M.B.L. Milk Bottle

Arthur Peanut

I found a milk bottle, It says M.B.L. on it, your common or garden milk bottle, it has letters and numbers stamped on the bottom. Anyone know what they mean?

The numbers and letters are:

IGB

1312 1

76

Judgement Day

Arthur Peanut wrote: »

I found a milk bottle, It says M.B.L. on it, your common or garden milk bottle, it has letters and numbers stamped on the bottom. Anyone know what they mean?

The numbers and letters are:

IGB

1312 1

76

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=61692089&postcount=6

MarchDub

Back in the day - long before many of you were even born I'm sure - when you bought a bottle of milk, you bought only the milk. The bottle remained the property of the dairy and wasn't included in the price of the milk. So if you went into a shop to buy milk you had to bring in a used empty with you to put in the milk tray. You essentially exchanged the used empty bottle for the new one containing the milk you were buying. The shop then sent the empties back to the dairy.

Likewise, when milk was delivered to the house in the early morning, you had to leave out three or four empty bottles in order to get 3 or 4 full bottles - or how many you wanted - of milk delivered. That is why the bottles were marked - denoting which dairy they belonged to.

CDfm

How did it work.

I remember seeing CMP branded ones alright.

Did the glass bottle co own the bottles and rent them out or something.

Its funny how those industries died out and revived..

Bread, milk, laundry , post delivery up to 8 times a day in Cork City I believe.

I read somewhere that in 1900 there were more trains between the dublin centre and Bray then today.

MarchDub

CDfm wrote: »

How did it work.

I remember seeing CMP branded ones alright.

Did the glass bottle co own the bottles and rent them out or something.

Its funny how those industries died out and revived..

Bread, milk, laundry , post delivery up to 8 times a day in Cork City I believe.

I read somewhere that in 1900 there were more trains between the dublin centre and Bray then today.

Now CDfm I know I am not in the flush of youth but I wasn't around in 1900 -not quite anyway!

AFAIK the dairies bought the bottles and owned them and the empties were returned to them for washing before going out again. I remember once being told that the average bottle lasted for about 50 milk refills. We got Dublin Dairies and that would be on the bottles - and in Dublin also there was HB for Hughes Brothers. There were also a number of smaller dairies/dairy farms that also sold milk with no dairy identification on the bottles. Around the middle 60s just about all of them in Dublin anyway became Premier Dairies.

And yes, there was so much delivery of goods to homes then. We had milk in the early morning, bakeries delivered bread in the mid morning and also a vegetable delivery. Until the early 1960s a horse pulled very large cart went around our neighbourhood with every fresh vegetable that was available in the shops. Meat was also delivered from the local butchers - you could put your daily meat order in on the weekend before - via a young delivery boy who rode a bicycle with a large basket in front.

Great memories!

CDfm

I am always facinated by this.

Recycling that would make the greens blush.

Comparatively, home delivery was something you had in 1900 -today its internet shopping.

MarchDub

CDfm wrote: »

I am always facinated by this.

Recycling that would make the greens blush.

Comparatively, home delivery was something you had in 1900 -today its internet shopping.

There you go again -
OK OK I admit it. I was around in 1900 - you probably saw my name on the 01 census so I'm busted

jonniebgood1

Dairy Delivery in North Dublin

In the late nineteenth century, much of the milk available to urban customers was of very dubious purity and frequently made even worse by the malpractices of unscrupulous dairymen. To provide milk of guaranteed quality, several high calibre dairies were established in urban areas throughout Ireland. Among the Dublin ones was the well-known Finglas-based Merville Dairy, which amalgamated with others to form Premier Dairies in the 1960s.

Merville was owned by the Craigie family, noted for their love of horses. As a result, Merville retained horses for delivery work longer than their competitors. Despite this apparently anachronistic policy, Merville was a progressive concern which operated diesel-engined lorries on bulk collection work while their rivals were still using petrol-driven vehicles. Merville had extensive workshops, building their own bodywork, and including complete horse-drawn vehicles.

http://www.askaboutireland.ie/reading-room/environment-geography/transport/20th-century-transport-in/dairy-delivery-in-north-d/

More milk related stories http://www.nationaltransportmuseum.org/cv000.html

CDfm

MarchDub wrote: »

There you go again -
OK OK I admit it. I was around in 1900 - you probably saw my name on the 01 census so I'm busted

Yup - in the town I grew up in people could do the home shopping thing.

Fresh Milk & bread were delivered, laundry, groceries could be ordered and meat.

The pasteurised milk thing had something to do with combatting TB.

there were also had sales people in vans calling to houses in the country etc where a person could order everything from a suit to a TV and pay for it on credit .People did not have cars, credit cards or even bank accounts. So retailers traveled to them.

So the retail economy was fairly vibrant.