These devices were all designed to remove the cream from a regular bottle of milk. They were known as cream extractors, cream siphons or cream removers. These all work by siphoning the cream out of the milk bottle through a glass or metal tube. The first two in the top row were made by Merit Manufacturing of Cleveland, Ohio. The first is an earlier aluminum version called the Magic Cream Separator and the second is glass and was called the Magic Cream Remover Siphon. They list a December 3, 1935 patent that was issued to Theodore Simpson of Cleveland, Ohio. These tubes were constricted at the base to form a very small hole so just enough milk would enter to start the siphoning action automatically. There was a larger hole in the center of the tube where the cream line would be that siphoned off the cream. The patent papers said that the tube was sized so that it would work in pint or quart milk bottles. For a quart milk bottle the gooseneck hung from the bottle lip and for a pint bottle the bottom end of the tube would sit on the bottle base.
The last device in the top row was called the Cre-moff Little Wonder Cream Extractor. It too had a large hole in the center of the aluminum tube near the cream line as well as a very tiny hole drilled in the bend at the lowest point on the tube. This one an extra bend in the tube so that the end of the tube was at the same height as the hole in the side of the tube. Thus cream could enter the tube at the end or through the hole in the side of the tube. It too was advertised as starting automatically and the price on the box was 25 cents. It was made by Scott Manufacturing Company of St. Paul, Minnesota and listed an April 25, 1933 patent date. We have been unable to locate this patent but thought it was interesting that the package stated, "WARNING: Infringements Vigorously Prosecuted". Could that have been a bluff?
The first siphon in the second row was called the Marvel Cream Siphon and it worked on the same principle as the first two. It also was aluminum and started and stopped automatically. It was given away as a premium by Clover Crest Dairy Farm of Newtown, Pennsylvania and was manufactured by National Dairy Service of Berkeley, California. The package listed a November 17, 1925 patent date. This patent was issued to Rensselaer Toll of Long Beach, California. Since Cream Top milk bottles were commonly only licensed to be used by one dairy in a given area, it was common for dairies in the same area using conventional milk bottles to give away these types of cream siphons as a way to compete and allow their customers to remove fresh cream from the milk.
The last two were called Cream Extractors and utilized glass tubes with rubber discs that sealed tightly in the neck of the milk bottle. As the rubber disc was pushed down in the neck of the milk bottle pressure was exerted on the cream forcing it up the tube and starting a siphon. The first of these was made by D-M Manufacturing Company of Detroit, Michigan and was called the Economy Cream Extractor. This company advertised these extractors in a 1926 Good Housekeeping magazine and listed the price at 25 cents. The ad also noted that a patent was applied for. William Ackerman of Detroit, Michigan was granted a patent on April 8, 1930 (filed on September 2, 1927) that showed a similar device. However in his patent he showed using 2 or 3 rubber discs on the glass tube unlike these siphons that use only one. Possibly that was determined to be unnecessary. In a 1931 advertisement directed at dairies, they promoted giving this device to customers as a way to compete against dairies that were using the Cream Top milk bottle. The promotional price in that ad was one dollar per dozen.
The second one was made by New Jersey Specialty Company of Trenton, New Jersey and was simply called a Cream Extractor. This one has a copyright date of 1939 and came with discs for dacro or cap seat milk bottles. Note on these cream extractors the end of the tube was not constricted and the short end of the bend went in the milk bottle as opposed to the previous ones where the long end of the tube went in the bottle.
The devices above were also used to remove the cream from a regular bottle of milk. The first two in the top row simply use a small cup to scoop the cream off the top of the milk. The second one of these is stamped with a January 2, 1912 patent date. The idea behind this one is the cone bottom of the cup separates from the cylinder section of the cup. The bottom of the cone was opened when you pushed the device in the cream. This would displace less cream and result in less skim milk being mixed in the cream. When the device was fully submerged, you closed the cone tip against the cylinder and lifted a full scoop of cream out of the milk bottle. This patent was granted to Lott Mansfield of Hingham, Massachusetts.
The third device in the top row was called the Economy Cream Saver and was sold by Economy Sales of Gaylord, Michigan. The price of 25 cents was molded in the rubber disc. It worked on the same principle as the Cream Top milk bottle. On the Cream Top milk bottle the hole between the cream bulb and the milk bottle body was smaller than the hole at the top of the bottle. That way the metal cream spoon could fit through the top of the bottle and still be big enough to seal the hole between the cream bulb and the milk bottle. With this cream saver the device is a rubber disc on a metal rod. The rubber could be folded to fit into the top of the milk bottle and then when it unfolded inside the bottle it was big enough to seal against the neck of the bottle and allow the cream to be poured off without letting the milk pass. Basically it allowed a normal milk bottle to act like a Cream Top milk bottle. The rubber disc is marked patented but there is no patent date or patent number. We think the patent that goes with this device was issued to Allan McDougall of Gaylord, Michigan on May 25, 1937. We have seen patents as early as 1910 for this style of folding cream separator. This date would have been well before the introduction of any cream separating milk bottles. One problem with this device was that it was very difficult to see the white disc when it was submerged in the white milk.
The two products in the bottom row were aluminum and used vacuum to remove the cream from the milk bottle. The first one of these was called the Elgin Cream Remover and it had a May 1, 1923 patent date. This patent was issued to William Lange of Elgin, Illinois. In the patent papers he claimed that this device could also act as an eggbeater. The second one was called the Eureka Cream Lifter and was sold by the Eureka Products Company of Cleveland, Ohio. The idea behind these last two cream removers is the same as when you put your finger over the end of a straw and lift some of the liquid out of a glass.
This picture shows some items that can go along with a milk bottle collection. The first milk bottle on the left has a green glass milk bottle cover that came with Frigidaire refrigerators.
The second milk bottle contains a Borden's order wheel. Milkmen left these with their customers and they would put them in the empty bottles left on the porch. The flags that were rotated up tell the milkman what products to leave for the next delivery. This order wheel is marked with a patent number from June 17, 1941. The patent was granted to Fred Cronenwett of San Francisco, California and assigned to the H. S. Crocker Company, Inc. also of San Francisco.
The third milk bottle has a plastic pouring spout from Crown Jersey Dairy. These were often given to customers as promotional items.
The last milk bottle has a pouring spout with a cover called the Help-mate. It has patent dates of June 22, 1915 and Oct. 12, 1915. Both of these patents were granted to Otto Spahr of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One of the features described in the patent was what appears to be a lead counterweight to help open and close the flap. It probably would not pass standards today.
Milk bottles left to right:
Russell's Jersey Dairy, quart, Knight's Landing, California, Hazel-Atlas
Hollister Dairy, quart, Hollister, California, Owens-Illinois, 1945
Spring Grove Creamery, quart, Willits, California, Owens-Illinois, 1946
Coalinga-Avenal Home Creamery, quart, Coalinga, Avenal, California, Thatcher Glass Manufacturing Co., 1947
Shown here are two milk bottle cappers. These were used by dairymen to quickly insert the milk cap into the milk bottles. Pushing down inserted the cap in the milk bottle and loaded the next cap. One advantage of milk bottle cappers was that the milk cap was never touched by human hands. The capper on the left was sold in the 1935-36 Montgomery Ward catalog for $9.75. In this same Montgomery Ward catalog quart milk bottles sold for $3.95 for six dozen and milk bottle caps sold for 39 cents for a thousand. The best price on milk bottle caps however was in the 1915 Sears, Roebuck and Company catalog. They offered a 110 pound barrel with 50,000 milk bottle caps for 7 dollars.
Displayed in the above picture are different types of milk bottle cap removers. These were often referred to as cap picks or cap lifters. They were usually given away by dairies and creameries to their customers. They usually have the dairy name or advertising embossed on the metal. The first row of cap lifters are all for use with disc style milk caps that fit into a cap seat. These are all designed to puncture the cap and lift it out.
The first and second cap picks are stamped with a November 26, 1912 patent date. This was a design patent issued to Thomas Harding of Newark, New Jersey and assigned to J. L. Sommer Manufacturing, also of New Jersey. These cap picks could also be used to remove crown tops off of soda and beer bottles. In 1939 they cost a dairy $25.00 per 1000 picks and that included their name on both sides of the handle.
We have seen an advertisement for the third cap pick from 1917 listing a price of just over one cent when bought in quantities of over one thousand. That price even included the dairies name stamped on the pick! By 1939 the price was $15.00 per 1000 picks. We believe that this style of cap pick predates the previous one. It is stamped PAT. APD. although we have never been able to locate this patent.
The fourth cap lifter is made of stamped metal and is not as common. A 1922 advertisement referred to it as The Dainty Milk Cap Lifter. At that time it was sold by The Creamery Package Manufacturing Company. A 1939 catalog had it priced at $18.00 per 1000 picks with the dairies name stamped on the pick.
The next cap remover, shown with its original box was probably sold rather than given away. It is a spring-loaded device and it seems that its goal was to make cap removal a one handed job. A metal bridge would brace against both sides of the bottle lip while the pick went in the cap. The box claims the there would be no spilled milk or injured hands. It also showed that the device could be used to replace the milk cap although it would have a hole punched in it. It was called the Duzit Milk Cap Remover and was made by The Duzit Products Company of Indianapolis, Indiana. It is stamped PAT. PEND'G but again we have not been able to locate the patent.
The last two cap picks in the top row advertise Pet and Sego irradiated milk. The have wood handles with a metal pick.
The cap removers on the bottom row, shown with an original envelope, were used with Dacro style caps that fit over the top of the milk bottle lip.
Like any business there was a risk when dairies sold their products up front and received payment at the end of the month. Nothing probably frustrated a milkman more than to deliver milk all month to an apartment and then go to collect his money at the end of the month and find that the tenant had move out. To solve this problem dairies sold tokens or coupons to customers to get their payment in advance. The customer would then leave the token or coupon in the empty bottles on the porch and the milkman would know what to leave the next day and it would already be paid for. The tokens and coupons also created some loyalty to the dairy since a milkman from a competing dairy could not come in and steal the account since the customer had money tied up in the original dairy. They also reduced the amount of cash that a milkman had to carry with him making theft less of an issue.
At the top of the photo above is a coupon book. These came in two styles. The one pictured here as removable tickets that have values of 1, 3, 5 or 10 cents. The customer just tore out the value of tickets that were needed to pay for the next days milk and left them in the empty milk bottle. These coupon books also came with the tickets marked for different products such as a quart of milk, a pint of milk or a pint of cream. Often these books or coupons were sold at a slight discount compared to if a person was paying cash. The two coupons at the lower left are for a cup of cream, rather than a monetary value.
Other dairies used metal tokens similar to regular coins. These were made of brass, aluminum, steel, nickel-silver or later plastic. They were often stamped in various shapes to allow the milkman to recognize the token by its shape in the dark morning hours rather than have to read the embossing on the token. Common shapes were round, square, oval, hexagon, octagon, scalloped and cloverleaf. Other dairies used round tokens with different shaped cut outs in the center. These were stamped with a volume of product or a monetary value similar to the coupons discussed above. The tokens shown above were for a quart of pasteurized milk, a quart of homogenized milk, a quart of churned buttermilk and a pint of cream. These too were left in the bottom of the empty milk bottle. Some tokens were triangular in shape and too wide to fall to the bottom of the milk bottle. They were designed to sit in the mouth of the milk bottle rather than falling to the bottom of the empty bottle. This saved the milkman from having to fish the token out of the spoiled milk at the bottom of the empty bottle.
Another use of tokens was as a deposit for the bottle. Tokens for this purpose will be embossed with something like "Good for 3 cents when returned with empty bottle". These were commonly used by stores and markets to identify who paid a bottle deposit. When the purchaser bought a bottle of milk they commonly paid a 3 or 5 cent deposit on the milk bottle. They would receive the token to prove they had paid the deposit. When they returned an empty milk bottle with a token they got their deposit back. This prevented people from returning bottles from other sources or stealing them to get the deposit.
Tokens were relatively cheap for dairies to buy. In quantities of 1000, a custom token would cost around 2 cents in 1939 and could be used over and over.
