Posted 3 years ago
dav2no1
(836 items)
More Bottle Openers
Lucky Lager 4 3/4"
Hotel U.S. Grant 3 1/2"
**FYI - DECEMBER 10th, 2021 is National Lager Day**
Here's a few larger and unusual openers. The Lucky Lager "Age Dated Beer" and the other side says, "It's Lucky When You Live In America" - 1953
And the other is a bottle opener/ shoe horn labeled Hotel U S. Grant made by Vaughan.
LUCKY LAGER
"The first Lucky Lager brewery was established by the General Brewing Corporation of San Francisco on 31 August, 1933."
"The General Brewing Company was founded in San Francisco, California by Eugene Selvage (who would remain owner and CEO until 1961). Eugene teamed up with Paul C. von Gontard, a grandson of Aldophus Busch, and German brewmaster Julius Kerber, to launch a state of the art brewery that could brew beer that rivalled those made in Europe. Lucky Lager, the first beer of General Brewing Company, was commercially introduced in 1934."
HOTEL U S. GRANT
"Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (1852-1929), son of the eighteenth President of the United States, arrived with his family in San Diego in 1893. He soon became interested in real estate and decided to build a hotel in San Diego in honor of his father."
"The U.S. Grant Hotel officially opened October 15, 1910. It had 437 rooms, 350 of which offered private baths, a roof garden and palm court, bivouac grill, dining room, and Grand Ballroom. It also included two large salt-water swimming pools fed by water piped up Broadway from the bay. Mr. Grant remarried in 1913, and he and his new wife became permanent residents of the hotel in 1919. Though Mr. Grant died in 1929, the second Mrs. Grant remained a resident until her death in 1942."
dav2no1, Cool. :-)
However: a combination bottle opener/shoe horn?
I usually like things that serve more than one purpose, but hmmm... };-)
I decided to see whether there was a patent.
Stetson actually applied for one:
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-stetson-shoe-horn-bottle-174200459
I didn't find that patent application, but I did find one for a combination bottle opener, can opener, and shoe horn, (sorry about the smart phone-unfriendly USPTO link, but I couldn't find a Google patent version):
https://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNum=0&docid=D0104303&IDKey=BE5DED61E1E9%0D%0A&HomeUrl=%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fpatimg.htm
Here's the 1937 publication where I originally found out about that patent:
https://books.google.com/books?id=ksCfAAAAMAAJ
If you open it, and type in "104,303" as your search string, you'll be able to see it.
No, Im not quite obsessed with this one, but it did amuse me. };-)
Interesting histories in the post. Thanks for sharing.
fhrjr2 - make sure you check out my other post with openers...there's more good stories..like Wieland beer.
https://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/303177-bottle-openers?in=user
Keramikos - your patent searches always impress me! So stetson applied for a patent, but Vaughan didnt?
Keramikos - And yes...it amused me as well. I've never seen a shoe horn/bottle opener before...had to buy it.
dav2no1, I only found out that Stetson had applied for a patent on the combination bottle opener/shoe horn, because I happened to trip on that Worthpoint listing for one during a general Google search for combination bottle openers/shoe horns (there are more than a few of those out there).
As to Vaughan:
https://www.madeinchicagomuseum.com/single-post/vaughan-novelty/
A quick search of Google Patents for "Vaughan Novelty Mfg Co" turned up a number of patents for bottle and can openers, but I didn't see one for a shoe horn. :-(
I'm actually no great shakes with the USPTO patent database. If I have a concrete patent number, I can look it up, but even then, there's no guarantee.
Sometimes I can get lucky searching Google Patents for various strings, but again, no guarantee.
As to the USPTO Trademarks database? >8-0
Hey, take at look at the opener in the upper right-hand corner of the ad at that madeinchicagomuseum site:
https://www.madeinchicagomuseum.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/848e7d_7ce8c466285f427f99beac312c6bce30mv2.jpg
It looks a bit shoe hornish, doesn't it? Unfortunately, I can't quite make out the text in the description.
Nice try..off of that I searched vaughan bottle opener no 777..just looks like a handle.
Eh, ya win some, ya lose some. };-)
Still, I have to wonder whether whoever first came up with the idea got it by looking at a wide-handled bottle opener like the Vaughan # 777, and thought, "Hmmm, if only that handle was shaped a bit differently..."
Then he invented it, and all his friends congratulated him. Or they silently said to themselves, "Yuck, no more having beer at his place."
Keramikos - I absolutely agree..lol