Posted 8 years ago
SpiritBear
(813 items)
I'm not sure why I like Michigan Bottling Co. of Muskegon so much. Michigan Bottling Co. was a pretty common name back then. They were around for a short time in the bottle world, making their bottles scarce (albeit not rare).
Through research, I found the earliest reference to them as 1889, and the newest reference as 1901. They seemed to bottle beer for the most part, albeit the aqua bottle likely held a soft drink.
No paper labels exist, to the best of my knowledge, to tell us what was bottled, and all their records have likely been destroyed.
So far I have three bottles from them. There is also a crown top bottle, in a very early "soda shape" (a squat pop bottle) that I'm still waiting to get. And after that, there are still two distinct beer-shaped bottles I will need. And after that, there is always other colours!
My favourite piece is still the aqua one, a nice applied-top Baltimore Loop Seal-- one of their first bottles made.
Great research & display love the 4th piccy pure & without drugs or poison never seen a bottle with that embossed on so unusual !!!! SpiritBear
That one would be the newest of the three. It seems to be that in the 1890s, all American brewers had to be registered (and in so being registered, had to have their products tested) and, on the label (and or glass itself) had to have that statement put on their product. Usually, you see it as "Registered Pure And Without Drugs or Poison", but in this case it's just Pure and Without.
That goes away in the late 1910s, due to Prohibition.
I have one that says, Pure And Without Registered Drugs or Poison. It always makes me wonder, were they putting unregistered drugs in? LOL.