Bottles & Cans

Bottles: The Owens-Illinois Glass Co. Current assets, $18,100,000: 17 plants throughout the U. S. the largest being in Toledo: world's largest manufacturer of bottles. 1928 net: $4,000,000. Chief competitor: none.

Cans: The Continental Can Co. Current assets, $26,500,000: 30 plants throughout the U. S. the largest being in Baltimore and Chicago: second largest U. S. manufacturer of tin cans. 1928 net: $6,690,796. Chief competitor: American Can, whose most famed stockholder is George Fisher Baker.

Directors

Bottle Can

Edward P. Currier Thomas G. Cranwell

Marshall Field Carle C. Conway

Francis H. McAdoo Matthew C. Brush Charles H. Sabin John B. Jeffress Jr.

Harry E. Collin S. Brinckerhoff Thome

William Ford Waddill Catchings

H. G. Phillips Arthur Lehman

Fred. W. Schwenck Frederick A. Prahl

R. H. Levis Oscar C. Huffman

W E Levis Isaac W. England

William H. Boshart J. Frederick Hartlieb

S. J. Steele

Last week in Manhattan's Hotel Plaza died Charles Boldt, chairman of the executive committee of the Owens-Illinois Glass Co. Several hours later was announced the formation of Continental Containers, Inc., a holding company to acquire the stock of Continental Can and Owens-Illinois Glass. Long and arduously Mr. Boldt had worked to bring this merger to pass. . . .

Owens Chronicle. The Owens-Illinois beginnings were ancient, humble. Michael Owens was by trade a blower of glass bottles. He blew, blew, blew, until he grew tired of blowing. In 1889 he stopped blowing, started thinking. Thirteen years of thought produced in 1902 the Owens Bottle Machine, as epochal in glass manufacture as the cotton gin was in the cotton industry. He patented his machine and, in partnership with Edward Drummond Libbey, started making bottles in a one-story frame building in Toledo, Ohio. Since they had patents on the only bottle-making machine in existence, they prospered. The Owens Bottle Co. of Toledo, has long been the largest bottle manufacturer in the world. Its absorption of the Illinois Glass Co. last spring further underlined its importance. From its 17 factories pours every conceivable kind of bottle, from one-tenth ounce perfume containers to freaks of 13-gallon capacity. Some 2,000,000 nursing bottles are produced each month, and many more pop bottles. Owens Bottle Co. made thousands of specially inscribed bottles for Commander Richard Byrd to release in antarctic seas for ocean current tests. President of the company is William H. Boshart, onetime bookkeeper in Toledo's Eagle Brewery. Owens Bottle has made many a millionaire. The original investors, it is said, have garnered $25,000 for each dollar invested. . . .

Continental Chronicle. Neither ancient nor humble were the Continental Can beginnings. In 1913 three sizable companies--Continental Can of New Jersey, Export and Domestic Can of New York, and Standard Tin Plate of Pennsylvania--combined to form Continental Can Co., Inc. During the next 13 years the company prospered but only in 1926 did Continental Can begin absorbing smaller companies with the steady monotony of an expanding corporation. In the last three years the company has acquired 14 manufacturers scattered over the country. Some of these make tin plate (sheet iron plated with tin) from which cans are cut and rolled; some make machinery for making cans; most make cans. Out of the Continental can factories cans roll as prolifically as bottles pour from the Owens plants. Two-thirds of them are "packers' cans" (for fruit, vegetables, fish); one-third are "general line cans" (for paints, chemicals, candy, tea, coffee, etc.).

Catchings. Many is the financier who numbers his directorates in dozens. Mr. J. A. Mange, of No. 33 Liberty St. is a director of 104 corporations, from Argosino Electric Plant, Inc. to Yough Manor Mining Co. But there are not many men on the street who are directors of 29 well-known corporations. Such a financier is Waddill Catchings, potent Goldman Sachs partner, whose 29 directorates include B. F. Goodrich Co., Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc., Postum Co., Cluett, Peabody & Co.

In many cases he is not only a director in name but also in active fact. Thus, of Continental Can he is chairman of the executive committee, besides being its most famed student of economics. To add the problems of bottles to the problems of cans will be, for him, no extraordinary feat.

Boxes. Even before the bottle-can merger had been consummated, Mr. Catching's can company bought, complete, the Nashville Corrugated Box Co.