Codd Bottles

Marbles inside soda bottles??  This ingeneous replacement for the cork used the soda water's own pressure to keep the marble secured against a rubber ring just under the lip.  To release the seal, a special opener (see below) or finger pushed the marble ball away from the ring.

Hiram Codd (1838-1887) patented "new and useful Improvements in Bottles for containing Aerated or Effervescing Liquids" in the US in 1872. For years, other inventors created their own designs, such as the two flat bottomed bottles in the photograph above.

United States Patent Office. Patent No. 129,652, dated July 23, 1872.

"Be it known that I, Hiram Codd, of No. 17 Queen Row, Grove Lane, Camberwell, in the county of Surrey, England, a subject of the Queen of Great Britain, have invented or discovered new and useful Improvements in Bottles for containing Aerated or Effervescing Liquids…

According to this invention I construct bottles for containing aerated or effervescing liquids in such manner that the bottle when filled is closed by a glass ball held by the pressure within the bottle against a ring of elastic material placed around the interior of the mouth;

I also contract the lower part of the neck of the bottle, so that when the bottle is opened by pressing back the ball from its seat the ball shall not drop to the bottom of the bottle, but shall be arrested at the lower part of the neck, and also in order that when pouring out the contents of the bottle the ball stopper shall not roll back to its seat and so again close the bottle.  I form a recess in the neck below the elastic ring for the ball to rest in while the contents of the bottle are being poured out."    Full description from the patent.

Another odd bottle... for salad dressing in 1822, click HERE ,was an "Ingredient Bottle, - These are sold at the Glass Shops, under the name of Incorporators"

©2013 Patricia Bixler Reber

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