- #1
Thread Owner
Bottle Vitals
| Embossing | Date | Color | Shape | Size (Height x Diameter) | Value* |
| H J Heinz Co 93 | 1890 | Clear | Six Sided Tall | 9" x 2.5" | $25.00 |
Bottle Views (click to enlarge):
| Front | Back | Side | Side | Bottom |
 |  |  |  |  |
| H J Heinz Co 93 Patd June 17, 1890 |
H J Heinz company is probably familiar, because they're still in business today, and still making many of the same things they made when the company was founded. He started making ketchup (catsup) in 1876 and it really took off. Production ramped up to 12 million bottles a year by 1907. It sold for 20 cents a pint in 1896.
Originally conceived as an alternative to an oriental fish sauce, ketchup had numerous different recipes from numerous sources, but Mr. Heinz rose to the top of the heap., finding ways to keep the product stable without the "exploding bottle" problem that came with some of the traditional fermented brands, while also increasing the sugar content to appeal to more consumers. It was supposedly taken from field to bottle in a single day. Here is a woman manually bottling it in the 1890's. (I suspect this is a staged publicity photo -- nobody in a ketchup factory is going to be that clean.)
The ketchup was a raging success, and even wound up with its own holiday of sorts. Click to enlarge -- the entire page is all ketchup advertising for International Tomato Ketchup Week in 1923.
The particular bottle shown here is identified by the "93" embossed on the bottom of the bottle. That number means this bottle was hand blown in the Heinz Glass Factory in Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania between 1887 and 1895, with the patent date pushing it into the later part of that range. After the bottle was made, it would have gone to Pittsburgh, where it would have been filled with ketchup, sealed with a cork, then wax, then a metal dust cap. It would have had a paper label and neck band, but those have long since vanished to time.
Finally, here's the before and after. Just a soap and water scrubbing for this one.
* Value is based on eBay sold listings for price plus shipping at the time of posting, and varies greatly with condition.
