Need help on a large bottle

[Walleyeman]

I bought a bottle at a garage sale for $1. it look like a gallon cork top ladwig schranck & co fine flavoring extracts milwaukee.
I love the size of the bottle but hard to find info on it, such as age, why such a large bottle, value......
I think it maybe rare or a fake.
if you can help with any info, i would appreciate it!
Thanks!

 

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[vpnavy]

I searched Google and found information about the company...

Ladwig, Schranck, & Co. Storefront
Circa 1892
​

I also found a thread on another forum (09-11-2010, 03:02 PM) with the same bottle asking for information and getting no replies!

​

 

[rick67]

That's pretty big!

 

[Walleyeman]

Thanks VPNAVY,
those 2 links are the only 2 that i found also,
the one asking for info on bottle that looks similar to mine, said only 10" mine is 13"+.
i would think such a large cool old bottle that I could find more info. and since i didn't dig it, it would be nice to confirm its age.

 

[Rookster]

That a nice bottle with some history.

 

[Hawks88]

Good looking bottle for 1$. Maybe the person you bought it from might have had some info on it.

 

[Tony in SC]

Most likely a bulk jug that was sold to vendors( drug stores, traveling salesmen, etc.) wholesale. It was then divided into half pints and sold to the public.

 

[Plumbata]

That bottle was used to hold soda flavorings or perhaps flavored sweetened syrup (like gallon jugs of Coca Cola syrup used at soda fountains). A sweet syrup wouldn't go as far as a concentrated flavoring, and paying to ship a fragile bottle of mostly sugar back then probably wasn't deemed too economical.

So regional proprietors of bottling houses would buy bulk amounts of flavoring to blend and then bottle in their returnable Hutchinson and Crown closure soda bottles. I actually dug a 1 gallon "W. H. Hutchinson & Son Bottlers Supplies Chicago, ILLs" bottle of the same shape as yours, and it was in the middle of a massive load of older Hutchinson-style soda bottles primarily from 1 company, probably discarded because the business had upgraded/transitioned to Crown-top bottles by the early 1910s, the age of the dump layer.

Such big bottles have a low rate of survival so they are quite interesting, and collectors of soda bottling history would probably pay well more than a dollar for it. Good score!

 

[Tony in SC]

I believe Plumbata has it. I worked at a bottling co in the 60's. I remember seeing gallon jugs of grape, orange, root beer, and other flavors of syrup.

 

[HuntinDog]

Plumbata has it covered...
Your bottle would date in the 1890's to 19 teens.
Great score for a buck and I would have picked it up too.
Check the base for any embossing, this may lead to where/when it was manufactured.

 

[Walleyeman]

thanks HuntinDog...i was hoping 1920 or earlier
absolutely nothing on bottom, thats way wasn't sure if it was real and i've been watching lots of bottom digging stuff on youtube and haven't seen much of such a big bottle

 

[Walleyeman]

wow....
thanks Plumbata, with everyone backing you up makes me feel I got a sweet piece of history........
it feels good....i just know if i was to dig it up, (instead of yard sale) it would be priceless!
makes sense, wow..... cork top with pop extracts, sold to store to make soda drinks is what your saying? what time era you think 1910 ish?

 

[Plumbata]

It is a genuine bottle, no reason for it to have been reproduced. I believe it would have most likely been purchased by either an operator of a soda fountain or by a bottling works, and the thread that vpnavy found the picture from (here) states that "The company itself was around from 1880's to 1907, when Schranck bought out Ladwig."

So it's safe to say that your bottle is from 1907 or earlier (unless Schranck dilly-dallied and neglected to get a fresh bottle mold commissioned for a while). It's a cool bottle, now ya gotta get out and dig some more glass to add to the collection!

 

[A2coins]

Nice buy for a dollar