Popeye tropical beverage / porto rico pale dry co. / philadelphia

[BOBO]

Howdy ~

I am a new member who just joined today. I discovered this site during the course of my research regarding a brand of soda pop called "Popeye Tropical Beverage" that was once popular in Philadelphia and produced by "The Porto Rico Pale Dry Company." The attached pictures tell my story best and hopefully will produce some results and/or clues. Note: I have been researching this topic for two years now, which included sending inquiries to several Philadelphia historians, all of which were supportive, but none of which had the answers to the following questions ...

1. When was the "Porto Rico Pale Dry Company" first established?
2. Does anyone have or ever seen a Popeye soda bottle with a paper label?
3. Has anyone ever seen a Philadelphia newspaper or magazine ad related to a Popeye soda pop?

Anything you can assist me with to confirm that a Popeye soda pop was in fact ever sold in the Philadelphia area would be very much appreciated. I am especially interested in finding a picture of one of the Popeye bottles with paper label intact, providing that such a critter even exist. I scrolled through every page of member CHIOSSO'S thread "A Bunch of Old Photos," and found several pictures showing store front displays for the Porto Rico Company itself, but nothing regarding Popeye.

Thank you in advance for your time and interest.

BOB-O

The pictures below are as follows ...

1. Original, vintage cork lined bottle cap. (Date unknown).
2. Original, vintage paper label. (Date unknown).
3. Cardboard "standee-type" store display sign. (Believed to be circa 1950s).

* I'll be back just as soon as I can figure out how to post attachments. I know it has something to do with the little box that says Insert Image, but when I click on it, it doesn't allow me to Browse and only shows the URL.

[BOBO]

I need some help posting images. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, except that I cannot find the "Browse" option. Your assistance with this will be appreciated.

Thanks.

BOB-O

[Politburo]

You can't upload images directly, you need to put them on a site like photobucket first.

[BOBO]

Politburo ~

Thanks.

Except that I don't use photobucket. I am a member on other forums that use this same format, but never had a problem. This one says I cannot post images because my [IMG] is "on." How do I turn it off? I've looked through my settings but can't find one for [IMG] ???

[Politburo]

I'm not sure what that means.. you may have to have a minimum number of posts to have images, I'm not sure.

[BOBO]

Politburo ~

Thanks again. Here's what it says in the FAQ part about posting images. Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me right at the moment, but I'll keep experimenting and see what happens.

From FAQ ...

How do I attach a file to a post?

To attach a file to your post, you need to be using the main 'New Post' or 'New Thread' page and not 'Quick Reply'. To use the main 'New Post' page, click the 'Post Reply' button in the relevant thread.

On this page, below the message box, you will find a button labelled 'Manage Attachments'. Clicking this button will open a new window for uploading attachments. You can upload an attachment either from your computer or from another URL by using the appropriate box on this page. Alternatively you can click the Attachment Icon to open this page.

To upload a file from your computer, click the 'Browse' button and locate the file. To upload a file from another URL, enter the full URL for the file in the second box on this page. Once you have completed one of the boxes, click 'Upload'.

Once the upload is completed the file name will appear below the input boxes in this window. You can then close the window to return to the new post screen.

[seand]

In my experience, this site does not allow any kind of attachments. You may only link to images or videos hosted elsewhere. I believe the software this site runs might allow attachments as an option but this site does not. Ultimately any kind capacity to upload separate files is a potential opening for an SQL injection attack, so its probably a sound policy.

Once your image is hosted somewhere else click on the the "Go Advanced" button, you get an interface with a button with an icon of a "picture". Click on it, it asks for the URL of your image (again hosted off site).

[guzzijason]

The FAQ is wrong. Uploading attachments here is disabled. If you want photos in a post, you need to embed them from another site (picasa, photobucket, etc).

__Jason

[BOBO]

I apologize for all of this. I'm really not a dummy - just having a problem. Anyway, I placed the pictures I want to use in Photobucket. Now what do I do? What do I type in the URL box that opens? I tried typing in Photobucket but nothing happened.

[seand]

I apologize for all of this. I'm really not a dummy - just having a problem. Anyway, I placed the pictures I want to use in Photobucket. Now what do I do? What do I type in the URL box that opens? I tried typing in Photobucket but nothing happened.

So when you post the pic on the Photobucket site go to your picture and save the photo's exact URL. I usually do this by right clicking on the image itself and opening the image alone in its own window. I don't use Photobucket, but if they block this, they have some way to insert the picture directly into a post. Get the URL of the image by itself and then put the URL of the image itself (not the Photobucket page) into a post here as described above.

[Litter Box]

Under the pic on Photobucket is a small box just left click and right click and copy. Paste onto your post. Good luck.

[BOBO]

Okay ... Here's goes. I'm not sure what's going to happen yet, but hopefully you will be able to see the three pictures I described earlier, which are ...

1. Original, vintage Popeye soda bottle cap.
2. Original, vintage Popeye soda bottle paper label by Porto Rico Pale Dry Company / Philadelphia.
3. Original, vintage Popeye cardboard sign.

Question(s): Where are bottles and ads from Philadelphia that are associated with this brand of soda pop?

Thanks to everyone who helped me with is. I just hope it works.

BOB-O

Photobucket Link: ??? http://s1048.photobucket.com/albums/s369/Bobeye1/

[seand]

[BOBO]

seand ~

Thanks a million ... but how'd you do dat?

[seand]

Its even easier than that. IF you just pause your cursor over the image in Photo bucket several options appear including "IMG code" which is the PHP codes we can use in posts here. Just click on the text in the "IMG code" box once to copy the code and then paste the code (which begins [IMG . . .) directly into the body of your text. No extra steps.

[BOBO]

Seand ~

Thanks again. I'll experiment with it next time.

By the way, the bottle cap is the only one known to exist and sold on eBay a couple of years ago for $162.50. And as for the paper label, that picture is from a collector book. Other than that one picture (which no one knows who owns the label) there are no other known examples. The cardboard sign is considered as a one-of-a-kind as well.

[seand]

So why was Porto Rico Pale Dry Company" misspelled? And what did it have to do with Puerto Rico?

[BOBO]

Hopefully I have captured your interest now, so here's the rest of the story. I am a member on a bottle website called Antique-Bottles.net. Myself and numerous other members have been researching this topic for almost two years now. To date no one has ever even seen a picture of an actual Popeye bottle, which is primarily why I posted the info here in the hope that someone from Philadelphia might be able to help us out. If/when a Popeye bottle with intact label is ever found, it would be a one-of-a-kind and considered extremely rare and valuable.

Here's the link to the thread I started in September of 2010. My avatar is SODAPOPBOB. The thread is quite extensive and has had over 7,000 views. Please check it out.

Thanks.

BOB-O ... a.k.a. Sodapopbob

Link: QUICK "POPEYE SODA" QUESTION

[seand]

So was it a pineapple flavor or something like Hawaiian Punch?

[BOBO]

No one knows for sure. There has never been any information found regarding it. Other than the cap - label - sign, we're not even sure it was ever actually sold in Philadelphia, but we suspect it must have been. It is my opinion that the flavor was something like Hawaiian Punch.