1952 Patent D-105529 Hobbleskirt

On yesterday's ride I took a few breaks to do a little insulator scouting.  I parked the HP Velo at the side of trail and hopped a small creek to inspect some ground  under an old telegraph pole.  This time of year all the leaves have fallen and strong winds blow the ground clear in places.  At the base of a tree I saw the familiar glint of green glass and I thought ah-ha! an insulator.  As I walked up I noticed the thing wasn't an insulator but a bottle.  What I could see was just an inch or two of the thick green glass base of a narrow bottle stuck into the soft mud .

When I saw the embossed Script on the bottle with lack of printing inks or other decoration of modern times I realized I was holding a piece of real of 20th century American history.  Because of my interest in antique glass insulators I am aware of the bottle collecting hobby.  Once again an amateur archaeology project fell right into my lap.  In the creek I rinsed loose the sediment from inside the bottle and tucked it safe into a side pocket of my seat back bag.

 After some quick and easy research online I learned these facts:

Patent D-105529 Hobbleskirt Coke Bottle

Produced 1938-1951

Front emboss:

Coca-Cola

TRADE MARK REGISTERED

BOTTLE PAT, D-105529

Rear emboss:

Coca-Cola

TRADE MARK REGISTERED

MIN. CONTENTS 6 FL. OZS.

--

Produced 1951-1958

Front emboss:

Coca-Cola

TRADE MARK REGISTERED

IN U.S. PATENT OFFICE

Rear emboss:

Coca-Cola

TRADE MARK REGISTERED

MIN. CONTENTS 6 FL. OZS.

--

Produced 1958-1965

Front emboss:

Coca-Cola

TRADE MARK REGISTERED

IN U.S. PATENT OFFICE

Rear emboss:

Coca-Cola

TRADE MARK REGISTERED

MIN CONTENTS 6 1/2 FL OZS

Clearly visible embossing on the lower front reads:

5225

The first two digits represent the year the bottle was made 1952.  It almost seems as though Coca-Cola knew their bottles might one day become collectible items so the designers made it easy for production runs to be easily identified and authenticated.

Another cool feature I learned about the "Hobbleskirt Bottle" is that the city that the bottle was from is embossed on the bottom.  I found this bottle just outside the city limits of Mansfield, Ohio.  Today lucky for the collector market this unique hierarchy of bottle production versus population density favors the small town distributors whose demand required smaller quantities of bottles.  This means fewer surviving examples with small town embossed names compared to the well known big cities of America.  Scarcity once helped by demand drives the value up fueling a healthy collector market.

During my photo shoot I went all out using the tripod and artificial lighting and also taking the opportunity to experiment with the white balance settings of my camera.  While reviewing my shots I noticed that the second shot, the rear emboss detail the whole bottle looked crooked.  To be sure I went back and set up again but this time I adjusted the white balance.  The following images have a purple cast I don't like but more importantly after a careful alignment of camera and subject the second series of pictures shows the bottle is a true leaner. All I did was to rotate the bottle 180 degrees.       

I did find some insulators too. 

Nice dome glass on far right beehive.