how old is this bottle?

February 21, 2009 3:57 PM

Just how old is this bottle...?

While clearing out my grandfather's house I discovered this bottle of woodstain just tucked away on a shelf. The bottle and the label look very old, but he was good at throwing away half used bottles so I'm wondering just what it is.

I think Robbialac appeared on the market in 1931, so I assume it's after that. The name Walpamur means nothing to me. The third name (that you can't see) is Dulux.

I'm sure the london phone number should be a clue, but I can't work out when the phone numbering system here changed.

Anyone got any suggestions?

posted by twine42 to grab bag (4 comments total)

Going by the telephone number HOLborn 0514, I can tell you that according to Wikipedia, the phone number was used between 1922-1966.
posted by b33j at 4:18 PM on February 21 [1 favorite has favorites]

Based on just the picture, I would guess 1950s-1960s, but there are a few key pieces of information that could help identify it: where are the seams located on the bottle? Is there one going up each site? Does it extend all the way up to the lip? Is there a circular one on the base?

This is an excellent resource for identifying historic bottles.
posted by drycleanonly at 5:19 PM on February 21

You could probably narrow down the time the bottle was made by looking at the seams, like drycleanonly said. Try looking for an identifying stamp or other mark on the bottom of the bottle. But the bottle manufacturing date only tells you part of the story. Old bottles were often reused and refilled if they were in good condition, and the custom paper label seems to indicate that could be a possibility.

Walpamur, Robbialac and Dulux are all paint manufacturers.
Robbialac since 1931
Walpamur is now known as Crown Paints, but was Walpamur from 1910 until at least 1954. Walpamur would narrow it down the most, if you can find out when it switched names to Crown Paints. (A quick search didn't turn up an exact date for me.)
Dulux is an Australian paint manufacturer, since 1918.

You will be better off trying to find the store "T. Wigan Oil and Colour Store", along with the address. In the U.S. the old fire insurance maps (called Sanborn Maps) are great for narrowing things down to time period - if you know the address. But I'm not sure if there is anything like that in the UK.

You might try calling the owner of the current shop at that address, to see if they know when the paint store was there, or try the local historic society to see if they know when the store was at that address.
posted by gemmy at 9:24 PM on February 21 [1 favorite has favorites]

Walpamur was still walmpamur in Australia in the 70s (and possibly even the 80s). They used a chimp called Wally as their mascot. In my googling, I found a pdf (takes forever to load on my computer) which mentions T Wigan's shop, and the use of oil jars as a marketing technique, which is interesting but does not help to identify your bottle.
posted by b33j at 10:45 PM on February 21