“N in a square” or “Boxed N” trademark as seen on glass bottles
The “N in a square” trademark was used on machine-made bottles from approximately 1915 up to their glass plant closing in 1978.
Some sources indicate that Obear-Nester Glass Company used an “N in a rectangle” or an “N in a square” mark soon after the company started – circa 1895, but I don’t know of any bottles confirmed with this mark that actually date that far back. If any exist, they would be mouthblown bottles, not machine-made.
Julian Toulouse (Bottle Makers and their Marks, 1971) wrote that the “N in a square” mark dated from 1915 and was used only on machine-made bottles.
This is, by far, the most common mark seen on glass containers made by Obear-Nester Glass Company. The mark is usually located on the bottom of the bottle or jar. It is often seen on amber (“beer bottle brown”) bottles of many types, including chemical, oil, medicine, cleaning products, general household, food, and beverage bottles.
For instance, some amber Orange Crush soda bottles are seen with the “N in a square” mark on the bottom. Often, (at least on some soda bottles) the mark is accompanied by a date code, usually two numbers located to the immediate right of the “N”, which would stand for the last 2 digits of the year the bottle was made.
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NOTE: There are at least two other slight mark variations used by Obear-Nester, specifically, N inside a circle, and just a “plain N“, which are much less commonly seen. They are listed on Page Four of the Glass Bottle Marks pages.
Obear-Nester also made a line of druggist bottles that were marked “ASEPTIC” on the base. Some of those were “generic” bottles, and others were “personalized” slug plate types with the name of the druggist or pharmacy embossed on the front of the bottle.
Note: Special thanks to SandyR1951 (Ancestry.com member) who states that the Obear-Nester Glass Company plant shut down permanently on December 31, 1978. This info was posted on that site, in response to a query I had posted there back in 2004. After nearly 9 years, I am correcting my information here!!
For an extensive list of glass manufacturers’ marks on bottles, fruit jars, insulators, tableware and other glass items, please check out the GLASS BOTTLE MARKS pages, here starting on page one.
Please click here to go to my site Home Page.
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Thanks for your quick reply, but I’m pretty sure it’s not a Wilson Whiskey bottle. I had already found the link you gave & the bottle shape is completely different, there is no “Wilson” or “That’s All” anywhere on the bottle, & the Atlas logo is small & only near the top on one side of the bottle. I can send photos, but not sure how to do that. Thanks again.
Hi Mary Ann,
Thanks for your follow-up reply. [Readers, she sent me photos by email, and it is a flask I haven’t seen before]. I assume it was a bottle design used for only a short time, perhaps for a short-lived brand name. The “6” date code on the base indicates it was probably made in 1936 or 1946, and the “72” is a liquor bottle permit number for Obear-Nester Glass Company. Unfortunately I have found no information on that particular flask.
Many, many different flask designs were made (by many glass manufacturers) throughout the early and mid twentieth century. A lot of them were made in relatively small numbers and are now rarely seen. The great majority of those types of bottles were thrown in the trash after the liquor was consumed.
If any of you readers know what company used the “Atlas holding up the world” design on that flask, please chime in!
Thanks!! David
I found a clear glass full pint glass bottle marked D-130, 72 N(in a square) 6 on the bottom. It has the Federal Law Forbids statement near the top on one side & an embossed Atlas figure holding the world near the top on the other side (not sure which side is the front). I know it was produced by Obear-Nestor probably mid 1930’s, & that D-130 is the Distiller Permit Number, but would like to find out which liquor company this logo belongs to. Thank you.
Hi Mary Ann,
I am guessing you have one of the “Wilson” whiskey bottles? I don’t know anything about them but here is a listing from the Worthpoint site, showing one of the bottles with an original label still attached (link below). I presume it was a brand sold in the 1930s, and was probably rather shortlived.
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/lot-vintage-wilson-thats-all-whiskey-1816356820
Best regards,
David
Hi, I’m from Trinidad and Tobago, I found a brown bottle today with the boxed N and 5 on bottom of bottle, it also has 2 pieces on top where the cap goes, maybe to tie I guess, interested in knowing its age?
Found a Mogen David wine bottle, clear glass with a honeycomb pattern on the sides, with the “N in a square” in the middle of the bottom. It also has “Design Patent No 158213”, and when you look up that design patent, it was filed in 1949 and issued in 1950. So that homes in on the actual date in more detail than just the maker’s mark. So, that makes it 1950 to 1978.
I was having a furnace guy putting a new one in, and in a crawl space where ducts are, he found three wine bottles. One is brown, tall, has N in a square by Obear Glass company. It has 4/5 quart embossed on it as well as grape vines. Bottom does have 2 numbers, looks like a 6 and a 9, also wine is embossed on the bottom. The other 2 are clear and have 1 pint embossed on them as well as wine. They too have grape Vines. The numbers on the bottom are, 424 on one the other has looks like 6 and 7
They all have seams. The brown one has a bottom that looks like it was put on separately.
My house was built in 1900.
Thank you,
Melissa Hurd
Hi Melissa,
Thanks for your post. I can only say that since the brown (called “amber” by bottle makers) bottle has the “N in a square” mark, we know it was made by Obear-Nester Glass Company. I can’t say who made the others if there aren’t any glassmaker marks on them. The numbers such as “424” are probably catalog numbers identifying the style or shape of bottle. I would guess they date from the 1930s-1950s time period, but it is hard to assign a specific date to the bottles, since Obear-Nester made many bottles over a very long period of time.
David
I found a Listerine Lambert Pharmacal Company round 4 and 1/4 clear bottle with a cork at the beach, in WA state. It has a N with a rectangle and a 3 with an underscore. I realize it may be a Obear Nester bottle, but is there any way to know what the year might be? Lorrie
Lorrie, I am not familiar with the date coding system(s) used by Obear-Nester over the years, although on some bottles there are two-digit numbers placed to the right of the logo which are surely date codes. In your particular case, the “3” is merely a mold number which doesn’t help us with dating the bottle.
Best regards,
David
What about n iside a square with a 6 to far right
Andrew, the “6” is a mold number and doesn’t give us any useful information.
David
I found a bottle that is clear with the N in a square at the bottom. It also has what looks like maullr (could be wrong on spelling) molded in the bottom in cursive and just below the neck is 4 (one on each side) molded in LM marks with the M sitting inside the L.
I have this one too. I thought the r was a z. I just found it.
I have several amber “stubbie” beer bottles that have the Anheuser Busch logo embossed in them. All have the “N” in the square markings. They are from the 60’s and 70’s. For definitive dates, all bottles have a number such as 71, 78, 73, 75 on the bottom, so I will go with that. Would you agree??
Hi David,
Yes, I would agree that the numbers you mention are date codes. Although sometimes a number such as this might be misinterpreted, in the case of many, if not most, bottles produced by some of the major glass bottle companies in the ’60s and ’70s, it can be easy to find the date code. Many beer, soda and other beverage bottles as well as an array of food and other types of bottles were marked with a two-digit number such as 70, 71, 72, etc on the bottom along with other markings. Most of the amber “stubbies” of that time period were so marked. In most cases (not all), the date code is placed to the right of the glassmaker mark, and/or appears in the “3 O’clock” position on the base.
If anyone finds a casual bottle dumpsite from the early 1970s time period, it is usually possible to look for the date codes on a variety of bottles (if all in the same area) and get a fairly good idea of when they were discarded, usually within a year or two of when they were made.
Hope this helps,
David
Helps a lot. Thank you.
I have a brown bottle with the letter N in the square. Above the N is the letter L. Below the N are the letters RTC UY PAT OFF. The number 10 is opposite of the N. All on the bottom of this bottle. On the top of the bottom round ledge it says no deposit*no return. Not to be refilled. Any info would be of help.
I’ve got a liquor bottle that has the N on the bottom. It also has what seems to be a knight on a horse with the letter C on the side. The bottle itself is a clear 1 quart bottle with a narrow neck.
Hi David, I’m currently working at an archaeological site in NM and we found a large deposit of bottles that we’re trying to date. Currently they’re ranging from the 30’s-early 50’s. One such bottle is embossed on the bottom with the word wine, then beneath that the N logo in a square and a 9 to it’s right. Beneath those two symbols is a 7, which we are assuming is the mold number (?). Since the 9 isn’t a two digit number, should we assume the bottle lacks a marker for the date, or is this an example of early bottle manufacturers using single digit numbers for dating before moving to double digit?
B.R., I’m not sure, since I am not familiar with all the date coding practices of Obear-Nester. I have seen a number of their soda bottles which usually have a two-digit date code to the right of their logo (similar to the way this was done by some other glass companies) but I do not know about numbers on their wine bottles. Perhaps someone has more info on this, or another researcher has more advanced information than I currently have on this site . Readers?
David
I have an old amber Purex bottle that has this mark on the bottom. When were these common?
Hi Cole, I don’t have info on the exact years the PUREX glass bottles were made, but I would estimate most of them date from the 1930s-1960s time period.
~David
I have a small brown bottle (jug) with a screw on top. On the bottom of the bottle is a N in a Square with the number 18. The lower part of the bottle has a white (beige) paint that is easily removable. What can you tell me about this bottle.
Brenda, it is some type of liquor or wine bottle, but I’m not sure exactly what it contained. I have seen those before, and I believe they were issued in the late 1960s or early to mid-1970s. Sorry I don’t have better info for you.
David
It’s a whiskey bottle. I just found one at our local Salvation Army, and it still had some whiskey inside! So unless someone refilled it (always a possibility), then whiskey would be my guess.
Hello, I have found a round clear bottle. It appears to have a screw top but the cap is missing. It has seams on the sides of the bottle. It’s 7 inches tall. Has an N inside of a square and the number 4 to the right of it. Any ideas??????
Bill, Obear-Nester Glass Company made thousands of different bottles over many years, and many of them are typical, common, “generic” bottles of which there is little information available. The “4” would be a mold number, but little else can be said for sure.
Best regards, David
I found a bottle in perfect condition with the square N and the number 7 on one side and 100 on the other
I found a bottle with code R-424, 72 n 40. I assume the n is Obear Nester and the 40 is 1940. What are the other codes?
Tom, I’m not familiar with the code system used by Obear-Nester. The “40” might be a code date for 1940 but I can’t guarantee that is correct. The “R-424” could be an inventory number assigned to that bottle style, or perhaps (if that is a liquor bottle) it could be a “rectifier number”.
~David
If I may interject. The R# is a rectifier’s permit code – found on liquor bottles. The other codes are: 72 = Obear-Nester’s permit # to make liquor bottles (after Prohibition was lifted) and the 40 IS the date code for 1940. 🙂
Thanks a lot, Carol! I appreciate any help I can get here.
Take care,
David
I just found one that has Federal Law prohibits sale or reuse and the marks on the bottom are : D-201. 72 N (It’s in a square) 7
It is a dark brown possibly half pint liquor bottle. Any idea of a possible date or if it’s even made by this manufacturer?
Thanks in advance!
Hi Nancy, sounds like the “72” is a date code for 1972. Typically, most bottles with the “Federal Law…..” phrase date before 1964, but there are some that were made as late as the 1970s and even more recent than that. Yes, I am sure it is a product of Obear-Nester. No other glass bottle company in the United States used the “N in a square” as their trademark.
~David
[Reply update/edit – March 23, 2021 : Nancy, I was re-reading some of these posts and I realized I was wrong about the “72” on that bottle. The “72” is actually a “Liquor bottle permit number” assigned to Obear-Nester Glass Company, and the “7” is the date code. I don’t know what year the 7 represents, but probably 1947, 1957 or 1967.]
Carol is correct. Below is the source showing the 72 is their permit code. My bottle has the 72 above D-23 7, and 54 below. The 72 is their permit code, and I believe the 54 is the year of manufacturing. I believe the D-23 7 may be a distillery code. Still researching that, but if you could confirm, I would appreciate it.
https://sha.org/bottle/pdffiles/LiquorBottlePermits.pdf
I have a similar bottle, square “N” which almost all sites agree are Obear Nester. 72 is the permit number for the manufacture to produce bottles that will contain liquor. Mine has “49” on the lower right which is the year the bottle was made. R424 was much harder, but is the permit number of the distillery. R424 is Southern Comfort! I am including links below that I hope work for future treasure hunters.
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/51379b83e4b02119d184b2a2/t/584a336ee4fcb59adb85c48b/1481257838281/User+Permit+numbers.pdf
https://books.google.com/books?id=GGkTAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA89&lpg=PA89&dq=r424+distiller&source=bl&ots=hbNd6iK0wZ&sig=ACfU3U05p3wbjGHsmQZIHdwr7Ul9DCGD0Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjH8dLnxtHmAhXG3J4KHZN_BbUQ6AEwAXoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=r424%20distiller&f=false
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for the links! I hope this helps those trying to find out more info. Your post landed in my “spam” folder, (probably because of the extended links) but luckily I noticed it before it could be deleted.
Take care!
David
I found a bottle buried with some old brick on our property. It’s a large, gallon-size, amber jug. There is an n in a square on the bottom with the number five just below it. There is a seam on each side of the bottle leading to a textured top of the body with a one-inch horizontal line halfway up on each side of the textured top. The spout has a finger handle and a screw-top mouth. There are no other markers to indicate what this bottle was for or when it was made? Any ideas?
Obear Nester made gobs of amber jugs and bottles of many types. I think the jug you found would be a “generic” type, one of many slightly different styles (made by many glass companies) used for such products as bleach, ammonia, hydrogen peroxide, or other liquid chemicals/cleaning products. Some are used for edible liquids such as apple cider or vinegar. Try doing some ebay searches with keywords such as (jug,bottle,jar) (vinegar,apple cider,bleach,chlorine,coke syrup) (amber,brown) in the search box, and see if you can find similar examples.
Best regards, David
I have a clear glass bottle. Bottom says Miller High Life, under that the N inside the square and a #2 above the Miller. The middle of the bottle says no deposit, no return, not to be refilled. Trying to find out a year it was made. Thanks
Amy, if there is no date code on the bottle, I can’t say exactly when it was made. However, just making a guess, it sounds like a bottle from the 1970s. “No deposit, No return” was a very popular phrase marked on bottles during that time period, although similar wording is still used to this day.
David
The #2 is probably a mold number. It would be extremely difficult to add a date code to the bottles Obear Nester made. I am not aware of any of the ware (bottles) being date coded.
Hi David (and Amy),
It may be true that most typical utilitarian Obear-Nester bottles and jars don’t carry date codes, but many of their soda bottles do. The date code, at least on the examples I’ve seen, follows the same placement on the base as used by some other glass companies such as Owens-Illinois, Glenshaw, Anchor Hocking, and Brockway on their sodas. That is, the date code consists of two digits (the last two digits of the year) and is located immediately to the right of the logo (usually) placed in the center. This may not be seen on all Obear-Nester soda bottles, but it is surely seen on a lot of them. Here are two examples I found online, one showing a 1978 bottle, and another is an ebay listing showing an Obear-Nester soda bottle with a 1949 date code [2nd link below deleted 3/23/2021 – item URL no longer valid].
It seems that most date codes were used on earlier soda bottles to help shed light on the “average use life” of returnable bottles. The heavier-walled returnable-type bottles were often used dozens or even hundreds of times before getting so worn that they could not be safely used. The practice of date coding has continued even into the era of “Non-returnable” soda bottles.
http://oldglassbottles.blogspot.com/2012/12/pepsi-soda-bottle-obear-nester-glass-co.html#!/2012/12/pepsi-soda-bottle-obear-nester-glass-co.html
Hope this helps,
David
I found a quart (marked 4 cup) longlife widemouth jar with fruit and vegs design in a circle on one side and the words OBEAR-NESTER GLASS on the bottom. Can you give me more info.
I found a clear rectangle shaped bottle about 2″ tall X 1/2 ” wide, flat, squared off corners, screw top lid-intact- N in square on bottom and number 2 off to the right. Located in mining country in Arizona
We found a bottle with 2 glass post coming out of the neck of the bottle. It’s about a 16 Oz brown glass bottle. It has the N in a square and an 8 about an inch away.
I have an amber glass bottle about 9 inches tall with an N in a square and with the number “4” on the right of it. It also has wings in glass on the top. There is one on e-bay if you put “old amber glass bottle with wings” in the description. What came in this bottle?
Hello Joanne! That bottle is a typical “generic” shape, usually called a “chemical” bottle by glass manufacturers, and the type was normally used to hold such products as bleach, hydrogen peroxide, ammonia, and other liquid cleaners and chemical products of the same genre. The thing unusual about that bottle, as you note, is the ‘wings’ on the closure (I might call them “lugs”, “tabs”, “prongs” or “projections’ but I’m not sure what the exact term is which was used at the time). Evidently that closure type was quite short-lived as I haven’t seen them before on a chemical bottle, although on some other types of bottles I’ve seen lugs which are shorter and less pronounced. I’m guessing that the bottle dates from the 1930s or 1940s (possibly 1950s?) but I can’t narrow it down better than that!
~David
If anybody could tell me the year on this bottle because i cant find the same letters and numbers to match up i found pictures that look like this bottle but different letters its a brown Anheuser short bottle with 4 anheuser eagle with A logos going around the top and it says please don’t litter above that then at the side bottem going around it says not to be refilled with number 17 after no deposit ☆no return. On the bottom of bottle on to has letters BN-1000, then middle left has the letter N in a square, then middle right it has 17x and at the bottom center has the number 71 does that mean its anheuser beer in a nester glass company made in October 17,1971??
Hi Sara,
From your description, your bottle was definitely made by Obear-Nester Glass Company, and I also think the “71” is a date code for 1971. Many beer bottles of the early 1970s had the “PLEASE DON’T LITTER” phrase (or some similar phrase) on them. The “17X” is probably a mold number, and BN-1000 the bottle design/inventory/stock number. As far as I know, no ordinary commercial bottle molds were ever engraved with markings to indicate a specific date a bottle was made (such as October 17, 1971) as that would have been costly, extremely impractical and unnecessary. The engraving was done on the inside of a metal bottle mold, and the mold was then used for months or years. When molten glass is blown into a hollow bottle mold, the molten glass moves against the inside and fills in the engravings which results in the embossing (raised lettering) you see on the glass surface.
I hope this helps,
David
We are finding the slag glass in woods near Missouri Avenue, East St. Louis. Does anyone know the address of the glass factory? Large pieces of brown clear, and bluegreen.
Hi Kathy,
It may be a dumpsite used by the glass factory……not sure. I am not familiar with the exact location in East St. Louis but I’m sure someone who is familiar with the history of the area, and has further details, will land on this site sooner or later and let you know. If you have access to older city directories or phone directories (1978 and older), the information on exact address should be easily found. Please let me know! Best regards, David
Obear Nester was located at 20th & Broadway.
David, thanks very much for that information!!
~David
You’re welcome. My father worked at Obear Nester for 37 years, right up until it closed. I don’t believe they ever dumped glass off-site. A certain percentage of cullet was added to each batch. Cullet was valuable to the company. Thanks. David Walker
Thanks for the info, David! Perhaps Kathy Wright can respond to this…….. looking at a satellite map, it appears the area southwest of Missouri Avenue (generally between 20th and 21nd streets, and northeast of Broadway) could be a likely spot where slag glass was found, since (I assume) that is close to where the factory stood.
Also……it does seem that some glass companies dumped more of their “waste glass” than others. For instance, it is known that large amounts of broken glass was dumped, both near the factory and at an off-site dump, by the Hemingray Glass Company of Muncie, IN, although this did occur over a very long period of time so the actual amount (percentage-wise) wasted may have been very small (during any given day, or week).
Best regards,
David
To David Walker, my mother Annie Colter worked there till it closed. I have pics from there at that time. I am Bob Colter.
I found a brown jar with the “N in a square”. It is 9 1/2″ tall, wide-mouth, with big dimpled bands across the top and bottom… It still had a steel lid screwed on.
Hi Kristin, I think you have a COFFEEMATE Carnation Coffee Creamer jar, or a similar product such as OVALTINE. Best regards, David
I have a bottle, I think it’s a 5 gallon water, blue green color and the logo is plain letter N. WHAT YEAR BELONG THIS BOTTLE?
Hi Earnel, can you please check your Facebook “Other” folder next to your Messages INBOX. Can you send a pic of the bottle (or bottles) to davidrussell59 “at” att “dot” net ?
Thanks, David