Snow White Milk Bottles

According to authors Carol and Gene Markowski in their 1990 Tomart's Price Guide to Character and Promotional Glasses, the milk bottles delivered to your doorstep in the 1930s and early 40s were a major reason why Disney was so successful with its dairy glass campaigns (see earlier post).

1938 Grumpy dairy glass. Image via Jeep444.

The characters from the films decorated the bottles to tie-in with the character glasses being offered as premiums.

There was a deposit paid on these bottles and most were redeemed by dairies or taken out of service due to chipping, excess wear, or breakage. Hense, character milk bottles are very rare. The biggest source [for collectors today] has been dairies going out of business. Source: Tomart's Price Guide...p.148.

The 1938 series of Snow White milk bottles included "action scenes with rhymes which promoted milk consumption." Pictured below, the first bottle shows Dopey, Sneezy and Snow White. The text reads, "SNOW WHITE AND THE DWARFS SO GRAND--DRINK THEIR MILK TO BEAT THE BAND!"

The second, Happy raises a glass to "HAPPY KNOWS WHAT'S GOOD FOR HIM--GOOD FRESH MILK FOR VIGOR AND VIM!"

Milk Bottle images via Tomart's Price Guide to Character and Promotional Glasses, 1990, p.50.

There were at least three additional bottles known to have existed, each with its own unique character scene: Snow White and all Seven Dwarfs (just their heads) Doc with an Owl; and Snow White with Doc. Who could have known back in 1938 that these simple and utilitarian milk containers would today be such prized possessions for the serious Snow White collector?