✅ SOLVED Anybody know anything on this really unique bottle I found?

[Nathan6309]

I was metal detecting an old creek that now intersects through a public park. In one of the slow-moving parts of the creek, I found this bottle next to a broken orange crush in the clear variant. It says “Fruit Beverage Corp.” on the upper portion of the label and “Its not carbonated” on the bottom. It has a very strange top that is almost reminiscent of some sort of milk bottle. It also has writing on the bottom, including a very faint name that looks like “DALCO.” The bottom also says Roanoke, Virginia and has some illegible patent numbers on it. Before I had read the label, I thought it was some sort of chocolate milk bottle. Any internet searches have been fruitless, so I am at a dead end on this one. Anybody have an idea as to the history behind this bottle or the company that made it?

 

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[villagenut]

cool bottle...found this..

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1930s-1940...-BOTTLE-DACRO-6-75-OZ-ROANOKE-VA/163689941392

 

[Anduril]

Cool find.
It looks like there is a Design Patent # on the bottom.
If you can read that (perhaps by doing a rubbing), then the patent can be researched.

It looks like it says DE3860??...

 

[metrotec]

Kovels, Book of Bottles is a great source.

 

[Umbrahabitator]

I have found bottles with a similar mark on the bottom, I do not know if it is a common mark that I could be mistaking, but I think the bottle may have been manufactured by Owens in the 1940's for the Roanoke Virginia soda company. https://www.glassbottlemarks.com/owens-illinois-glass-company-bottle-container-marks/

 

[Red-Coat]

It is a ‘DACRO’ bottle, but that’s neither the beverage manufacturer, nor the bottle manufacturer. It’s an acknowledgement that the bottle uses one of the patents belonging to the Crown Cork & Seal Company. The founder of the company (William Painter) invented the crown cap for beer and soda bottles in 1892 and subsequently adapted it for use on milk/dairy bottles. The adapted closure was called the ‘Dairy Crown” or ‘DACRO’, a name applied to both the closure itself and the finish of bottles designed to use it. The initial patent was granted in 1911 to Harvey Coale and assigned to Crown Cork & Seal.

DACRO closure systems were widely used under license by manufacturers of milk bottles (notably the Owens-Illinois Glass Company). There was then a series of subsequent patents through to the 1930s relating to closure design, bottle finish and machinery for application of the caps as they became increasingly sophisticated… including a system that allowed the contents to be pasteurised in the bottle after it had been sealed. The term ‘DACRO’ continued to be used to refer to these caps even when they were no longer ‘crowns’ and not used for bottling dairy products.

If you can read the patent number, that will give you an indication of which type you have and the first introduction date, but it looks like it had a wide-neck closure of a type that first saw use in the late 1930s. I can’t find any record of the “Fruit Beverage Corporation” of Roanoke but, anecdotally, they seem to have been in operation in the 1930s and 1940s. Perhaps (but only perhaps) this was a sideline for what is now the Roanoke Fruit and Produce Company, founded in 1910 by the Lebanese immigrant Melhem Najjum and one of the few companies of this type to survive the Great Depression.

The contents would have been a fruit-based soda since ‘non-carbonated’ progressively became a selling point for drinks that were kinder on the stomach; as used for products such as Bireley's Orange Drink with its advertising slogan “It Always Agrees With You”, although their drink didn’t appear until the 1950s.

 

[DCMatt]

The contents would have been a fruit-based soda since ‘non-carbonated’ progressively became a selling point for drinks that were kinder on the stomach; as used for products such as Bireley's Orange Drink with its advertising slogan “It Always Agrees With You”, although their drink didn’t appear until the 1950s.

Great info, as always!

Apparently, Bireley's got into some legal trouble in 1940 due, in part, to the yellow coal tar dye used in the popular drink. They changed the company name in 1941 to "Fruit Beverage Corporation". I'm not a lawyer but I'm guessing it was to protect corporate assets if they lost the case.



That's the only reference I find for "Fruit Beverage Corporation". They must have changed the name again soon afterwards.

But you can safely say the bottle is from around 1941.

 

[Red-Coat]

Great info, as always!

Apparently, Bireley's got into some legal trouble in 1940 due, in part, to the yellow coal tar dye used in the popular drink. They changed the company name in 1941 to "Fruit Beverage Corporation". I'm not a lawyer but I'm guessing it was to protect corporate assets if they lost the case.

View attachment 1857075

That's the only reference I find for "Fruit Beverage Corporation". They must have changed the name again soon afterwards.

But you can safely say the bottle is from around 1941.

Thanks Matt. I hadn't realised that 'Birely' and the 'Fruit Beverage Corporation' were one and the same company (if only during a temporary change of name). That all makes sense.

 

[DeepseekerADS]

Good info!

This should really be moved to the "Bottles & Glass" forum.

I've been doing a lot of bottle digging lately - a wonderful adventure - even up looking again today!

Some of these bottles sell for way more than a silver half dollar Since I found a bottle dump, I haven't turned one of my detectors on this year! The bottle hobby grabs ahold of you