This is my fourth post on the Otis collection, and there is still more left! Even the 68 bottles I bought (a small fraction of the 600 piece collection) made a huge impact on my collection. Enjoy the rest!
Of all the bottles I purchased from the Otis collection,
this one was probably the most unusual.
It is embossed The H.—L. Brand Prov. RI
USA. It has a bulbous food (sauce bottle) shape,
but a soda-style blob top! Unfortunately
I was unable to find any information on it, but it is certainly one of the
stranger ones I’ve come across!
Another nice blob was from the What Cheer Bottling Co. I
originally through only machine made crown tops existed, but this clear blob
makes things interesting. What Cheer is
the motto of Providence
and dates back to the mid-1800s. A large
number of varied businesses took on the name, and many still exist today.
One of the most successful bottling companies from Pawtucket
was the Standard Bottling Co. I had 8 different bottles from this
collection, and added 3 more with this recent purchase. One example as a narrow-bodied handmade crown
top. It has the signature American flag
and the number 5 next to it. I’m not
positive, but I believe this is a date code for 1905.
The other unlisted example is probably the rarest Standard
bottle around. It is embossed Standard Bottling Co. Pavonia Providence,
RI. Beer bottles embossed with the
type of beer are exceedingly rare in RI.
In fact I’m now the lucky owner of the only two types known (the other
is a Henry Wilkens Tivoli from Providence).
Despite its status of a small city and a considerable amount
of documented bottles, Woonsocket
bottles are still hard to come by. I
suppose living in southern RI doesn’t help, as I (almost embarrassingly) have
never been to Woonsocket. I was able to acquire two completely unlisted
sodas which made me decide a visit to this city was in order within the
year. The first example was a BIM crown
top Joseph G. Lefevbre Clinton St.
Woonsocket, RI. Woonsocket was known for it’s French-Canadian
population, and this bottler’s name is a fine example of that.
The other equally exciting soda was an early machine made
crown top Millerville Soda Works Woonsocket, RI. Millerville is a town in Massachusetts
located right over the border from Woonsocket. This must have been a short lived company
because there is not a single mention of it online.
