Beverage dispenser valves?

[history_buff54]

Hello. I was wondering if anyone could tell me some history of the items pictured here. From what I can tell, they seem to be valves from a soda dispenser, but I was wondering what year they were from, among any other information anyone could give me. The names "Deep Rock" and "Blue Lick" showed up in a web search together in the book "A Treatise On Beverages or The Complete Practical Bottler | by Charles Herman Sulz", published in 1888.

The name plates are made of ceramic. The valves seem to be made of brass with blueing as an outside coating.

If anyone can give me any history on these, I'd greatly appreciate it.

[fancypants]

Welcome to the forum , history_buff54 .

I'd guess that your items are from the mid 1800's , & American in origin .

In the 1850's , a group of 4 Cincinnati druggists got together & made a series of 'tokens' that said "One Glass Of Soda or Blue Lick Water" , with the name of the individual drug-store on the reverse (4 diff ones) .
These tokens are much desired by collectors of such & usually go for around $100 .

You might try emailing from the link @ : http://platform3research.com/HTML/MEMACTRI.html for further info on your cool items .

[hosman321]

I can't offer any insight but I can offer encouragement by saying, "THOSE ARE AWESOME!"
Very cool pieces of history.

[floydianoise]

These bad boys are pretty cool.  Man, I wish I lived in the days when a beverage was called "Blue Lick."  Then again, I'm sure there are some of today's beverages that people from the 1850's would find strange, but they sound common to us nowadays.  What's the strangest modern name for a beverage that anyone can think of?

[waywardangler]

Squirt.

[hosman321]

Well, if liquor is considered a beverage then I could think of a ton of names. But none are "G" rated.

[waywardangler]

Yeh, I was thinking soda or pop rather than hard stuff or beer because these were soda dispensers.

[history_buff54]

Thanks for the info. I didn't know there was Blue Lick glass bottles back at that time in history and also tokens given out in the 1850's for this drink. In the book I mentioned published in 1888, it list all ingredient's found in Blue Lick and Deep Rock sodas. I guess these dispensers go right along with this  other stuff at the times back in the 1800's. An exact date may never be found but still digging into it. Thanks again and if you find out more, let me know.

[hosman321]

Is this a part of your valves?

http://www.google.com/patents?id=5RYAAAAAEBAJ&pg=PA1&dq=beverage&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=1840&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=1866&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=1#v=onepage&q=beverage&f=false

[history_buff54]

Great information Hosman321....that looks just like part of what I have, just the new improved lever on/off type that could adapt to the crank on/ crank off valve on these. It would have been a lot easier and faster to fill a glass with, just pull the lever. The ones I have must have been out around this time period of 1850's and 1860's for them to improve on them with this 1864 patent using a lever. Maybe no farther back than late 1840's on these to come out and used by pharmacist in the towns to sell the soda to the public in the 1850's. Kind of interesting this Blue Lick drink was carried around by traveling salesmen from town to town in bottles before these dates and sold as a wonder drug to cure any sickness a person had. Those pharmacist open it up for a person to drink it anytime they wanted to walk in and buy it, or use their tokens. Deep Rock soda must have been out before 1888 for this one guy to give out the ingredients in his book on sodas and Blue Lick.

[KC]

nice job hosman321!

[history_buff54]

I have found these type of valves used on the Lippincott Soda Fountains. John Lippincott of Philadelphia started making soda fountains back in 1832. These type valves were still in use up to around 1910. Some info can be found on Soda_fountain Mythical-Buddies.com