month is processed from nine small,
 family-owned dairy farms in Defiance,
 Fulton, Henry and Williams counties.
 â€œThis helps with our loyalty connection,
 because all these farms have good
 reputations in the community,â€ Nagel
 said. â€œThe families have been here, and
 their kids grew up here.â€
 When they opened, Sterlena Pride
 sold product to about 25 retail outlets,
 and that number has since doubled to
 about 50 outlets in northwest Ohio,
 northeast Indiana and southern
 Michigan. About 70 to 80 retailers are
 needed to get things firmly established.
 â€œBecause weâ€™re a wholesaler, the idea
 is to get word out to the public that weâ€™re
 back in business,â€ Nagel said. â€œMost
 retailers whoâ€™ve started with us tend to
 have a lot of product loyalty.â€
 He attributes that to the Swiss processing
 techniques held over from the
 plantâ€™s origins.
 â€œOur sour cream is the only one in the
 Midwest to still use our unique process
 to pasteurize, which makes a unique
 product with a creamier texture,â€ Nagel
 said. â€œMost retail salesmen say itâ€™s the
 best party dip in the Midwest. Weâ€™ve had
 people who have moved away from the
 area call us from Texas and Arizona to
 have our product over-nighted to them
 for parties and things because they say
 you canâ€™t duplicate the taste.â€
 Sterlena also is known for its unhomogenized
 chocolate milk, egg nog and
 cottage cheese. Taking note of a growing
 market trend, all milk is from cows not
 treated with rBST. Other products
 include white milk, several iced tea varieties
 and pure Valencia orange juice. The
 coop also is a member of Ohio Proud, the
 Ohio Department of Agricultureâ€™s marketing
 program that promotes Ohiomade
 products.
 Down the road, the coop is considering
 processing yogurt and ice cream, if a
 niche can be found to make the products
 unique, Nagel said.
 Steering committee members Bruce
 and Ruth Ann Yancey are excited about
 the cooperative and its potential. They
 are former dairy farmers who used to
 produce milk shipped to the Wauseon
 plant from the 1970s through mid 1990s.
 â€œItâ€™s been a dream of Bruceâ€™s ever since
 we came to Ohio from Florida years ago,â€
 Ruth Ann said. â€œHis father was one of 11
 owners of a milk plant in Sarasota, Fla. So
 he grew up knowing what it was like to be
 involved with a milk plant.â€
 Mostly, he appreciates that the plant is
 producing local products from the local
 milk supply, which satisfies a growing
 consumer interest in local food products.
 â€œIâ€™m very optimistic about it,â€ Bruce
 said. â€œI think it will really come around
 as time goes on. We just need to really
 work at it, see whee our opportunities
 are and proceed.â€
 For more information on Sterlena
 Pride Dairy Cooperative, contact Nagel
 at 419-337-2015 or visit
 sterlenapride.com.


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## David Fertig (Oct 5, 2011)

Email pics of the bottles and I will post them for you.

 dffertig at aol

 The no name milks are less then $1.


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## jessicaleigh (Oct 11, 2011)

THANK YOU!!!  I'm sending the pics right now!


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## David Fertig (Oct 11, 2011)

a


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## David Fertig (Oct 11, 2011)

a


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## David Fertig (Oct 11, 2011)

Shonk's Dairy is from Millersburg, OH 

 No Idea on the other one.

 My guess is that the bottles are from the 1940s-1950s era.  The crate may be marked somewhere with the year - possibly just two numbers like 52 for 1952 or something like 4-52 for April of 1952.  Most milks like this usually run in the $1-10 range.  There are a few exceptions where they may go $30 or even more.  I've seen square milks bring over $100, although I can't really understand them (Rarity - yes I know, but still.  They are just too new for me)

 The good news is that I didn't find much on them doing a few Google searches.  So, they might be hard to find.  If you use FeeBay, I'd throw one of each on and see what happens.   Or contact a few auctioneers from around Millersburg and see if they have seen the bottes.  Might take a few calls, as some auctioneers just don't care about bottles.

 Don't expect more then about $5 or $10 each (possibly less), but you may be surprised.

 Good luck.


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## jessicaleigh (Nov 5, 2011)

Thanks everyone for your help.  I'm going to call a few auctioneers and see.  I asked a local milk bottle collector and he said the square shape paired with the age, which, b/c of that 2 digit telephone number, means early 1900s, and also the pink sheen, and he thinks they are worth at least $25  apiece, but he said it could be more since he's never seen them before.  I had someone off me $100 for the entire crate with all bottles, but I didn't want to sell it b/c I thought I might be able to get more.


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## epackage (Nov 5, 2011)

With the ACL labels I doubt they are any earlier than the 1940's and you might get $25 for one or two but if you make them all available at once it would reduce the price because you're flooding the market. Unless they are really desirable to certain collectors...Jim


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## David Fertig (Nov 6, 2011)

> ORIGINAL:  jessicaleigh
> 
> Thanks everyone for your help.Â  I'm going to call a few auctioneers and see.Â  I asked a local milk bottle collector and he said the square shape paired with the age, which, b/c of that 2 digit telephone number, means early 1900s, and also the pink sheen, and he thinks they are worth at least $25Â  apiece, but he said it could be more since he's never seen them before.Â


 

 Why don't you sell them to him?




> ORIGINAL:  jessicaleigh
> 
> I had someone off me $100 for the entire crate with all bottles, but I didn't want to sell it b/c I thought I might be able to get more.


 

 Why don't you put them on FeeBay?


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## JGUIS (Jun 29, 2012)

The Clouse-Snider bottles are from New Lexington, and are one of the most common milk bottles for our area, Wiseman from Crooksville being the other.  If the paint is in excellent condition, and the glass is in excellent condition you might get lucky and get $10 if you list one on ebay.  Shipping would kill the price as a lot.  I could probably get rid of half of them locally, if they're in great shape.  Most of the ones I've seen or own not only made it through their first use as a milk bottle, but later held screws or nails or oil or poison, and sat in a barn, or under a house for 20 years before it was found.  So the paint condition is the most important aspect of those particular bottles.


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## surfaceone (Jun 29, 2012)

> I asked a local milk bottle collector and he said the square shape paired with the age, which, b/c of that 2 digit telephone number, means early 1900s, and also the pink sheen, and he thinks they are worth at least $25Â  apiece, but he said it could be more since he's never seen them before.


 
 Hello Jessica,

 Welcome to the Blue Pages. The square shape, in your case, probably means post-war.

 "Square milk bottles became popular after World War II, in the late 1940's.  These are the milk bottles that many people remember from when they were kids.  There were earlier square milk bottles, such as the Nightingale (patented in 1898) and the Blake-Hart (patented in 1927), but they were not common.  Square milk bottles had an advantage of being able to ship more milk in less space.  The cases were one third smaller and 20 percent lighter.  Usually three cases of square milk bottles would fit in the space taken up by two cases of round bottles.  Also bottle making technology had advanced so that a strong square milk bottle was possible.  Round bottles are inherently stronger since they do not have corners.  Another advantage of the square milk bottles was that when the conveyor lines backed up the square bottles did not sit and rotate against each other causing wear marks on the bottles.

 Buck Glass Company of Baltimore, Maryland claimed that they had a square milk bottle in use at Alexandria Dairy Products Company of Alexandria, Virginia in October of 1940.  This is the first use we have found reported of a modern, square milk bottle and Buck Glass Company claimed they were the originator of the square milk bottle in many of their later ads.  The Thatcher Manufacturing Company was advertising their T-Square milk bottle by August of 1944.  Liberty Glass Company advertised their Econotainer which was a square milk bottle in October of 1944 and Owens-Illinois was advertising their Handi-Square milk bottle by January of 1945.  However reportedly Sanitary Farm Dairies of Cedar Rapids, Iowa started using the Owens-Illinois Handi-Square milk bottle in July of 1943.  The square milk bottles quickly became popular and round bottles were replaced by square ones as new bottle orders were placed.

 The shortages of World War II probably helped the transition to square milk bottles.  Raw materials, trucks, tires, fuel and new equipment were in short supply because of the war effort.  In addition to requiring less glass for a similar sized bottle, square bottles allowed existing equipment to become more efficient.  Older trucks could haul more milk with less fuel and cramped cold storage facilities could now hold more milk without modification.

 We are aware of two design patents during this time frame for square milk bottles.  Royden Blunt was granted a patent on February 3, 1942 for a square milk bottle.  He would later invent the tooth ache milk bottle.  Blunt was associated with the Buck Glass Company but the filing of his patent would have been after Buck's claim to already have had square milk bottles in use in 1940..." From.


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