✅ SOLVED Old bottle or newer bottle?

[jnicholes]

I happened to be underneath my house in a crawlspace, just looking around and trying to find a frog that somehow found its way inside. While I was under there, I found this.

It’s a bottle. It says on the side “Twin Falls Coca-Cola bottling Co.”

It says on the bottom of the bottle “Twin Falls, Idaho.“

Now, my house has a lot of history. I have no idea how old this thing is.

It looks like a Coca-Cola bottle. Any idea how old it is, though?

I’m just curious if there is a way of knowing how old it is.

Jared.

 

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[Red-Coat]

Nice bottle.

At the top of the base it has an Owens-Illinois mark, used from 1929 onwards. The usual format is that the numbers to the left are the plant code, and numbers to the right are the date code. It looks to be ‘21’ to the left, which was used by the San Francisco, California plant until 1937 and then not used again until it was re-allocated to the Portland, Oregon plant in 1956.

The date code seems to be ‘7’, so for a post-1929 bottle that should be 1937. Plant code 21 wasn’t in use in 1947, and by 1957 they were using double digit codes.

Note that that are exceptions to some of the above 'rules' but they generally hold good for most Owens-Illinois soda and beer bottles.

 

[jnicholes]

That actually makes sense that it was from 1937. From 1936 to 1964, my house had a bunch of stuff added on to be turned into a church. After that, it belonged to a school, then three other people, now me.

It fits the timeline of when they were doing renovations to turn this place into a church.

 

[Blackfoot58]

Red-Coat is spot on. I also believe they went to a trademark design that was “inside the O” in 1954. This one is still “over the O” so would push it back to pre 1954. 1947 ruled out due to plant code. 1937 bottle makes sense.
Also, a very nice bottle to find. Congrats

 

[Red-Coat]

It looks like a Coca-Cola bottle.

Yes, but not for "Coke" (the brown stuff).

I should have added that, before the Coca‑Cola Company branched out with other flavoured drinks, their authorised bottlers were permitted to produce their own beverages in flavours such as orange, strawberry and grape; root beer; and also seltzers. These bottles are often indicated to be the property of the local Coca-Cola bottling company, but they weren’t allowed to use the iconic trademarked “Coca-Cola” script.

I would think your bottle is probably scarce, although that isn’t necessarily an indication of value.

[Useless factoid: My friend Roger Greenaway, with his writing partner Roger Cook, penned a song originally titled “True Love and Apple Pie”, later adapted to become the 1971 hit pop song “I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)”. In conjunction with Bill Backer and Billy Davis, working for Coca-Cola’s advertising agency, it was re-worked later that year to become the jingle “I’d like to Buy the World a Coke (and Keep it Company)”. The rights (only with the new lyrics) were sold to the company and his share pretty much paid for his house here in Surrey.]

 

[Blackfoot58]

Yes, but not for "Coke" (the brown stuff).

I should have added that, before the Coca‑Cola Company branched out with other flavoured drinks, their authorised bottlers were permitted to produce their own beverages in flavours such as orange, strawberry and grape; root beer; and also seltzers. These bottles are often indicated to be the property of the local Coca-Cola bottling company, but they weren’t allowed to use the iconic trademarked “Coca-Cola” script.

I would think your bottle is probably scarce, although that isn’t necessarily an indication of value.

[Useless factoid: My friend Roger Greenaway, with his writing partner Roger Cook, penned a song originally titled “True Love and Apple Pie”, later adapted to become the 1971 hit pop song “I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)”. In conjunction with Bill Backer and Billy Davis, working for Coca-Cola’s advertising agency, it was re-worked later that year to become the jingle “I’d like to Buy the World a Coke (and Keep it Company)”. The rights (only with the new lyrics) were sold to the company and his share pretty much paid for his house here in Surrey.]

I remember that being their song for a while.

 

[jnicholes]

Yes, but not for "Coke" (the brown stuff).

I should have added that, before the Coca‑Cola Company branched out with other flavoured drinks, their authorised bottlers were permitted to produce their own beverages in flavours such as orange, strawberry and grape; root beer; and also seltzers. These bottles are often indicated to be the property of the local Coca-Cola bottling company, but they weren’t allowed to use the iconic trademarked “Coca-Cola” script.

I would think your bottle is probably scarce, although that isn’t necessarily an indication of value.

[Useless factoid: My friend Roger Greenaway, with his writing partner Roger Cook, penned a song originally titled “True Love and Apple Pie”, later adapted to become the 1971 hit pop song “I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)”. In conjunction with Bill Backer and Billy Davis, working for Coca-Cola’s advertising agency, it was re-worked later that year to become the jingle “I’d like to Buy the World a Coke (and Keep it Company)”. The rights (only with the new lyrics) were sold to the company and his share pretty much paid for his house here in Surrey.]

Thanks for letting me know. It’s very interesting.

I think you’re right about it being scarce also. I could not find any pictures of this particular bottle on the Internet.

This is going in my bottle collection!

 

[jnicholes]

I’m sorry, I know this is solved, but a member of another forum pointed out to me that it could be a Nehi bottle. I’ve been looking at pictures on the Internet, and there is a very close resemblance.

Just curious, is this possible? It seems to match the style of the Nehi bottles. I could be wrong.

Any thoughts?

 

[Red-Coat]

I’m sorry, I know this is solved, but a member of another forum pointed out to me that it could be a Nehi bottle. I’ve been looking at pictures on the Internet, and there is a very close resemblance.

Just curious, is this possible? It seems to match the style of the Nehi bottles. I could be wrong.

Any thoughts?

Your bottle is clearly embossed "Twin Falls Coca-Cola" and so was obviously made as a bespoke item for that bottling plant. As I mentioned before, such plants were able to produce their own non-cola beverages using the Coca-Cola name in relation to them being an authorised bottler. Some of them 'invented' their own local brands for such production but 'Nehi' wasn't one of them... it was a nationwide company. In any case, Nehi added a 'cola' to it's range in 1924 and was a direct competitor to Coca-Cola, so It's unlikely that an authorised Coca-Cola bottler would also be producing for Nehi.

More likely this was a non-propriety 'stock' design from the Owens-Illinois company that could be customised if required.

 

[Red-Coat]

PS: One other thing worth mentioning is that fancy bottles from this era may have been short-lived. In the lead-up to America joining in WWII, the US government began enforcing a simplified range of design and size options for glass manufacturers (both for bottles and jars). This was intended to focus glass manufacturers' resources on producing items for the military... headlamps, searchlights, fuse covers and all manner of other glass items.

 

[jnicholes]

Thanks for clarifying that. I appreciate it.