Coca Cola Bottle Vintage Pre-1919 Canada.

When it comes to dating straight side Coca-Cola bottles, all of which are from circa 1900 to 1920, the process is frequently more challenging, and the final determination often less certain. But first a few words about straight side Coke bottles. Prior to the advent of automatic bottle machines in the early 1900s, and before bottle-making technology allowed for the manufacture of contour shaped bottles, soft drink bottlers relied on cylinder shaped bottles made with straight sides in two-piece wooden molds. All of these were crown-top bottles.

Initially these straight sided bottles, which often display seed bubbles in the glass, were made with separate tops “applied” under heat by a glass maker, one bottle at a time. Straight side bottles made with applied tops often exhibit visible stretch marks, evidence that the top was joined as a separate unit to the neck in the process of “finishing” the bottle. Also, the two seam lines that run from base to neck on these early straight-sides do not extend to the top since that uppermost part of the bottle was made and applied separately.