Why is an ice cream cone with a flake called a '99'?

Answer 1

This was on that BBC2 programme Balderdash and Piffle. They couldn't find the root of the "99" beyound the 1930s although it had existed before that and I'm guessing that if the power of a full research team backed by the BBC and the brittish public who watched it (it was an interactive type programme asking for help on certain words) then the root of this is lost forever to history. I am going to put this on my watch list though as I'm interested.... I've included the definition from the Oxford English Dictionary if that is any help


Extract revised for OED Online
ninety, a. and n. DRAFT REVISION Jan. 2006
5. ninety-nine Brit. (also 99), an ice-cream cone made with soft ice cream with a stick of flaky chocolate inserted into it (as 99 a proprietary name in the United Kingdom); (formerly) an ice-cream wafer sandwich containing a similar stick of chocolate; a wafer cone or chocolate stick for an ice cream (disused).
[Apparently an arbitrary marketing name. The original ice cream contained Cadbury's '99' Flake (produced specially for the ice-cream trade) but the application to the chocolate may not precede its application to the ice cream. The suggestion that something really special or first class was known as '99' in allusion to an elite guard of ninety-nine soldiers in the service of the King of Italy appears to be without foundation.]

1935 Price List Cadbury Bros. Ltd. Aug., '99' C.D.M. Flake (For Ice Cream Trade)..1 gro[ss]..singles..6/6 One price only. 1936 in Advertising Album (Cadbury Arch. No. 003580), Try a '99' ice cream with Cadbury's Dairy Milk Flake chocolate. 1938 Ice Cream Industr. Jan. 1, (advt.) '99'-The only Cone in the world having these outstanding features-Dripless; Patented top [etc.]. 1951 in Buyers' Guide to Dairy & Ice Cream Industries 217 (advt.) 'Say 99' Janette Scott, child film star, like millions of other children and grown-ups, knows that the best way to eat ice cream is in Askeys '99' Cake Cones. 1977 Times 20 Oct. 6/5 What the [ice-cream] trade needs..is another 99 flake. That gimmick did great things for sales. 1996 R. DOYLE Woman who walked into Doors iv. 12 We got Ninety-Nines or chips before we got the train home,..depending on the weather. 2001 Sunday Herald (Glasgow) 18 Feb. (7 Days section) 2/1 Never having been at the epicentre of any kind of unpleasant incident in Troon, unless you include paying £1.20 for a 99 without raspberry sauce.

Answer 2

Many people already answered - there was a tv programme looking at strange words in the dictionary and the 99 was one of them...

The bottom line was NO ONE really knows.... It wasn't anything to do with it costing 99pence.

There was also argument about what the 99 actually was.... was it the cone, was it the icecream, was it the flake?

In fact one of the first references to 99 in I think the icecream bible (if there is such a thing) was to two wafers with Icecream in the middle - so nothing like what we know as the 99.

Eventually they did find reference to a cone manufacturer from years and years ago that had a cone which had a code of 99 stamped on it - that is believed to be probably where it started....

But again no one really knows...

Answer 3

The origins of the name are uncertain. One claim is that the '99' was coined in Portobello, Scotland, in 1922, by the Arcari family, who owned a well known ice cream shop there. They sold ice-creams with half a large 'Flake' inserted in the top, and reputedly gave it the name simply because the shop was sited at 99 High Street. The idea spread locally, then further afield. Another possibility is that it was named by Italian ice-cream sellers (many of whom hailed from mountainous areas in the Veneto, Trentino, Bellunese and Friuli) in honour of the final wave of conscripts from the First World War, born in 1899 and referred to as "i Ragazzi del 99" - the Boys of '99. They were held in such high esteem that some streets in Italy were named in honour of them. The chocolate flake may have reminded them of the Alpine Regiment's hat, with a long dark feather cocked at an angle. The Cadbury's website says that the reason behind the Flake being called a 99 has been "lost in the mists of time". Although it also repeats an article from an old Cadbury works paper, which states the name came from the guard of the Italian king which consisted of 99 men and "subsequently anything really special or first class was known as 99."[1]

Answer 4

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
Why is an ice cream cone with a flake called a '99'?

Answer 5

99 Ice Cream

Answer 6

99 Flake

Answer 7

It's number 99 on a list of ice creams, I don't know really.

Answer 8

Made with Cadbury candy.
Here's a Wiki link, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99_Flake

Answer 9

it is not a 99 until you put ice cream in the cone

Answer 10

no one really knows, the first reference to a 99 was by Cadburys
but it was a block of icecream in between wafers. somehow it got changed to the come with a flake.