OLD BOTTLES: Jerry Olshefski of West Washington Street dropped in last week bearing a box of bottles.
Not just any bottles, but old ones. Clear bottles, brown bottles, light blue bottles and clear bottles. Bottles that have a history.
He’s collected them over years of garage sales, yard sales and auctions and decided he’d show us some of his collection that have clearly local connections.
The tall one on the left was some sort of liquor bottle, with “Alexander Malt & Distilling Co., Cincinnati, Ohio,” molded into the glass. The bottom of the bottle is imprinted, “Made in Bradford, Pa.,” which Jerry reasoned referred to the bottle, not its contents.
The shorter bottle was, Jerry figured, a beer bottle. It had “Bradford Brewing Co., Bradford, Pa.” molded into the glass.
There hasn’t been a brewery operating in Bradford for decades, but if anyone has recollections about our local beer history, and whether Bradford Brewing actually made beer, we’d love to hear about it.
Other bottles Jerry brought in with stamped-in local connections were from the James J. Hennessy Co., Bradford, a soda or beer bottle; Bradford Bottling Works with the word “this bottle not to be sold;” a blue C. Nies Co. bottle stamped Salamanca, N.Y.; Goodwin Bros. Bottlers, Bradford; Independent Bottling Co., P.H. Davitt, Bradford; C.E. Bottorf & Co., Bradford; a 6.5-ounce clear Coke bottle stamped “Property of Coca-Cola Bottling Co., Bradford; a Clicquot Club soda bottle; and a bottle stamped Bradford BRCCO Company, P. Fensel.
He would welcome any background readers could share about the origins of those bottlers or companies.
MORE MILLIONS: We’re going to be very rich someday if those people in Kenya are right about the unclaimed $148 million sitting in a Nairobi bank that they keep insisting on giving us if only we would split it with them.
This is the second offer we’ve received — the first was a couple of weeks ago, signed by an entirely different person — that said it was a “100 percent risk-free” offer.
Note to Kenyan scammers: Instead of splitting the loot with you, we’ll trade you straight up for a 2007 Saturn Ion. It’s a 100 percent risk-free car — nobody really needs power steering or air bags.
