Sunday, April 20, 2014

The Sacramento Eagle

Here's a bottle that has always intrigued me. It has been, as long as I can remember, referred to as "The Sacramento Eagle."

 
The Sacramento Eagle
 
I think the reason it was dubbed the "Sacramento Eagle" is because most all of the known examples have been recovered from the Sacramento area. Way to early to have been manufactured in the west it is believed the Sac eagle dates from around circa 1852.


Eagle without slug plate
 

All of the examples I have encountered  have a graphite pontil and come with either the eagle in a slug plate or, as in the example above, with the embossed eagle without slug plate.




Eagle in slug plate
 
According to the Markota book on western blob top soda's the Sacramento Eagle is believed to be the predecessor to the C&K soda. Personally I have never found any information that can confirm or deny the contention that the eagle has any connection to the C&K soda.
 
 

 
Sac Eagle in a beautiful teal blue.
 
I have seen the Sacramento Eagle in shades of green and blue both with and without the eagle in a slug plate.
 
A recent ebay auction has a Sacramento eagle soda listed for sale in a "Beautiful Aqua color" It is not mentioned if the bottle is pontiled but the pictures show the eagle is not in a slugplate.
 

 Sacramento Eagle in aqua listed on ebay  
 
 
The Sacramento Eagle is considered scarce by western collectors and is a nice addition to a collection of early pontiled western distributed soda's
 
 
Happy Easter and thanks to American Bottle Auctions for some of the above images - rs -
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4 comments:

  1. AnonymousApril 20, 2014 at 3:18 PM

    There has been some discussion on facebook about these recently and quite a few eastern diggers have found them in New York and New Jersey. A good number, (10-20), were privy dug and obviously used. There is some conjecture that it is possible the mold was generic and used by a few bottlers or the bottler who used them in Sacramento either bought some old stock or change the bottle design and then old stock was sold out east or the mold continued to be used.

    Matt L

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rick SimiApril 20, 2014 at 5:26 PM

    Matt,
    Thanks for the info on the soda. I didn't realize so many had been dug back east
    - rs -

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousApril 21, 2014 at 6:09 AM

    Rick That last eagle pictured is a completely different bottle from the pontilled eagle soda. I dug one in N san juan years ago. The arrows are in the opposite claw hand from the pontiled ones.It's late 60s from the context I dug mine in. Cal49er

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  4. Rick SimiApril 21, 2014 at 1:17 PM

    I was wondering about that. The ebay eagle looked different to me but I couldn't really tell from the pictures. Thanks for pointing that out
    rs

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