GUT Co. - Start of the Supermarket

I admit it, that acronym made me giggle. The Grand Union Tea company is embossed on the side of the next bottle.

Isn’t it a beautiful amethyst color? I always thought that it was the amount of sunshine that determines the shade, (longer=darker) but it’s not necessarily true. The amount of manganese in the glass mixture is what really makes for a dark bottle. They can be as light as pink. I kind of hope there’s a pink one in the collection, because if not I might have to buy one myself! Purple was collected by more than one family member, and this one was close to the top because it was not in the crate to start with. Mom had it out as decoration in her home. It’s a favorite of many!

Anyway, the GUT Co. has a nice history, available on the internet so I won’t rehash it all here. It was one of the first supermarket stores to carry a wide range of products, from food to pharmaceutical and is still in business in New York mostly. There’s no telling what was in the bottle here, it could have been…anything really. The bottle type is very easy to find on the internet, so it was either something everyone used, or the company packaged the same bottle for many items. Most of the bottles had the embossing on the sides though, so that does make this one different. It also doesn’t have the triangular logo as other bottles do.

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The Ordinary or Extraordinary - Sealfast Fruit Jar

The first bottle I unpacked was one of the larger ones. It had a good weight in my hand, a nice solid beginning. And yes, there was a brand mark to provide a direction for research! I’m sure they won’t all be this easy to identify, but it’s off to a great start. This is a Foster Sealfast fruit canning jar. Fun fact/confession; when Mom described them as bail jars, I always heard “Ball” jar. Because in my infinite wisdom Ball was the canning jar, not just a brand of. Sigh, it’s a case for the saying “we live and we learn.” I have learned now that the wire closure is known as the bail. This particular bail is not rusty, and would probably work just fine if I had a lid to put on top. Maybe it’s yet to be unwrapped, waiting further on in the collection. The jar itself is machine made, and (from internet research,) was probably from the glass factory in Marion Indiana from the 1910-20 timeframe. Really, the amou...

SBA- Soda Bottle

The next bottle in the crate was a skinny bundle of paper. Again I’m struck with just how heavy the bundle is. Especially to unwrap it and find the bottle is only about 7.5 inches tall. Modern glass is so light in comparison. Above the label, on both sides of the bottle it says SBA. And this is further clarified by what is around the base of the bottle; “Seattle Bottlers Association Registered.” The bottle was machine made judging by pontil marks. It also still has a bit of rust on the rim from the cap. That is what I know, next up is what I can surmise. There is not much information on SBA specifically that I could dredge up in a short internet search. It does seem like these bottles are not exactly rare, since 2 sold for auction in 2013. From what I read in a document on the old Seattle Coca~Cola bottle plant, there were at least 8 carbonated bottling plants in the Seattle area in the 1930s. I don’t know what was in the...

Glass Swizzle Stir Sticks

These seem more modern, but it’s really hard to know without markings. There are 24 of them, all in good condition. So good in fact, that I will put them with my other Swizzle Sticks and use them. I love all the colors! The darkest ones are actually a very dark brown and green. It just didn’t represent well because of the flash.

The Robertson Bottle Collection

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