Bill Lockhart mentioned the book ‘The Coca-Cola Bottle: A History of 
Returnable Bottles in the United States with Quick Reference Guide’. It has 
generated interest and questions about the book, so I thought I would expand 
on his description to answer some of the questions.
The book covers the history of the Coca-Cola Returnable bottle in the United 
States from 1894 to the last returnables in the 1990’s.  
Chapter 1: Early Coca-Cola Bottles 1894 to 1916
Chapter 2: Embossed Contour or Hobbleskirt 1916 to 1967
Chapter 3: Applied Color label (ACL) 1955 to 1990’s
Chapter 4: Glossary of Terms 
Quick Reference Guide to Embossed Bottles 1894 to 1967
Quick Reference Guide to Applied Color Label Bottles 1955 to 1990’s

The first three Chapters cover the history behind the bottle types and why 
they were used and why they changed.

Chapter 4 covers bottle terminology from glass manufacturer terms to Coca-
Cola Company terms and Collectors terms. This information is very helpful for 
anyone wanting to use the correct bottle terminology to describe a bottle.

The Quick Reference Guide would be the most informative and useful part of 
the book to Historical Archaeology.  Each bottle type is divided by the years it 
was manufactured and has a detail page describing the bottle, the years 
produced, bottle variations, glass color variations and the base/bottom 
description. Then it has either an illustration of the bottle text or a 
photograph of the bottle to show all the details. (The book has over 200 
illustrations and photographs for easy bottle identification).  The book also 
shows where the Date Code information can be found on each type bottle.  
The Guide will help in identifying a bottle (even if it is just glass shards) to the 
year it was made or at least to the time period the bottle type was made.

The research for this book was conducted over a 20 year time period, using 
The Coca-Cola Company Archives, Bottle Manufacturer information and of 
course thousands of bottles were studied for empirical data collection.
 This is the only publication I know of that has the Embossed descriptions as 
well as the ACL type descriptions listed. There was very little information 
available on the ACL bottles in published form, so I decided to do the research 
and publish it myself.

If you have any further questions please contact me at [log in to unmask]

Thank you
Doug McCoy

McCoy, Doug
2009 The Coca-Cola Bottle: A History of Returnable Bottles in the United 
States with Quick Reference Guide. Privately Published