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WH&DL

An extremely generous donation

Our Codd bottle

The Walhalla Heritage and Development League (WH&DL) has been very fortunate lately with the donation of numerous items. In particular, long-time member and descendant of the pioneering Trembath family, Muriel Deacon donated several historic items to the WH&DL in early June, including ceramic storage jugs and scales that had been used in the Trembath Store during the town's heyday. Also included among those items was an extremely rare glass soda water bottle that was donated with strict instructions — it was to be sold, with the proceeds going to the WH&DL.

So what makes it so special? It is an intact 13 oz. Codd bottle, complete with its sealing marble. Towards the end of the 19th century, a British soft drink maker named Hiram Codd, of Camberwell, London, designed a bottle specifically for the sale of carbonated drinks, which he patented in 1872. The “Codd bottle”, as it became known, was manufactured from thick glass to withstand internal pressure, with a chamber to enclose a marble and a rubber washer/gasket in the neck. The bottles were intended to be filled upside down, with the pressure of the gas in the bottle forcing the marble against the washer, and thus preserving the drink's effervescence. The bottle was pinched into a special shape during manufacture to provide a chamber into which the marble could be pushed to open the bottle. This prevented the marble from blocking the neck as the drink was poured.

Our bottle is rare because, after consuming the contents of these bottles, it was common practice for children to snap the necks off the bottles in order to retrieve the marble for their collections, and hence most of these bottles were lost. The example to be sold at auction has 70% of the original paper label and even retains the rubber seal for the marble. The label notes that it contained Soda Water.

The bottle was from a soft drink manufacturer in Outtrim in South Gippsland. The Star Brand Aerated Water Company operated for only a short time – 1908-1912 – hence the rarity of the bottle. It is embossed W.J. Lee, Aerated Water Factory, Outtrim with a central Star trademark. At the time of manufacture, Outtrim was a thriving (black) coal-mining township in South Gippsland south of Korumburra. The coal was mined for the Victorian Railways. (Brown coal has a much higher water content and is not suitable for use in steam trains.) There were numerous coal mining towns in the area including Jumbunna and Wonthaggi, attracting many miners and their families who were leaving Walhalla as the mines there declined.

In particular, in 1910 there were over 2,000 people living at Outtrim. As steam gave way to diesel trains during the 20th century, demand for black coal declined also, and the population of some of these mining towns shrank to the point, for example, where today nothing remains of Outtrim other than a dairy farming district with that name.

When a couple of photographs of this bottle were placed online on Facebook, quite a few unsolicited and totally unrealistic offers were received. To achieve the bottle's full value, and in accordance with the donor's wishes, it was resolved that the bottle should be publicly auctioned.

When we began enquiring about the value of this bottle via a number of sources, it soon became clear how special this donation was. In 2016, an auction of a “repaired” Outtrim bottle returned $2500, and it was noted at the time that only 2 other bottles — both broken — were known to exist!

The committee of the WH&DL has decided to sell this bottle by auction via Roycroft Antiques, on the Yea-Whittlesea Road at Flowerdale, later this year. Ross Roycroft, who has a keen interest in bottles, has never seen one in such excellent condition. “It is a very, very rare bottle indeed. Such an example could fetch quite a high price from enthusiastic collectors, and may even end up in an overseas collection”.

Ross and Christine Roycroft, from Roycroft Antiques, have been buying and selling bottles for many years and their son, John, now conducts auctions, not only for old, rare and interesting bottles but also axes, rabbit traps, tools and other interesting items from a bygone era. They can be contacted by email on info@roycroftauctions.com for further information on the Outtrim bottle or the auction. Their website states that "Collecting antique glass or stoneware bottles has become an international hobby over the past 50 years, and as there are many thousands of bottles most collectors specialise in a particular type of bottle or perhaps bottles from a particular company or township."

Such as W J Lee's Codd bottles from Outtrim, Victoria!