Vintage ACL Bottles

Applied color label, or ACL, bottles may have been in use as early as 1931, but documented evidence of the labeling and lettering technology can be definitely dated to 1933, when Brock Glass Company of Pennsylvania began producing bottles with fired-pigment labels for pharmacies. Milk bottles with ACL lettering and logos were produced that same year by Thatcher Mfg. Co. of Elmira, New York, which used an English technique called Pyroglazing, while ACL cola and pop bottles, manufactured by Owens-Illinois, which called its technique "applied color lettering," arrived in 1934. Whatever it was called, ACL was a response to the high cost and fragile nature of paper labels, which themselves were response to the high cost of the embossed lettering on beer, medicine, poison, and other types of antique and vintage bottles. In contrast to embossed lettering, which had to be incorporated into glassblowing molds, and paper labels, which had to be glued but then were subject to deterioration from contact with water or even other bottles, ACL bottles got their shots of color and branding via a type of silkscreening, fundamentally similar to the technique used to produce silkscreen prints. In the case of vintage ACL bottles, the silkscreened lettering and logos were applied via machines like the one patented in 1933 by Harry S. Brickell, who was working at the time for glassmaker Hazel-Atlas. Brickell device was a breakthrough because it allowed the printed information to be applied to a curved surface, a basic requirement for printing on bottles. Once the "ink"—actually a mixture of pigment and finely ground borosilicate glass known as "frit"—was applied to the glass surface, the bottle would be heated to around 1,110 degrees Fahrenheit so that the message would fuse to the bottle, which melted at a much higher temperature. If a second color was required, the process was repeated, which is why single-color ACL bottles are common, two-color ACL bottles are a bit tougher to find, and three- and four-color bottles tend to be quite rare. Collectors of vintage ACL bottles look for the alignment dots that helped operators at Owens-Illinois position the bottles so that second, third, and fourth colors were laid down properly. Others manufactured embossed dimples or other types of guides onto the bottles themselves to accomplish the same goal. In a curious twist, two of the biggest bottle customers, Pepsi and Coca-Cola, did not embrace ACL until 1943 and 1955, respectively.