# Royal Purple??



## Robby Raccoon (Mar 13, 2016)

I am very curious about what this was as a product. 

I keep finding modern sellers calling it a juice, but I haven't found any original documents verifying such a thing.



It looks American, has a slightly distorted tooled crown-top mouth, and a purple tint in it.

Base style is typical of 1890s - 1910s.

Can anyone provide an original source telling me what this was, when and where it was from?


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## CreekWalker (Mar 13, 2016)

It reminds me of Walkers, and other 1910 era grape juice bottles. Found this: Royal Purple Grape Juice
Royal Purple Grape Juice was sold in El Paso and distributed by Empire Bottling Works
at least as early as 1915 (EPT 5/23/1915), although I found no other Empire ads for the product.
A Nations ad in the 
_[FONT=TimesNewRomanPSMT,Italic]El Paso Times [/FONT]_[FONT=TimesNewRomanPSMT,Italic][/FONT](6/28/1916) offered a special on Royal Purple Grape Juice,
calling the product “Nature’s Gift from the Vineyard to you. The Grape Juice with a
body–quality and that delightful grapey flavor. Made form the famous New York Concords
scientifically pressed and bottled.” The ad continued to say that “served with crushed ice it
makes an unexcelled Summer beverage that satisfies and makes you forget the warm weather.”
Special prices for that week included:
6-OUNCE BOTTLES, PER DOZEN $1.00
10 
Despite these size ranges, all the siphon bottles used by Empire were 35 ounce.
133
½ - PINT BOTTLES, PER DOZEN $1.60
1 - PINT BOTTLES, PER DOZEN $2.50
1 - QUART BOTTLES, PER DOZEN $4.75
½ - GALLON BOTTLES, PER DOZEN $8.00
Very small bottles (contents about four ounces),
embossed “ROYAL PURPLE” just below the shoulder, were
found at the El Paso Coliseum site in relative abundance
(Lockhart & Olszewski 1995). The colorless containers measure
13.1 cm. in height and 5.3 cm. in diameter. Larger bottles of the
drink were apparently generic with no embossing. We have very
little data about Royal Purple, but the J. Hungerford Smith Grape
Juice Co. apparently first offered the drink ca. April 1914, and it
was advertised in at least 1915 and 1916 (Figure 5-74). Smith
received a trade mark for Royal Purple in 1916 (Hull-Walski &
Ayers 1989:97; McCullen 2001:119; 
_[FONT=TimesNewRomanPSMT,Italic]Midland Druggist and[/FONT]_
_[FONT=TimesNewRomanPSMT,Italic]Pharmaceutical Review 
[/FONT]_[FONT=TimesNewRomanPSMT,Italic][/FONT]1914:185; Zumwalt 1980:381). The
descendant firm remains in business today, but it probably ceased
production of Royal Purple in 1916 or fairly soon thereafter. I
have not found any references to the product after 1916. The
tiny, four-ounce containers are fairly common throughout the
Southwest and possibly elsewhere. These are colorless bottles with crown
finishes, and most (probably all) solarize to a distinct amethyst color.
The bottles appear in at least two variations, both originally with
paper labels. The most common has “Royal Purple” embossed around the
bottle just below the shoulder and a single letter on the base (Figure 5-75).
A second, illustrated by Hull-Walski and Ayres (1989:97), is embossed
“Royal Purple (arch) / F / GRAPE JUICE (inverted arch)” on the base.
Each example we have found had a distinctive Owens scar on the base,
indicating a manufacture by the Owens Automatic Bottle Machine. The
Owens Bottle Machine Co. retained the license to manufacture grape juice
bottles at the Toledo plant in 1909 (Lockhart et al. 2010; Miller &
McNichol 2000:7; Toulouse 1971:394). Thus, the timing (1915-1916) and
marking (Owens scar) indicate that the bottles could only have been made
by Owens.
Figure 5-74 – Royal Purple Ad,
1915 (MagazineArt.org 2009)
Figure 5-75 – Royal
Purple bottle (eBay)  
134  Here is the link with great vintage photos of Royal Purple items!  http://www.sha.org/bottle/pdffiles/EPChap5b.pdf


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## Robby Raccoon (Mar 13, 2016)

Now that is what I am talking about. Thank you very much.


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## CreekWalker (Mar 13, 2016)

J. Hungerford Smith sold Royal Purple in west Tn , by I haven't seen one in years.


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## CreekWalker (Mar 18, 2016)

Shame we can't find more intact labels, but finding the old ads with period photos or drawings, for those products , give us an good idea of what they looked like.


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## Robby Raccoon (Mar 18, 2016)

I'm beginning to specialise in paper-labels (just added a few yesterday) and my town, so maybe one day I'll pick one up. 

Thanks for all your help.


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