OLD pop bottles of the kind once manufactured in St Helens can become expensive collectors' pieces. Marianne Barlow from Newton-le-Willows makes the point in response to an earlier piece and adds to my personal knowledge by explaining how one particular type, remembered from boyhood, came by its strange name.

The Codd bottle, with a glass-marble stopper in the specially designed neck, was , she says, invented by a man with the rather unlikely name of Hiram Codd. I'd always thought that the spelling was Cod, as in fish!

Marianne observes that it is amazing that so many still survive. They were often smashed immediately after being emptied, to get at the marble for children to play with. And here's an interesting fact, "Wallop was a slang term for beer; and Codd's wallop came to be used by beer drinkers as a derogatory term for weak, gassy beers or soft drinks."

Marianne reports that a rare green Codd bottle is currently on an internet auction site with a starting bid of £149. But she urges us all not to get too excited. More common Codd bottles can be picked up at car boot sales for a couple of quid.

THERE's been a deluge of response regarding an earlier item about the bottle producing Nuttalls of St Helens. Full details soon.