This research category includes beer,
mineral water, and soda bottles from RI. I was surprised to see how many of these bottles contained liquor. Only bottles that have
embossing are included, except in a few cases where ACLs are
mentioned.
Each company listing will include a
bottle type chart, which helps date the time of operation of the
company. Age ranges are approximate. It is arranged by age as
follows:
Open pontiled squat- 1840s-50s
Iron Pontiled squat- ca. 1845-1870
Squat blob- ca. 1860-1880s
Aqua blob- 1870s-1900 (some are later)
Clear blob- 1890s-1920
BIM crown- 1895-1920
ABM crown- 1910-1950s
ACL- 1937-1980s
Seltzer- varies, but mainly 1910s-1950s
Some of the goals of this research are:
To determine the years of operation of
bottling companies or bottlers
To determine company successions,
owners, and locations
To determine what these companies
produced (ex. Soda, mineral water, or liquors etc.)
Dates of known operation will be in
parentheses. They display only the known age range, not the possible
age range. In the cases of some machine made bottles, the date code
is embossed on the front, heel, or base. These dates will have
“bottle” after them. If the company was known under different
names, only the name on the bottle will be used in the dates of known
operation.
You will notice a lot of variations in
the addresses of some companies. Prior to a certain date, they were
not “set in stone” as they are now. Quite often a building at
the same location could have 3-5 different addresses over the years.
