Cat’s Eye, Saturn, or…?
By Kirsti Scott
When Crystal Reed was beachcombing with her family in Maine, she came across a worn piece of glass with a curious image on it (above). She wondered if it was a logo she had seen on Duraglas bottles, possibly worn down by the sea. Crystal sent me a photo and we agreed that it was, indeed, the logo from the Owens-Illinois Glass Company. It now looks like Yoda from Star Wars.
The circle and diamond logo of the Owens-Illinois Glass Company is one of the most-common logos in the history of the United States. In 1929, Owens Bottle Company from Toledo, Ohio, merged with Illinois Glass Company based in Alton, Illinois. This glassmaking giant worked to create a strong, durable glass formula to be used for glass bottles, jars, mugs, fishing floats, tobacco humidors, and more. The result was Duraglas, a glass that was both strong and lightweight, which made it very profitable.
Beachcombers come across glass pieces with logos from many periods in the company’s history. The Illinois Glass Company used the letter I in a diamond and the Owens Glass Company used the O in a square (left). When the companies merged in 1929, they adopted the circle and diamond trademark (right) that was applied to most of their glass containers. This logo is sometimes known as a “cat’s eye” or “Saturn” logo. (Though from now on I may be thinking of it as the Yoda logo.)
The circle and diamond logo was used on bottles made from the 1930s to the 1950s. If you find the word “Duraglas” in raised letters, it was made in or after 1940. If you find only an oval and the letter "I," the bottle was made after 1954. There were a few other iterations of the logo and today the logo is a stylized version of the letters “OI.”
The numbers around the logo can help you decipher where and when the glass was made. The number on the left is a plant location code, the number on the right is a year code, and the number below is a mold or manufacturing code. (On liquor bottles, the codes are slightly different.) The dates are approximations because the manufacturing plants might have used the old molds until they wore out. For information about the logos and codes, check out the Owens-Illinois Glass Company page at bit.ly/oimarks.
Crystal makes art with her beach finds for her small business Crafts by Cris. “This piece will end up in one of my art pieces,” she says. After our conversation, she sorted the treasure from that day and found another Owens-Illinois logo on a piece of brown sea glass she picked up that day. “Looks like it has the word, too!”
In 1965, the company’s name was changed to Owens-Illinois, Inc., and has been called “O-I” since 2005. It is still the world’s largest manufacturer of glass containers, so be on the lookout for Owens-Illinois beach glass for years to come.
This article appeared in Beachcombing Magazine Volume 43 July/August 2024.
