Old Heinz Bottle

[Flying10uk]

Recently while doing some gardening, in an area of my garden where the ground hasn't been disturbed for more than 50 years, I found this old Heinz bottle. I have not been able to find any images online of a similar bottle and the only possible reference to it is on a US website but, unfortunately there are no pics to confirm. This may, possibly, suggest a horseradish bottle in production 1895 - 1910.

The markings on the base are, Heinz, "1" in the centre and "10" below.

[Bob Womack]

Henry J. Heinz invented catsup back in 1869. His product was designed to be applied to meat to hide the fact that it was going bad. Henry was appalled at the lack of food standards in the industry and decided to place his product in clear glass bottles to show that it was fresh. He rather quickly had a BUNCH of competitors who imitated his bottles and labels, so he did a very interesting thing: he bought out the stock of all the glass bottle manufacturers he could find to protect his brand. Later he became a food standards activist.

Bob

[Aragorn243]

Could be for relish or pickles also but it's odd that it's square. Even early 1900's Heinz bottles are 8 sided. May be older than you think. I was at the Heinz museum in 2021 and took some photos. Heinz started with horseradish in 1872 and it is in a square bottle. But it does not look like yours. It has a narrower top and Pittsburg on the side. It was the Heinz Noble company at that time. Unfortunately for whatever reason I didn't take a photo of the bottle wall. I usually photograph everything. So maybe if you can find out when Heinz broke away from Nobel, you'll be able to date it better.

[Flying10uk]

Thanks for the replies. Until I found this bottle and looking online at the company history I honestly thought that Heinz was a company that started in Britain probably because it's such a household name in the UK. One would think that there would be similar bottles online but so far I have not found a match.

[Aragorn243]

Heinz is from Pennsylvania. The heir John was a US congressman and then Senator representing PA for many years in our federal government. He was a conservative Republican and very popular. He was killed in a plane crash in 1991. The family is still very active in Pittsburg although I don't believe they have any control over the company anymore.