Illinois Glass Co. 1926 Catalog

Bottle Typing/Diagnostic Shapes

1926 Illinois Glass Co. Bottle Catalog
HOME: Bottle Typing/Diagnostic Shapes: 1926 I.G.Co. Bottle Catalog

One of the best sources for determining bottle types based on the shape are old glass/bottle makers catalogs. An assortment of catalogs have been used in the preparation of this website to assist with bottle dating, and in particular, bottle typing - i.e., what a bottle likely contained or was used for. A few bottle makers catalogs were reproduced in the 1960s and 1970s, but all are long out of print and variably difficult to obtain. However, there is no better source for determining potential use and period shape names than these old catalogs.

Because of this utility I have reproduced the entire 1926 Illinois Glass Company (IGCo.) "General Catalog B" on this website - a catalog never reproduced to the authors knowledge. The IGCo. was one of the largest producers of bottles during the late 19th and early 20th centuries (and still is in its current manifestation as the Owens-Illinois, Inc.©) having almost certainly the most comprehensive array of offerings of any bottle maker at the time within all important bottle type categories. Given this dominance, the bottle styles listed in their catalogs - and to a large degree the style names used - are typical of the offerings of most bottle makers of that time making the IGCo. catalogs one of the more important catalogs of the era to researchers. (Note: This catalog is not dated but is known to first have been distributed by the company in 1926. Click on the following hot link to view page 337 - lower right corner of the page - from the August 1926 "American Perfumer & Essential Oil Review" noting that the company "just issued" this "B" catalogue.)

As with the 1920 IGCo. catalog also reproduced on this website, this one features largely machine-made utilitarian bottles but does include (after page 205) an assortment of "specialty bottles" (primarily perfume/cologne and shop furniture/shelf ware bottles) that were still noted as being "hand blown." Although there are a lot of similarities, the major differences between the 1920 and 1926 catalogs are as follows: much less emphasis on liquor bottles (1926 was the middle of National Prohibition), many styles that had cork finishes are now also being offered with both cork and screw thread finishes (and others), a greatly expanded offering of food related bottles, and a good assortment of "art deco" type soda bottles which began their popularity with the domination of automatic bottles machines in the late 1910s and greatly expanded in variety in the 1920s and later.

This catalog is copied in its entirety and includes many pages of related non-bottle items, e.g., packing materials, corks and corking machines, bottle filling machines and much more. Fascinating information all! For a complete history of the Illinois Glass Company consult the following reference; a pdf copy of this article is included on this website:

Lockhart, Bill, Pete Schulz, Beau Schriever, Bill Lindsey, and Carol Serr with contributions from Russ Hoenig and David Whitten. 2016p. Illinois Glass Company. Historic Glass Bottle Identification & Information Website, E-published August 2016. Article on probably the largest bottle maker during the last third of the 19th through the first quarter of the 20th century. This updated article is available at this link: http://www.sha.org/bottle/pdffiles/IGCo.pdf This article is part of the Encyclopedia of Manufacturers Marks on Glass Containers. This article also has an appendix of soda bottle mold/catalog codes used from 1896 to 1920. It is available at this link: Appendix A - Illinois Glass Co. Catalog Codes (Mold Numbers) for Soda Bottles 1896-1920.

For more information on the products of the Illinois Glass Company, see the other two catalogs reproduced fully on this website - the 1906 IGCo. catalog and the 1920 IGCo. catalog.

All of the pages in the 1926 IGCo. catalog are hyperlinked below in the order they appear in the catalog. Click on each link to view an enlarged and of relatively high quality (around 500-700 KB each) scan of each individual page (jpeg files). The link consists of the catalog page number and the general subject matter of that page - as appropriate or useful.

If a user wishes to search for a particular bottle type (or other catalog listing) in the catalogs "General Classified Index," these pages are linked immediately below. Determine the page number of the item you are interested in then find that page link further down this page and click on it. Just be aware that some of the proprietary names that the company (and all bottle making companies) used are not always intuitively clear as to what type of bottle it is referring to:

Page 307 - Acid Bottles to Cold Creams
Page 308 - College Ovals to Glass Stoppers
Page 309 - Globes to Narrow Mouth French Squares
Page 310 - Narrow Mouth Round Prescriptions to Prescription Ware Packages
Page 311 - Preserve Jars to Sterilizers and Washers
Page 312 - Stock Packages to Wrappers for Bottles

After viewing an enlarged scan, use the back arrow on your browser to return to this page. Unfortunately, a user can not move from one page scan to the next without returning to this page.

End of the page by page 1926 catalog.

TO DOWNLOAD A COMPLETE COPY OF THIS 1926 CATALOG AS ONE PDF FILE CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING LINK:
ILLINOIS GLASS COMPANY 1926 "B" CATALOG

SEARCHING THIS WEBSITE:
To do a word/phrase or image search of this website one must use the following Google search link:
Search the SHA/BLM Historic Glass Bottle Identification & Information Website
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1/1/2024

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Bill Lindsey
Bureau of Land Management (retired) - Klamath Falls, Oregon
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