1725-1741 W. North Ave, Chicago, IL
The Green Duck Company was established in 1906 locate in Chicago, IL. Green Duck Co. began as a producer of promotional items like buttons, pins, military metals, emblems, metal signs, foam scrappers, and ball tap knobs just to name a few.
In 1936 the United States government began to mandate breweries and the establishments that served there products of beer, ale, lager and porter by forcing taverns, hotels, and distributors to mark what products were on tap that they were selling to patrons. So in 1936, Green Duck Company began producing beer ball tap marker knobs for various breweries across the country. Green Duck Tap Knobs were some of the very first ball tap knob designs produced that actually stuck. The only other competing manufacturers of beer ball tap knobs similar to what Green Duck Co. was producing at the time were companies like Robbins Company located in Attleboro, MA, Fisher Products Inc. located in Syracuse, NY, and Harry Davis Company located in Chicago, IL just to name a few.
Green Duck Company produced beer ball tap knobs all the way up until the transition from ball taps turned to regular tap knobs in the 1950’s era. Green Duck eventually closed in 2004 due to lack of business in the market.
Various breweries across the country took a liking to what Green Duck was producing at the time and decided to contract them to produce tap markers for them. Breweries like Old Reading, Deppen, Seitz, Graupner, Penn Star, Philadelphia, Krueger, Glennon, Lion, Capital, Commonwealth, Gibbons, Star, Pabst, Coors, United States, Leinenkugel, Blatz, Eldredge, Chester, Kurth, Griesedieck, Gentleman, Red Fox, Rahr, Rahr Green Bay, and Westminster just to name a few.
Below are a few examples of Green Duck Company beer ball tap knobs:
