Bottles

With the dairy being in business for more then 70 years, change became inevitable.  Equipment suppliers, marketing strategies, and technology itself  forced change to the business whether required or not.  So far  (January 2010)  these changes  have resulted in ten known variations of glass embossed milk  bottles being produced for the dairy.  There are likely many more.   I am hoping to find  a milk bottle that reads " Zouave Dairy ".   If anyone has seen  such a  bottle could they let me know.      All Ernest Cousins milk bottles (other than the square bottles)  that I have ever come upon are embossed  on the front with at minimum "Ernest Cousins" and "Montreal"  noted for business identification purposes.  There are all sorts of milk bottles with "Cousins Dairy" embossed on them but those are from various dairy's in the Toronto area with a similar name. These dairies are NOT related in any way to the Ernest Cousins  family or its business.   Everything that I have ever seen from the dairy, letterheads, milk caps, signs, milk crates etc., has always included the words  "Ernest Cousins",  "Montreal"  and often the word  "Limited". The only exception would be the square milk bottles referred to above which were sold by the case to restaurants where the only identifying feature would have been the milk cap.   Bottles missing the words "Ernest" and/or "Montreal" are not from this dairy.

The bottles shown below are what hoped to be  in chronological order (oldest to newest).   Sometimes there are dates embossed on the bottoms of the bottles  which makes dating easy.  To date the others I have simply  guessed by observing manufacturing  patterns and  noting  other markings. 


Of particular interest -  Ernest Cousins actual signature appears on all the embossed bottles where cursive appears.