Soda/Mineral bottle from the Fox company
I found an interesting glass bottle in the assemblage of Atlantic/Central Bus Base Expansion CRM project.
It has embossing motif with “Fox/ Trade Mark/ J.G.Fox & Co/ Seattle Wash” on the cylindrical body, according to the seams on the body and bottom, we can know that this bottle was made by two-piece mold with cup-bottom, and this bottle has tooled crown finish on the top. The two-piece mold with cup-bottom method is dated in 1850-1910’s which just in the dating range of this site.
Since there is “Seattle. Wash(ington)” on the body, we know that this bottle has great possibility made in Seattle locally. This bottle might be used as soda or mineral water bottle. J.G Fox & Co. seems both beverage and bottle company, but there isn’t much information about this company. Some beer company use the bottle from the Fox but Fox has it own ‘snappy soda’ as well.
In the archaeological assemblage, we found over 20 percentage bottle can be classified as soda/mineral bottle, this is a relatively high percentage, Maybe this number indicate the popularity of soda and mineral water around 1900’s in Seattle, means people might buy and consume these drinks everywhere, in restaurants, on the street or in their homes.
Sources:
http://www.tinviennaartplates.com/catablog-items/fox-j-g-co-seattle-wa/
http://www.root-beer.org/modules.php?name=Brands&rbop=Brand&bid=931
http://www.brewerygems.com/angeles.htm
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:J._G._Fox_%26_Co._cup_01.jpg#filelinks
An interesting way to think about the large number of soda/mineral water bottles in the assemblage is to think about disposal patterns and the value of the items being disposed. Once it becomes cheaper and easier to make large numbers of bottles in the 19th century, they become exponentially more common in the archaeological record. Compare this to earlier hand-blown bottles, which took a great deal more effort to create and were commonly reused until they broke. The fact that there are so many single use bottles like soda and mineral bottles speaks to how wasteful we have become!
We are finding tons of these at the yama Village site (45-KP-105). The ones that we have will eventually be sent to the burke museum. We’ve found a couple different fonts used by the JG Fox & Co company, including a flat, block-style font, some similar to that one, and even some with what appears to be the later company logo, with the fox jumping over the “F”.
Thanks, Erik, for sharing! This collection is also housed at the Burke museum and comes from downtown Seattle.
I found 3 different Fox bottles inc:
Fox’s Root Beer, Fox’s Lemon Sour,
Fox’s Tangerine. I’m looking for values
But can’t find anything
I have some fox root beer bottle caps, they also had a lime and grape soda as well