Antique Advertising Dairy Collectibles
Dairy collectibles include milk bottles, bottle caps, milk cans, wooden crates, signs, trays, ice cream containers, clocks and calendars. Milk bottles had the company names embossed or painted on them. The manufacturer’s name was also carved into the early wooden milk crates that carried the product in it.
Dairy signs were made out of cardboard or tin and often featured children or families. By the early 1900’s, advertising messages included how drinking milk was healthy for everyone, such as “Milk Belongs in Every Meal”, “Milk Builds Great Athletes” and “No One Ever Outgrows the Need for Milk”.
1880 Horse Drawn Dairy Delivery
Some of the earliest dairy collectibles are from the small dairies in the late 1800’s that were local. Originally, milk was scooped directly from the farmer’s churn into jugs that customers would leave on their doorsteps. The milk was delivered by horse-drawn carriages. By the early 1900’s, small town dairies were virtually everywhere and the farmers competed against each other as they packaged and sold their milk in bottles that had their names on them. In the larger cities, dairies competed against both large dairies and the smaller mom-and-pop ones.
Milk Bottles Created in 1884 by a New York Pharmacist
Inventions such as milk bottles, milking machines, pasteurization equipment and refrigerated tanks helped make milk healthier and easier to get to people in all cities. It’s not known for certain when the first milk bottle was introduced. Crockery type jars were originally used in the late 1870’s. One of the first glass milk bottles was developed in 1884 by a New York pharmacist, Dr. Thatcher. Thatcher’s “Common Sense Milk Bottle” had caps that were sealed with a waxed paper disk and protected the milk from germs. Thatcher realized that the contaminated milk had been causing many juvenile deaths after watching milkmen ride up to homes and dip milk from dirty cans and pour it into customer’s jugs. Thatcher’s milk bottles were embossed with an image of a farmer milking a cow and stated “Absolutely Pure Bottled Milk”. Originals of these are very hard to find and considered valuable.
1940′s Milk Bottles Waterloo Milk Company
Milk bottles are the biggest overall single category of dairy collectibles. Many antique advertising collectors are interested in the early milk bottles that were used for home deliveries and have embossments or “pyroglazed” paintings with the names of the dairies on them. The dairies wanted their company names on the bottles so they would get returned to them and reused. Milk bottles were mostly round through the 1950’s, then square shape became more popular. Otherwise, bottles tend to look very similar with clear glass and either a short or medium length neck. They also had a rounded collar but not a wide mouth to make pouring easy. The value of the bottles depend on the condition, the size, the dairy, the image and message, and the paint color.
As manufacturers improved making milk bottles they found it was less expensive to change from embossed labels to applied colored labels know as ACL’s. Bottles with ACL’s and ones that used embossed slug plates are often considered valuable. By the 1960’s, glass milk bottles were replaced with paper cartons and plastic milk containers that were less expensive to make but preserved the milk’s freshness.
Today, when collectors want to show their antique milk bottles they are often filled up with white sand or small white styrofoam pellets to make them look like they have milk.
Featured is a beautifully illustrated cigar box full of cigars from the Goldsmith, Silver and Company for their M.C.A. brand of 10 cent cigars. This Boston, MA based company produced this small serving tray around 1900. I love the coloring, and the image of a ready to serve appeal full of very well defined cigars…
Here is a beautiful pre-prohibition era serving tray from the long defunct Aberdeen Washington brewery. This particular tray is colorful, and advertises proudly their Prima brand of bottled lager beer. The use of a nice patriotic USA colored shield helps provide more color and eye appeal. One of the fun facts about this brewery is…
Featured is a stunning pre-prohibition serving tray from the Union Brewing Company out of Detroit, Michigan. This particular metal tavern or saloon tray advertised a well known turn of the century beer in Detroit called Gilt Edge. The tray incorporated a lot of patriotic colors in the design, not surprising as patriotism was at a…
Here is a beautifully illustrated cardboard sign from the Armas Del Rey brand of cigars. Circa 1910 era.
Here is a tough to find post prohibition brewery beer box from the Peerless Brewery in Washington, MO, just outside St. Louis. Cardboard boxes of this era are generally difficult to find as they were simply not as durable as their wooden counterparts.
Featured here is a very hard to find tobacco tin from the College Yell brand of smoking pipe tobacco. This tin was made about 1910-1920 era.
Here is a 1884 dated lithograph from the Gauss-Hunicke Hat Company which was based in Saint Louis, MO. The litho advertises The Sunshine, A Misses Hat for 1884. This hat company was one of the bigger hat manufacturers in the U.S. in the late 1800’s. Much of their trade went to the ships heading out…
Featured is a beautiful lithograph from the Lang Biscuit and Candy Company which was based in Montreal, Canada in the early 1900’s. Hello Mr. Grocer is captioned with a young girl on the phone making a call the grocer making her order. An outstanding litho with the image and the color both.
Featured is a beautiful lithograph from the American Agriculture Chemical Company which was based in Buffalo, New York in the early 1900’s. This lithograph comes with a calendar for the year and features a young girl with a patriotic flag in her hand. This company was known for their fertilizer products used by farmers for…
Here is a great lithograph from the Temple Plug Chewing Tobacco for their cut plug brand of tobacco. An interesting type of black americana which was common for tobacco in this era. This fancy chew is advertised on this one, the man looks like he is sheepishly enjoying the product.
