One-piece, handled bottle carrier

Nov. 21, 1944.

2,362,995

C. L. GILBERT

ONE-PIECE, HANDLED^BOTTLE CARRIER

Filed March 6, 1942 .

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V DIN 1 V/IV.

Clyde L. Gilbert.

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Patented Nov. 21, 1944

2,362,995

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE

2,362,995

ONE-PIECE, HANDLED BOTTLE CARRIER

Clyde L. Gilbert, Elkhart, Ind., assignor to Morris Paper Mills, Chicago, III., a corporation of Diinois

Application March 6,

Claims.

This invention relates to bottle carriers designed for the packaging of a plurality of bottles of beverage or the like so that they may be carried conveniently by hand.

The general object of the invention is to provide such a device having the following attributes, viz., a carrier adapted for repeated use; a carrier having four walls, bottom and handle, which can be fabricated in its entirety from an integral sheet of paper board; a carrier which can be fabricated economically in knocked-down or collapsed form and bundled in that form for shipment; a carrier which may be readily set up or erected from its collapsed condition; a carrier which when erected is self-sustaining in condition to be filled with its intended contents of bottles by hand or by suitable filling apparatus; a carrier which retains a plurality of the intended bottles securely yet permits intentional withdrawal of any or all of them without any unfolding or mutilation of the carrier; and a carrier which, when filled with the intended bottles, forms a package which can be stacked with others of like character for purposes of displaying their contents.

Another object of the invention is the provision of a bottle carrier having the aforesaid attributes and which can be fabricated completely and rapidly on paper board cutting, folding and stapling machines of conventional type.

A particular object of the invention is the provision of a carrier which may be made from a paper board blank of minimum length and which includes handles which extend beyond the ends of the blank but which are formed from material between the ends of the blank in such arrangement as to permit the collapsing and setting-up of the carrier and the insertion and removal of bottles without involving any folding or unfolding of the handles themselves and wherein the handles are so constructed and arranged as to provide a strong and reliable support for the weight of the package and to utilize the strength of the material to best advantage and to contribute to the strength and stability of the structure as a whole.

Other objects and advantages of the invention will be pointed out or indicated hereinafter or will be apparent upon use of the device itself.

For the purpose of explaining the invention, I show in the accompanying drawing one form in which it may be embodied. It is to be understood, however, that this is presented for purpose of illustration only and that the appended claims

1942, Serial No. 433,561 (Cl. 229—52) .

are not to be regarded as limited to this particular structure.

In said drawing,

Fig. 1 is a side elevation of a carrier embody5 ing the present invention, showing the same in its erected, condition, with the positions of bottles therein indicated in dotted lines, the handle being shown in its normal elevated position;

Fig. 2 is an end view of the same, but showing in dotted lines the handle tabs swung down to a lowered position for convenience in stacking a plurality of such packages; and

Fig. 3 is a plan view of the one-piece blank from which the carrier illustrated in Figs. 1 and 15 2 is formed.

The nature of the invention will be most quickly ascertained from a detailed description of the embodiment shown in the drawing.

The blank shown in Fig. 3 is bilaterally sym20 metrical with respect to both its transverse and longitudinal median lines. Hence, a description of half of it will suffice, it being understood that the several parts referred to are duplicated symmetrically. The blank may be formed from paper board of suitable strength and stiffness, cut, creased and scored to provide a bottom formed of two panels 10 conjoined along the medial fold line formed by alternate creased portions 11 and scored portions I la. The lower side ³⁰ panel portion 12 is conjoined with the bottom panel 10 along a crease line 13 whereon it is flexible to upstanding position at the outer side margin of the bottom panel. In the lower side panel portion 12 are formed a pair of inwardly and 35 upwardly converging crease lines 13 which mark off triangular sections 14 whose upper edges 16 are curved for accommodation of bottles disposed in the relationship illustrated in Figs. 1 and 2. End panels are conjoined with the re40 spective sections 14 along crease lines 18, each of said end panels including an end wall portion 17 and an end flap portion 19 set off by an oblique crease 20, and each of said end flap portions 19 is creased at 21 to set off a connecting tip 22 at ⁴⁵ the outer or upper end of the end panel.. The end panels are conjoined along crease lines 23 with lateral margins of upper side panel portion 24, and said upper side panel portion is creased transversely at 25 to set off a terminal connect⁵⁰ ing and stiffening flap 26 which is located intermediate the tip portions 22.

Between the end panels, the side panel is slitted along lines 27, 16, 28 and 29 and scored along line 30, to define a bottle receiving aperture from ⁵⁵ which the inscribed portion of the blank may be

2,362,995 flexed along line 30 to form a handle flap 31. This handle flap 31 is preferably provided with a transverse crease 32 so located that it will be approximately at the elevation of the top of the bottles when the carrier is in erected condition 5 and the intended bottles are standing upright on its bottom. The size of the bottle receiving aperture is such as to permit introduction of the intended bottles through it, bottoms first, and to accommodate the upper portions of three of such 10 bottles standing in a row on the bottom.

There is also formed from a portion of handle flap 31 an elliptical grip tab 33, which is cut out along line 34 and creased along line 35 where the tab 33 remains connected with the tab 31. 15 Corner portions of the handle flap 31 adjacent the slits 29 are relieved or cut off along lines 36 for a purpose hereinafter explained.

The complete blank, formed as above described, can be cut from a single piece of sheet stock, 20 such as suitable paper board, and it will be observed that the maximum dimensions of the stock required for production of this blank has an overall width determined by the outside margins of the opposite end panels and an overall 25 length determined by the terminal edges of the terminal connecting flaps 26. It will be understood also that a blank such as shown and described may be formed complete by a single die operation on a conventional form of press which 30 die cuts, creases and scores the sheet material in the form above described.

By way of illustration it may be pointed out that from an area of paper board approximately 11 inches wide and approximately 20 inches long, 35 there may be cut a blank of the above described form suitable to make a bottle carrier of the form shown in Figs. 1 and 2 and having a base 5 inches in width and a total erected height, including a double ply handle, of 9½ inches. The 40 features of the construction and the arrangement of the parts permit this to be done in spite of the fact that the width of the base (5 inches) plus twice the height (9½ inches) gives a total of 24 inches, which would be the minimum length 45 of a blank required to produce a carrier of like height and bottom width if the handle flaps were formed at the extremities of the side panels. Moreover, a carrier produced from a blank of this form may have a side width of approximately 7 inches and an end width of 5 inches, or a total enclosed girth measurement of 24 inches taken at the plane of the lowermost junction of the side panels and end panels, although the maximum width of the blank itself is only 11 inches. A carrier having these dimensions has a capacity of six capped bottles which are each 7% inches high and 2% inches in maximum diameter. It will be understood, however, that neither as to form nor as to utility is the present invention limited to a carrier having the specific dimensions above specified or designed for bottles of the particular dimensions stated.

To complete the fabrication of the carrier from the blank shown in Fig. 3, the handle tabs 31 are swung upwardly along lines 39 and folded outwardly onto side well portions 24 and connecting flaps 26. After this has been done, the end portions of the blank may be swung toward each other .so that the blank is folded along the median crease-score line tl—Ila. This doubles the blank upon itself, bringing the two bottom panels 10 into surface contact with each other and the two handle tabs 31 into surface contact with each other and bringing the opposite pairs of end panels into surface contact and coinciding relationship with each other. The terminal flaps 26 and tip portions 22 are likewise brought into coinciding relationship, with said coinciding parts in alignment transversely of the folded blank, so that the coinciding tip portions 22 may be fastened to each other by metal stitches or staples driven through them, and the terminal connecting flaps 26 and intervening portions of handle tabs 3i may likewise all be fastened together by metal stitches 01· staples driven through them. This stitching may be done in a conventional stitching machine, the staples being driven successively one at a time or simultaneously, as desired. Such staples should be located adjacent the ends of the connecting tabs 26, and there may be one or more therebetween, three being illustrated in Fig. 1, wherein they are designated S, the stitches in the end panel tips being designated S'.

This completes the fabrication of the carrier and it will be understood that as thus completed, it is in a flat folded condition with the two handle tabs 31 lying against each other and projecting beyond the ends of the connecting tabs 26 with the grip tabs 33 in register with each other but remaining in the planes of their respective handle tabs. In this flat folded condition the coinciding end panels project laterally from the connected side panels, the coinciding end panels being connected through their tip portions 22. To set up the carrier from this fiat collapsed condition, pressure is exerted on the bottom panels at crease ί I to swing them apart from each other and to approximately coplanar relationship. This opens the carrier to semi-erected form, swinging the side panels away from each other and. likewise swinging the lower portions of the coinciding end panels away from each other. Then pressure is exerted inwardly and downwardly upon the outer corner portions of the connected tips 22 to swing them inwardly between the diverging end flaps 19, the latter folding inwardly along creases 20 and the tips folding inwardly between them along the creases 21. By this operation, the end wall sections 17 are swung inwardly relative to the side panels along crease lines 18 and 23 until said end wall portions are at approximately right angles to the ^,r>0 side panels. In this relationship of the parts the juxtaposed end flaps 19 lie face to face and the end wall sections 11 form upright end walls over the ends of the bottom. The carrier is thus in its set-up or erected condition. The carrier may ⁵⁵ be collapsed from this erected condition simply.

by folding the end wall sections 17 inwardly into’ parallel relationship with and between the side panels and' swinging the side panels together and the bottom panels together by folding along 60 the median crease line II. In such collapsed condition the overall width of the carrier is the same as the width of a side panel and its total overall length is represented by the distance from the crease 11 to the terminal edge of a pro65 jecting handle flap. The length of the collapsed carrier may be further reduced by folding the bottom panels 10 upwardly and together in reentrant relationship between the side panels. The carrier may be set up from this collapsed 70 condition by swinging the bottom panels to coplanar relationship and swinging the end panels outwardly to the position where the end wall sections 17 are approximately at right angles to the side panels.

In this erected condition the side panels di2,3 verge downwardly from creases 25, in the relationship shown in Fig. 2, wherein the bottle receiving apertures are presented somewhat upwardly. The carrier is self-sustaining in this form, and the intended bottles may be inserted 5 into it through the bottle receiving apertures by hand or the container may be presented to a filling machine by which all six bottles may be inserted in it simultaneously. When the bottles are inserted, they engage the lower side wall portions ¹⁰12 and flex them outwardly somewhat as to locations shown in Fig; 2, where they grip the lower portions of the bottles and press those in opposite rows toward each other. The creases 15 facilitate conformation of the side wall portions ¹⁸to the bottles. By this gripping action the upper portions of the bottles are pressed against the upper side wall portions 24, and, the carrier being properly proportioned for the bottles, the end walls 1.7 engage the end bottles of the rows and ²⁰retain them against shifting; endwise of the bottom.

It is to be noted that when the carrier is in its flat collapsed condition with the end wall portion 17 swung inwardly between the side panels, the ²⁸cut-outs between the lines 29 and 36 afford the space requisite to accommodate the upper ends of the end flaps 19 when they are in the position which they attain after being swung inwardly and upwardly to permit the collapsing. As seen ³⁰in .Mg. 1, the space between the lines 21 and 36 accommodate this inward and upward movement of the end flaps 19.

To facilitate the carrying of the complete pack- _fage by hand, the grip tabs 33 are swung out- ‘ wardly from their apertures to the positions illustrated in Figs. 1 and 2, thereby providing a thickened I grip portion with wide and smoothly rounded margins along, the creases 35 for rest- ₄₍₎ing on the fingers, in which relationship the grip tabs 33 are effective to stiffen and lend additional strength .to the, handle Itself.. When it is desired to stack a number of the packages for purposes of display, the handle tabs may be swung apart ., from each other and .downwardly to positions where they rest upon the tops of the bottles, as illustrated in dotted lines in Fig. 2. This gives the package a flat top upon which similar packages may be superimposed so that their weight is carried entirely by the bottles and the carrier thus safeguarded against a crushing vertical load.

The four-ply structure which is formed at the top of the carrier by the connection of the two terminal flaps 26 and the lower portions of the r₎₅two up-turned handle tabs 31, in connection with the angularly diverging upper side panel portions 24, constitutes a very effective stay or stiffening element in the device, for maintaining the side panels in the proper relationship and resisting _(iudistortion from the contained weight as well as stresses exerted inwardly against the ends of the carrier. Moreover, the disposal and relationship of the handle flaps are such that the supported weight does not subject them to transverse tear- us ing stresses at any point. It will be noted, moreover, that the lower portions of the handle flaps, which remain conjoined with the upper side panel portions 24 along the fold lines 30, stiffen said portions 24 for a substantial portion of their span 70 across the bottle receiving apertures, and, also reinforce the upper edges of the apertures at points where they are subjected to abrasion in the operations of inserting and .removing the bottles. 75

1,095 3

By virtue of these several features whereby the strength of the material is availed of to the best advantage, and other structural characteristics of the device, plus the fact that the contained articles may be removed and the carrier refilled without involving any unfolding, dismantling or mutilation of it, it is particularly well adapted for durability and repeated use, which factors, in addition to the fact that it may be made complete from a comparatively short blank, render it a very economical packaging device.

It is to be understood that the particular embodiment of the invention herein shown and described is to be taken as illustrative and not as restrictive in character, and that it may be modified in various particulars without departing from the spirit of the invention or the scope of the appended claims.