# Early Bubble Up bottles?



## JayBeck (Jan 6, 2011)

I was trying to research some local soda history today and discovered something that I did not know. Bubble Up was founded locally in Sandusky, Ohio in 1917 or 1919. So immediately I wanted to try to find a picture of one of these mythical early Bubble Up bottles and nothing turned up other than the later ACL bottles that I have seen before (although I have not seen one from Sandusky). So I figured I would start a thread hoping that someone here has an early Bubble Up bottle or even just a photo of one, whether it be embossed (never seen one) or paper label especially if it is marked Sandusky, OH.

 I've never paid much attention to the Bubble Up brand and I never realized that it pre-dated 7-Up by at least 10 years. I also saw some information online that referred to Bubble Up as the FIRST lemon-lime soda. Can anyone verify or disprove that?


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## JayBeck (Jan 6, 2011)

I did a search looking for earlier Bubble Up items. Not much besides this bottle cap which has a registered U.S. patent office date of 1921.


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## ConsDigginVids (Jan 6, 2011)

Jay the oldest bubble up that i have is from 1936 or 1938... this bubble up shown here is a 1952. Local collectors believe that The McConnellsburg Bottling Works started bottling it in 1936.. I will post a picture of that later...


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## morbious_fod (Jan 6, 2011)

The earlier ones were most likely a paper label, it would be hard to find that unless it was embossed on a bottle at some point.


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## celerycola (Jan 6, 2011)

The Sandusky OH Bubble Up was a grape drink.

 Here's a 1920 ad showing paper-labelled 'splits' bottle and the caption: "BUBBLE-UP, made from the pure juice of the grape.

 Their grape orchards were in North Carolina.


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## celerycola (Jan 6, 2011)

Close up of the bottle.


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## celerycola (Jan 6, 2011)

Googled the Trade Mark Registration. Maybe the name applied to different flavors at first?


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## JayBeck (Jan 7, 2011)

Cons, Morb and Celery, thanks for your input! From what I can gather so far, the earliest verfied date for the Bubble Up lemon-lime is 1921 (from the bottle cap). From the ad and trademark registration posted by Celerycola, it seems that the original beverage was a grape beverage. There were (are) quite a few wineries in the Sandusky area so that would make sense. Online sources state the lemon-lime Bubble Up as being introduced in 1919 and refers to Sandusky as the place of origin. I am thinking that the original Bubble Up was the grape beverage, which possibly failed, and then Bubble Up became the lemon-lime soda that still exists today. So that would mean the original grape Bubble Up probably only lasted from 1917-1919 and being a paper label bottle it is probably nearly impossible to find one. Celery, do you happen to know the source of that ad you posted? I would really like to see a more clear image of the label on the bottle in the ad. Also, how do you know their grape orchards were in North Carolina? There still are a lot of vineyards around here and on the Lake Erie islands plus there were even more around the turn of the century so they would have had an ample supply of grapes available locally. I think morb is correct about the earliest Bubble Up bottles having a paper label making them difficult to find today but I am hoping there is one still out there somewhere. I am most curious now as to what occurred between 1919 and 1921. I think the brand was sold at some point between those years and became the Bubble Up we are familiar with today.


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## morbious_fod (Jan 7, 2011)

Anything's possible Sun Drop started out as an Orange Drink in 1929, then became Sun Drop Lemonade, and was then reformulated in the 1950's into the Oranginated Lemon drink we know today.


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## SODAPOPBOB (Jan 7, 2011)

Just tagging with this example of a 1960 bottle. Note it has the "Since 1921" on it. The base is embossed with ...

                                                           23 <(I)> 60
                                                                10 A
                                                              1943-G

 According to my chart the 23 represents the Owens-Illinois glass plant in Los Angeles, California, and that the plant began operation sometime around 1945. One of these days I'm going figure out exactly what the lower numbers represent, which I presently understand to be some kind of mold numbers. But on some bottles I have often wondered if they "might" have something to do with when the glass plant began operation or "possibly' when the acl of a particular brand was first introduced? 

 ConsDiggingVids ~ Is your 1936/38 embossed or an acl?

 Interesting thread, and great stuff from celerycola ... as always.

 SPBOB


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## celerycola (Jan 7, 2011)

The newspaper ad I have was poor quality and there was no way to enhance the label and make it readable. There was a classified help wanted ad from the company looking for people to work in their NC orchards. 

 I suspect the grape drink was seasonal at harvest time and they added other flavors to make use of their bottling equipment in the spring and early summer.


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## ConsDigginVids (Jan 11, 2011)

here is my 1937 bubble up soda


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## ConsDigginVids (Jan 11, 2011)

pic 2


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## Eric (Jan 18, 2011)

Here are two embossed from my friends collection... He has some killer embossed bottles!
 The Green is a 6.5 oz bottle with Bubble Up and the 6.5 oz embossed on it... no other dates
 or marking on the bottom.
 The Clear say Bubble Up Beverage Co.
 Indianapolis IN Full Half Pint
 on the bottom it has a  9<>4  
                                    1                   Duraglass G  749


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## SODAPOPBOB (Jan 18, 2011)

Truly cool Bubble Up's. 

                                                    The   9 <(I)> 4   Translates ... 

                  Owens-Illinois / Duraglas / Glass Plant no. 9 / Streator, Illinois / 1940 or 1944

                                                                 SPBOB


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## JayBeck (Jan 19, 2011)

Eric, thank you for posting the picture of the Bubble Up bottles! That is the kind of stuff I wanted to see. I would assume the green bottle has a paper label at one time and probably from the 1930s. The clear deco embossed bottle is awesome! I hope I can eventually find one of those. As Bob said, early 40s, most likely a bit newer than the green one. I'm glad to know that there are indeed some embossed Bubble Up bottles out there. Any paper label examples out there?



> ORIGINAL:  Eric
> 
> Here are two embossed from my friends collection... He has some killer embossed bottles!
> The Green is a 6.5 oz bottle with Bubble Up and the 6.5 oz embossed on it... no other dates
> ...


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## digdug (Feb 14, 2011)

Here is an early (around 1919) Bubble Up Paper Label.  Thought you might like it. Found it at the Trade mark website after A LOT of searching!


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## JayBeck (Feb 14, 2011)

Doug, WOW! Thank you so much! Now that is what I was hoping to see. It is now my mission to try to find one the bottles with that label still on it. It is also neat to see that the label not only has Sandusky, OH on it but also Pinehurst, NC which helps to fill in the NC connection that celerycola mentioned earlier. Although the label does not state that this was a grape beverage I am thinking the "unfermented beverage" is a clue to that fact. 

 Based on what I have found so far, this label must date between 1917 and 1921. At some point between 1919 and 1921, Bubble Up changed from an unfermented grape beverage into the lemon-lime soda we know today. So how did that happen? The 1921 patent date can be found on many of the Bubble Up items so that establishes the earliest known date for a lemon-lime Bubble Up. It does not seem clear whether the established date for the Sandusky grape Bubble Up is 1917 or 1919 but it is definitely from that era. I would like to know for sure that the original 1917 or 1919 Bubble Up is the same brand that became the 1921 lemon-lime Bubble Up. It seems that the brand was sold by Sweet Valley Products after 1919 to become the lemon-lime brand but I can find no information on that matter. Maybe prohibition had some impact on this change? However, that does not seem to make sense if wine was prohibited there would be a lot more grapes available for an unfermented grape beverage. 

 Any additional ideas, comments or info are greatly appreciated!


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## TheCaliKid (Feb 15, 2011)

> ORIGINAL:  Eric
> 
> Here are two embossed from my friends collection... He has some killer embossed bottles!
> The Green is a 6.5 oz bottle with Bubble Up and the 6.5 oz embossed on it... no other dates
> ...


 
 I'm in love. How does he get them so CLEAN???


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## JayBeck (Feb 17, 2011)

Hopefully I will eventually be able to find some more information about the early days of Bubble Up but I did find some nice stuff from the ACL era on gono.com. The earliest ACL date listed on the site is 1947 but I doubt that is when the first Bubble Up ACL showed up. Check out bottle E in the photo. It looks like the earliest bottle of the bunch even though the date is not listed. Looks like late 1930s or early 1940s. Does anyone have an example of this bottle to show a better picture?


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## JayBeck (Feb 17, 2011)

More Bubble Up ACLs. I have not seen some of these bottles before.


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## JayBeck (Feb 17, 2011)

Here is a cool 1950's era ad from gono.com. I really like the black & white ACL on that bottle.


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## celerycola (Mar 23, 2013)

I have an extra green embossed Bubble Up if anyone is looking for one.


> ORIGINAL:  Eric
> 
> Here are two embossed from my friends collection... He has some killer embossed bottles!
> The Green is a 6.5 oz bottle with Bubble Up and the 6.5 oz embossed on it... no other dates
> ...


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## madman (Mar 23, 2013)

toledo o  great thread!


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## nostalgia (Apr 6, 2013)

*Early 40's Quebec Bubble-Up bottle*

Now this thread reminded me of a pretty scarce Bubble-Up bottle from Quebec, Canada.

 This is the third one I've seen in 20+ years of collecting so it must be pretty rare.

 10oz in size, was it the standard in the US back then for Bubble-Up?

 By the code on the base it should date from the early 40's; 'Embouteillage de Quebec' means roughly 'Quebec bottling works'.

 Here it is:


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## midway49 (Jun 28, 2013)

I don't see my 7 oz North Carolina on Gono.com.  Is it rare?  Base mark is 3-symbol-47


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## bottle-bud (Dec 7, 2018)

*Bubble Up / The St. Louis Connection*

I was doing some personal research on Bubble Up when I came across this post and found it to be very interesting reading. 
I especially like that art deco Bubble up, never seen one before.

Here is what I know about Bubble Up. Sweet Valley Products of Sandusky Ohio was the originator of the term or name Bubble-Up and was registered or patented in 1921.



I am not sure why these clipping come out so small, I tried to enlarge them, must be doing something wrong.
I find ads for Bubble-Up in 1919 and 1920 advertising the drink as a grape juice and one as a Champagne. 

 

After 1921 Bubble Up is not heard of that I can find until 1937. This is when a LeRoy O. Schneeberger of the Vess/Whistle Co. of St. Louis, Missouri buy the name from Sweet Valley and applies for a patent for a new logo for Bubble Up.



Bubble Up Co. is headquarted in St. Louis from 1938 til I'll say 1953 when it is bought I thinking by O-So Grape Co and is moved to Peoria, IL. The following paragraph from a court document states if you can read it or not, that Leroy acquired the name Bubble Up from Sweet Valley and that the name Bubble Up had not been used from 1922 -1937.


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## bottle-bud (Dec 7, 2018)

*My Bubble Ups*

I have several bottles in my collection and some facts about the development of Bubble Up as a lemon lime drink.
First an ad from the American Carbonater and Bottler, Circa early 1940's



A small article on Bubble Up from a commererative calendar put out in 1991.


 

Here is an obit for LeRoy who died in 1995



I am sure Bubble Up was developed as direct competition for Seven Up


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## bottle-bud (Dec 7, 2018)

*Bubble Up Bottles*

Bubble Up had bottling franchises all over the country and except for the early ones and that fantastic art deco one are somewhat common.
Below are three 7-ounce versions, dating 1945, 1946 and 1947. Shown front and back.

  

Now a 10 ounce and two 12-ounce versions dating 1949, 1940 and 1948. Shown front and back.

 

Two quarts front and back, 1947 and 1948


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## bottle-bud (Dec 7, 2018)

*Kiss of Lemon / Kiss of Lime*

The term Kiss of Lemon / Kiss of Lime was patented in 1960 by the Bubble Up Corp of Peoria Illinois



Again not sure how to enlarge the text?

Here are my Kiss bottles. An 8-ounce 1961 and a 10-ounce 196?? A 16-ounce dated 1964 and a 1960 qt.  And a unknown dated 10-ounce and a 1978 16-ounce.

  

Bubble Up relocates from Peoria or is bought out in the mid 1960's to some folks in Los Angeles, Calif.
The company is badly managed and files for bankruptcy in 1970.
Illinois Central Products co of Chicago buy them out in 1973. IC products also owns Dad's Root Beer Co. & Pepsi Cola General Bottlers.
IC Products sells Bubble Up and Dad's to the Monarch Co. of Atlanta in 1987, but will continue to bottle the soda's.
Finally in 2007 Hedinger brands LLC of Jasper, Indiana buys Bubble Up and Dad's and I believe is still there today.
That's all I know 
The End


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## versabuildindy (Jul 20, 2021)

Has anyone seen a bottle like this?
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





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