Vernors Ginger Ale 150th B-Day

[hemihampton]

View attachment 174864View attachment 174865View attachment 174866View attachment 174867I 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?

Since Vernor's also sold this in a extract I would not be surprised if people just reused these bottle using the extract. When I found 300 bottles under a Detroit house 2 years ago they all dated around 1915-late20's & many of those bottles had these same wire lightning stoppers from them using the bottles to brew there own home brew during prohibition. People with soda extracts might of did the same thing. Plus like you said, the statement on bottom of front of bottle sez it used a red crown cap. LEON.

 

[hemihampton]

In search of ...

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

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

I'd like to see one also. LEON.

 

[SODABOB]

I don't know when this photo was taken, but I don't think the label depicted on the wagon and the patented 1911 paper label are the same label. (We've seen the VGA symbol on the left)

 

[hemihampton]

With the horse pulling wagon looks like it could be late 1890's? early 1900's? LEON.

 

[SODABOB]

Team of Horses / Wagon / Bottles / Isadore Barnett

The Detroit Free Press ~ July 18, 1907



I wonder if the driver in this picture is Isadore Barnett?

 

[SODABOB]

New Delivery Wagons - Appears similar to Vernor's wagon

Detroit Free Press ~ December 6, 1906

 

[SODABOB]

Detroit Free Press ~ June 3, 1906

 

[VernorsGuy]

I think I may have found the non-ABM bottle and discovered an easy identification method. I took out my earliest paper label bottles again for another look. I posted photos of two of them previously, but I also have a third (and in my opinion, poor, with most of the label missing) example of the early paper label bottle. I knew the embossing was different between the bottles.

My first attachment shows the three bottles together. The second photo is the back of each. You can't see it, but the full bottle has the same embossing as the middle one. The bottle on the left only has embossing on the bottom of the bottle. The third photo is what that looks like.

The fourth and fifth photos are the top of that bottle. Again, I'm no bottle expert. But, from what I've learned during this discussion, this looks like the seam ends and there has been a totally different top applied. In fact, even the quality of the glass looks very different.

So, I rummaged through some of my other bottles that I remember having the same embossed bottom and found a code on one that wasn't on the paper label. That's the sixth photo. I'm hoping that means something to some of you. There is no paper label left at all on this bottle, but the bottom embossing leads me to believe it's the early paper label. The top isn't quite as obviously different as the other bottle, but it does look like the seam ends. That's the seventh photo.

Seems like the bottom embossing shown in the third photo is a good an easy way to find those early bottles. I know I've passed them up in the past because that's the only place it has Vernor's and I liked the side embossing better. Until today, I didn't realize those were the earliest Vernor's bottles.

The last photo is the correct "crown cork in red" crown. That original full paper label bottle has the red crown. The one I'm holding is almost always available on EBay.

The second to last photo is just for fun. It's a delivery tag attached to a wood crate. What I find most interesting is it says the delivery method is DUR, which means Detroit Urban Railroad - the streetcars!

 

[SODABOB]

Keith

Fantastic!

This will require some studying/researching, but the bottom line could be older "reused" bottles with newer paper labels. The C.G. CO. needs narrowing down because it could apply to about a half-dozen different glass factories.

 

[hemihampton]

Yes, I think you might have something with that different bottom embossing, it's plain looking with no monogram compared to the 3 I have. That 7th pic looks like it could be a older non ABM which would be very Interesting if it is. Hard to see on the other top pics. I'm sure Bob would know what the C&C means. THANKS, LEON.


P.S. Looks like the one with other color top could possible been a repaired replaced top?