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blobbottlebob
USA
1249 Posts |
 Posted - 21 Aug 2007 : 00:46:12
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Here is a topic suggested by Tom that I intend to follow up on. Thanks for the topic Tom! He originally asked what kind of variants you see on the Hutchinson stoppers that turn up. To start, I will show some in the 'found condition'.
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When I find a broken hutchinson soda with the stopper intact, I remove the metal. Someday, I might put them back into bottles without stoppers. I have never (yet) destroyed a perfectly good bottle to get at the stopper. I have been tempted, though. It's rough when you find a common hutch with a nice clean stopper. The stopper alone might be worth more than the glass with the stopper in it! Typically, I have found that the condition of the stopper goes hand-in-hand with the condition of the bottle (at least those found while scuba diving). A bottle that has heavy wear and cracks usually has a corroded or broken stopper. A bottle that looks great will often have a solid nice stopper.
Here is one in rough condition,
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Yet another where some of the 'silver' color of the core metal shines through.
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This stopper - branded by WHH&S - has a brass core. It has some kind of silver (nickel?) plating but the inside metal is solid brass. I find this to be atypical. More often than not, it seems that the stoppers are made of some kind of 'white' metal that can corrode.
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Stay tuned for more later. I will continue to add to this thread showing stoppers that are cleaned and polished and I will show some of the variants that are seen... |
Edited by - blobbottlebob on 21 Aug 2007 00:48:14 |
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blobbottlebob
USA
1249 Posts |
Posted - 21 Aug 2007 : 09:52:52
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This little pile doesn't look like much, but it represents hours of hand polishing.
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To polish them, I carefully remove the rubber. First, I pull the rubber out away from the center of the shaft going around the stopper in a circle. Sometimes the rubber is too brittle or too hard and it tears. If the rubber has any flexibility left, it will pull out a little. Next, I take the rubber off by pulling it UP the stopper. The metal on the spring is smaller facing the top of the bottle than it is towards the contents. Here is a picture of a metal piece with the top facing upward. You can see that the metal is wider facing downward. This makes sense because the pressure on the spring (in the closed position) is facing the contents.
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After that, it is just a matter of metal polishing it. I use a paste type of metal polish called Noxon. I've tried Flitz but it doesn't work as well for me because it seems runny. |
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blobbottlebob
USA
1249 Posts |
Posted - 23 Aug 2007 : 00:18:52
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Hey everybody. I'm back. I am going to start with several stoppers that Tom just gave me when we went diving together. Thanks a lot Tom. I really appreciate it!
Before I start, I want to mention that the size of these stoppers is about 9/16 of an inch. That makes them smaller than a dime. The size was fairly important. The metal had to be small enough to fit inside the neck of the bottle, yet, large enough that it would seal tightly with the rubber without pulling or popping out easily.
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blobbottlebob
USA
1249 Posts |
Posted - 23 Aug 2007 : 00:34:26
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The first unique stopper that Tom gave me is stamped, "JOHN GRAF" on it. This is amazing to me. This shows just how savy John Graf was at marketing his products. Any collector knows that there are probably more variants of John Graf bottles than there are from any other Wisconsin bottler. He must have loved glass. Additionally, he often used unique and appealing designs like his eight-sided weiss beer bottle, or a soda with an embossed Zeppelin, or seltzers with a factory scene etched into them . . . The list could be quite long. Yet, here he is stamping his name on the bottom of a stopper that was not designed to be removed by the end product user. Any collector who has seen a Hutchinson soda bottle knows that the glass is often quite thick. It is very hard to read the underside of a stopper when it is installed on the inside of a bottle. I know. I've tried. Yet, here he is doing it. Amazing. Maybe a little nutty. I suppose it's possible that he branded the things so that, in the event that a bottle broke, other companies would not try to use his stoppers. Maybe he ordered so many of them, that they branded some for him because he was a great customer? Whatever the reason, I find this to be very interesting. I have never (yet) seen another stopper from Wisconsin (or elsewhere) with a bottler's name stamped on it.
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Tony14
USA
830 Posts |
Posted - 23 Aug 2007 : 01:04:08
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wow thats pretty cool! Im gonna go and check the only stopper i have quick  |
Tony Gruber
Looking for any bottle from Fond du Lac or any Wisconsin druggist/med. |
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Tony14
USA
830 Posts |
Posted - 23 Aug 2007 : 01:05:59
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| nope its just plain oh well it was worth a shot! |
Tony Gruber
Looking for any bottle from Fond du Lac or any Wisconsin druggist/med. |
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blobbottlebob
USA
1249 Posts |
Posted - 23 Aug 2007 : 09:17:30
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| Hi Tony. You never know. Maybe you have it installed on the inside of one of your hutches. |
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blobbottlebob
USA
1249 Posts |
Posted - 23 Aug 2007 : 19:32:10
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The second unique stopper that Tom gave me is marked "AETNA" (although it also looks a bit like AE7NA"). I believe that this is a company that made closures for bottles. It is not unusual to see AETNA printed on the rubber part of the lightning stopper that you see on weiss beer bottles. This one has a fairly flat bottom. Many of the other stoppers are a little more convex.
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blobbottlebob
USA
1249 Posts |
Posted - 27 Aug 2007 : 10:56:19
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In honor of the stopper Tony has, I will start with one of the most common stoppers that you see. That is, a stopper that is 'plain' or not stamped. The stamping process may have been hand-forged and therefore, fairly difficult. Many of the stoppers that I own are poorly stamped. For example, the stamping might be off-center or off the edge of the stopper. They are also frequently only partially visible. One side of a stopper might be stamped well while the other is too light to read.
Here is one of the blanks. There is a line on this one. I don't know if it is a mis-cast or a stamping.
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Interestingly, this one has a similar line to the one above. It is stamped "H. C. S. CO." I don't know if this is an Hutchinson brand marking but it very well could be. Maybe something like "Hutchinson Concealed Stopper Company". This is a complete guess. It could be a competitor for all that I know.
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Edited by - blobbottlebob on 27 Aug 2007 11:12:58 |
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blobbottlebob
USA
1249 Posts |
Posted - 03 Sep 2007 : 09:41:33
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This grouping are all Hutchinson brand stoppers. Because they were first 'invented' in 1879, and continued to be in use until the 19 teens, the company made many batches and some are stamped differently. Some of the early stoppers that I have seen are taller so that they could fit in existing long neck bottles.
This first stopper has markings that are also seen on glass bottles sold by the Hutchinson company. It is stamped, "W. H. H. & S."
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These next stoppers are heavily printed with a whole bunch of tiny characters. It is hard to find these where all of the letters came through well. The total stamping reads, "PATD AP.8 REIS JUNE 17 79 W H H"
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This next stopper is unique in that it is not stamped at all on the bottom. Instead, it has embossing along the side edge of the stopper that read, "W H H S". This was part of the casting of the metal.
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blobbottlebob
USA
1249 Posts |
Posted - 03 Sep 2007 : 09:55:30
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These stoppers were in popular use for over thirty years. Given how thrifty people are, there were bound to be competitors that sold stoppers to fit in Hutchinson bottles. Besides the AETNA one Tom found, here are a few others.
This one is stamped simply "LIQUID". I think this is a marking that some company used to identify their product. I have several different Wisconsin hutches that have the word liquid embossed like it was part of the glass company name.
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This next one reads, "SCHRANK" (I think - It could be just SCH ANK").
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bottlevulture
USA
245 Posts |
Posted - 03 Sep 2007 : 18:16:22
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| Thats pretty Cool Bob. I never realized that there was writing on them. I have about thirty or so in a bag. I will have to pull them out and see, of coarse several are pretty rusty and I don't really feel like buffing them out.... Maybe I can buy you a twelve pak of beer and have you do it. Ha ! Ha ! I already know the answer on that one Bob! |
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blobbottlebob
USA
1249 Posts |
Posted - 03 Sep 2007 : 21:28:38
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| A twelve pack! I would have done it for three! |
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blobbottlebob
USA
1249 Posts |
Posted - 11 Sep 2007 : 22:00:17
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Here is an example of the lightning bail stopper on a weiss beer bottle that also says AETNA like one of the hutch stoppers Tom found. The bottle just came out of the water. Outside of some rust, the stopper is intact. The bottle (as you might be able to see) is a John Graf 8 sided weiss beer.
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blobbottlebob
USA
1249 Posts |
Posted - 14 Nov 2007 : 23:11:27
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| Not too long ago, I learned some really interesting facts from the person who is compiling a national list of every known hutchinson soda used in the United States. The list already exceeds 15,000 examples. Wisconsin has the third most behind Pennsylvania and New York. I will update this thread with some new information about stoppers and provide more information about the national directory for those interested.... |
Edited by - blobbottlebob on 17 Nov 2007 21:11:28 |
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blobbottlebob
USA
1249 Posts |
Posted - 17 Nov 2007 : 21:42:40
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Okay. I recently sent a link from this thread to Ron Fowler. He is from the Seattle History site. Ron is trying to compile every known hutchinson (from the US). The list has exceeded 15,500 variants. Here is a link to his site. It's also in the LINKS section if you ever need to look it up.
http://www.seattlehistorycompany.com/index.html
Anyway. Ron thought that my observations were interesting and passed along some of the things that he has learned about the Hutchinson company through his research. Much of this he intends to publish but he is allowing me to talk about here.
Firstly. There should be very few stoppers that turn up with any markings other than hutchinson brand markings. The hutchinson company vigorously defended their patents and tried to drive 'imitators' out of business. Thus, the variants we are finding are, in some cases, not just competitors, but alleged violators of the hutchinson patents.
Ron does not know of other bottlers like John Graf who had their names imprinted in the stoppers. Even he thought that this was odd.
Secondly, the stoppers were made of tin and non-toxic tin alloys. I have heard people say that the bottles went out of use because of lead poisoning resulting from the stoppers.
This is very interesting stuff! |
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Hutchinson Stoppers (the metal spring itself)
