Thermos Model 2480 Blue Hammertone 1 Liter Vacuum Bottle, King-Seeley Thermos, Macomb

The Thermos model 2480 is a one-liter (1.05 quart) vacuum bottle made by the Thermos Division of King-Seeley Thermos Co. at its plant in Macomb, Illinois. The model number, the stopper number 764, the capacity and the Macomb address are all stamped into the steel bottom. It was sold as the Thermos "Solid Steel" vacuum bottle. A 1984 box for the same model calls it "guaranteed unbreakable," with a "polished stainless steel interior" that "cleans easily," and says each bottle was "individually tested for thermal efficiency" and warranted for five years. There is no glass filler inside to break.

Thermos began in Germany in 1904. William B. Walker founded the American Thermos Bottle Company in Brooklyn in 1907 and moved it to Norwich, Connecticut, a few years later. In 1955 the company took control of Hemp and Company of Macomb, Illinois, maker of the Little Brown Jug insulated jugs, which became the Macomb plant on this bottle's stamp. About 1960 King-Seeley bought American Thermos with its Canadian and British arms and renamed it King-Seeley Thermos, the "KST" in the logo. In 1962 a federal judge ruled that "thermos" had become an ordinary word, so rivals like Aladdin could sell "thermos bottles" in lowercase. The company kept the capitalized THERMOS® trademark, which is the ® on the bottom stamp. Household Finance bought King-Seeley Thermos about 1968, and in 1989 Thermos was sold to Japan's Nippon Sanso for $134 million.

This copy is stamped J80. Thermos never published its date codes, but every 2480 seen carries a letter and a two-digit year: K82 on one sold as November 1982 and C 84 on a boxed 1984 bottle. Read with A as January, J80 is October 1980. The layout of the stamp changed by 1984, from "1 LITER (1.05 QUART)" to "1.0 LITRE / 1.05 U.S. QUART," which helps date a copy whose code has worn off.

Two things to know about this copy. It is missing its cup: the bright stainless dome above the blue body is the bottle's own shoulder, and the original navy plastic cup with a square handle slid down over it. Its navy ribbed stopper is the No. 764. On other copies the stopper's top has a red pour lever; this copy's photos don't show the top.

The 2480 is one of the most common vintage Thermos bottles. Ninety live eBay listings mentioned it on October 29, 2026, most in blue, with a few in gray and orange and model suffixes such as 2480C and 2480CF.