THE TIP CORPORATION

The Tip Corporation of America was incorporated on July 18, 1944, with Clay F. Church as President, C. C. Lincoln, Jr. as first Vice President, J. D. Lincoln as Second Vice president, all of Marion, VA, and N. S. Forester, Jr. as Secretary-Treasurer. Clay F. Church, who decided to not just bottle a brand he was fond of from Gary Beverages Company of Charlotte, NC, but to buy the brand out right and to produce it himself. This brand was of course Tip Grape, which he planned to try to use for competition against Grapette.(1) To find out more about the brand before its being bought by Clay Church, and becoming the basis for the Tip Corporation check out the The Tip Bottling Company page. By 1945 Church hired Bill Jones to look after the Tip Corporation after he was drafted into military service in World War II.(1) It would later be Jones who would help to develop the "new" taste of Mountain Dew after he acquired the rights to the then 7-UP type mixer from Hartman Beverages. This is what Marion means when it calls itself the Home of Mountain Dew.

On June 11th 1958, The Tip Corporation of America re-incorporated with Bill Jones as President, Treasurer, and General Manager. The other investors in the reorganized corporation were Wythe Hull (of the Marion Bottling Company), Ally Hartman (of Hartman Beverage), Richard and Herman Minges (who both owned Pepsi-Cola bottling companies in North Carolina). The last incarnation of the Tip Corporation was dissolved on January 30, 1967. Unfortunately Tip itself never really took off, but Mountain Dew did, and The Tip Corporation was finally purchased by Pepsi Cola in 1964.(1) Even though the Tip Corporation is long gone, it's memory still remains embedded in the story of its most famous concoction Mountain Dew. The building still stands just down the street from the second location of Marion Bottling Company, and the former home of 3C Nectar.

Tip while under the ownership of the Gary Beverages Company, also bottled something called Tip-O (which may be the "Tip Orange" Dick Bridgforth alludes to in his Mountain Dew books), and Tip Cola which actually did pretty well when it was first introduced by the High Point, NC branch of the Tip Bottling Company. Unlike Bridgeforth, I don't think that the Tip Corporation ever bottled any other flavor in the Tip bottles during its ownership of the brand, because if you are trying to be a direct competitor to Grapette then you don't want to confuse the customer by having your name brand being associated with other flavors aside from the flavor you are trying to promote. Even Grapette created the Orangette, Lemonette, and Lymette brands to sell other flavors, and creating a separate bottle for each brand.

Tip itself wasn’t the only brand associated with the new Tip Corporation, there is the Sun Flower Beverages brand, which was originally bottled by Dr. Pepper of Marion, VA, which known to have an Orange and a Strawberry in the line, so it makes no sense for Tip to be bottling other flavors when they have this beverage line. I wouldn't have known about the association except for some of my Sun Flower bottles having "Tip Bottling Company: Marion, VA" on the back of them. The only problem is that the Tip Corporation didn't actually have a bottling facility, and it appears that their brands were actually bottled at the Marion Dr Pepper Bottling Company. This would continue at least until the restructuring of the Tip Corporation in 1958, when Clay Church relinquished control of the company to Bill Jones and four other investors one of which would be Wythe Hull, who was president of Marion Bottling works. One of the other partners was Harman Beverages from Knoxville, TN who also threw in a trademarked brand by the name of Mountain Dew.

Of course this would leave the Tip Corporation without a place to bottle in Marion, VA and only five franchises. From the account of Wythe Hull, it appears that the Tip Corporation of Marion has stopped trying to bottle the brands in the area, and is focusing on being a franchiser and creating the custom flavor concentrates that had kept the company going. I originally thought that maybe Marion Bottling Company under Wythe Hull, had taken on the bottling of Sun Flower Beverages; however, a 1955 Sun Flower Beverages shard found on a bottle dig has clearly embossed on the bottom, "The Dr. Pepper Bottling Company Marion, VA". This is important because I have a whole 1955 Sun Flower Beverages with no embossing on the bottom and only "Marion, VA" on the back of the bottle.

It appears that either the Tip Corporation dropped the brand, or Clay Church decided to sever it from the Tip Corporation which was starting to have financial trouble around this time. Knowing this can only lead me to believe that Sun Flower Beverages was taken back as a Dr. Pepper of Marion brand that the later "Sun Flower Girl" bottles, which appear to first show up around 1958, were actually being bottled by Dr. Pepper under the name of the "Sun Flower Bottling Company", and the similarities of the information and design of the back are only coincidence.

The Tip Corporation building as it stands today

Tip Grape Advertisement from July, 1947

Two 6oz Tip bottle variations all dated 1947

6oz Tip bottle dated 1948

10oz Tip bottle "Trade Mark Reg." dated 1948

10oz Tip bottle "registered symbol" variation dated 1948

I have now found evidence to back up my claim that the Dr. Pepper was bottling for the Tip Corporation, in the form of these two ads. The first one is from July 15, 1948 which relates that the brand is being bottled by the Tip Bottling Company, but the next ad placed on August 15, 1948 changes that information to it being bottled by the Dr. Pepper Bottling Company of Marion, VA.

Early design Sunflower Beverages bottle caps from Marion, VA

12oz Sunflower beverages bottle dated 1948

10oz Sunflower beverages bottles the left one is dated 1949 and the other one is dated 1952

10oz Sunflower beverages bottle dated 1955, note that the Tip bottling company is no longer on the back

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