Vernors Ginger Ale 150th B-Day

[hemihampton]

That statement or similar statement is common on early Michigan beer bottles with labels & Embossing & some surrounding areas like Ohio & a couple of other nearby states possibly but not other states. Why is it more popular on Michigan Beverages? I don't know. LEON.

 

[SODABOB]

Leon

The answer to your question(s) might be found in this online copy of the 1906 Food & Drug Act. Its a 1914 supplement and contains 857 pages and is searchable if you full-screen it. I'm reading through it myself as time allows. Check it out ...

Its what I call a 'page-turner' if you click and hold to turn the page. It can also be enlarged by using the (+)

https://archive.org/details/fooddrugsactjune00unit



Footnote:

If you use the [Search Inside] feature, you need to be patient while waiting for the results. Sometimes it takes a full minute for the results to appear. But trust me, they will appear and its not your computer. I love these types of 'books' and have read many different ones.

 

[hemihampton]

The beers have a similar statement I'm not sure if it's the same as the 1906 act. I was told it's different & came out earlier? LEON.

P.S. Not my bottle, Credit goes to Bruce.

 

[SODABOB]

Does the following information mean that the slogan ...


"This product guaranteed under the Pure Food and Drugs Act, June 30th, 1906."


... was only used in 1907 and 1908, and possibly early 1909?




[FONT=&amp]Manufacturers or wholesalers could label their drugs or foods with a guarantee that the article complied with the law, exempting the retailer from prosecution under the 1906 act. The original version of the guarantee stated, "Guaranteed under the Food and Drugs Act, June 30, 1906." However, some manufacturers advertised the guarantee as a government endorsement. A revised guarantee in December 1908 read ...

"Guaranteed by [name of guarantor] under the Food and Drugs Act, June 30, 1906." [/FONT]


The St. Louis Star ~ St. Louis, Missouri ~ September 29, 1912

(Save and zoom to read entire article)



Part of particular interest

 

[SODABOB]

In other words ...

If the December 1908 Amendment does mean the original slogan was only used between 1907 and early 1909, then it might narrow down the Vernor's Statement-bottles to ...

Circa 1907 ... to ... Circa 1909

 

[VernorsGuy]

I knew I had a couple embossed Vernor's bottles with wired stoppers. It's possible they're fantasy pieces, but I've seen enough of them that I think they're real. (Maybe not the porcelain stopper.)

My assumption was the wire stoppers were the original bottles with the crowns following. However, even my own logic doesn't make sense when the embossing says "crown cork".

Now that I've been educated on ABM bottles, my additional hope was these wired bottles were not ABM. You can study the photos attached, but my untrained eye says they're ABM.

So, my question to the bottle experts out there is: what are these? Fakes? Rube Goldberg models? Vernor getting creative? Or, from a 2016 perspective, someone using old Vernor's bottles to make their own home brew?

 

[SODABOB]

Keith

Unfortunately, ceramic and rubber stoppers only date the stopper/closure itself and not the bottles they are attached to. Based on what I know about them, those types of closures were primarily used on after market bottles to temporarily seal in the carbonation for later consumption. However, that doesn't mean there was never a pre-machine Vernor's soda bottle. Most accounts claim the first bottle machines were made by Michael Owens in 1903 and became readily available by 1905, with 1905 generally being the launch-year for modern bottle manufacturing.

Which brings us to this newspaper ad from ...

The Detroit Free Press ~ June 18, 1904

Notice it list Hire's extract as well as Hire's carbonated, with two different prices. And even though the Vernor's portion of the ad doesn't use the word carbonated, because it list two different choices, I'm assuming the one for $1.65 per dozen is referring to carbonatd bottles and not extract bottles, which are listed separately. So, because of the dates (Owens Bottle Machines 1905) / (Vernor's Carbonated Bottles 1904) its highly possible there exist a (BIM) (Blown In a Mold) Vernor's soda bottle. That is, of course, if the ad is indeed referring to a carbonated version of Vernor's Ginger Ale. ???



Footnote: There are tons of Vernor's Ginger Ale ads between 1900 and 1910 that use the word "bottles," but determining which are extract bottles and which are carbonated bottles is a real challenge.

 

[SODABOB]

P.S.

However, even if 1904 or earlier Vernor's Ginger Ale (carbonated) bottles exist, it doesn't necessarily mean they were fully embossed. It could be they were plain, generic bottles that had a paper label. So at this juncture, I think it wise to conduct a close examination of Vernor's paper labels and see what's what!

 

[SODABOB]

Speaking of paper labels ...

Notice in the 1904 ad I posted earlier that it also mentions "Arcadian Ginger Ale." The attached Arcadian bottle doesn't say ginger ale, but notice at the bottom of the paper label where it has the Food & Drug Act statement. Especially notice the statement has the name "Waukesha Springs Co." inserted within the statement. The name insertion likely occurred after the Act was amended in December of 1908.





Footnote:

The main reason I'm posting this particular bottle is to illustrate there various ways of approximately dating bottles other than by makers marks, codes, etc.

 

[SODABOB]

In search of ...

A 1904 (or earlier) Vernor's Ginger Ale (carbonated) bottle and/or paper label ...

(I'm confident they exist!) :flag: