The Beetle Not Made By Volkswagen

American Cyanamid Company began as a fertilizer company in 1907 by Frank Washburn, a Cornell-educated civil engineer. The company's name is derived from the fertilizer chemical calcium cyanamide. When William Bell became president of American Cyanamid in 1922, he was pushing the need to diversify. Among many other common products, American Cyanamid eventually made products as diverse as Pine Sol cleaner, Old Spice cologne and after-shave lotion, and Breck shampoo. American Cyanamid merged with American Home Products in 1994.

One of Cyanamid's trademarks was plastic kitchenware, a popular product in the 1950s and 1960s. Called Melmac—not to be confused with the home planet of ALF, the furry alien from the television sitcom—it was a hard plastic dinnerware made with melamine and formaldehyde, known for its durability and vibrant colors. They also produced and trademarked "Beetle," a urea formaldehyde resin. The urea formaldehyde powder had technically originated around 1925 in Great Britain, referred to as Beetleware and noted for its colorful speckled dishware. An Ohio businessman, traveling in England, convinced American Cyanamid to start the licensing and import the formula to the United States. Beetle plastics, thinner than the later Melmac, were a subset of Plaskon Plastics where their products often overlapped. First marketed in 1928, Beetle was popular for its pastel colors and versatility into tableware, dishes, handles, ornaments, and onyx (mottled or marbled) radio cabinets.

Note: All of the resin-molded plastics used during the first half of the twentieth century were simply tradenames from different manufacturers. Catalin was another. The Bakelite Corporation had popular products of its own and was considered the most durable. Similar to Catalin, Bakelite plastic was also used in radio cabinets (in shades from reddish-brown to black), clocks, jewelry, and the classic black telephone case. The advertisement above is from 1945.