Antique Coca Cola Bottles

Although most antique coca cola bottles are easily recognized by their distinctive shape, many of those made prior to 1916 had straight sides and are highly prized by collectors.

View a slideshow on identifying old bottles

If you asked four different coca cola bottle collectors what the term antique coke bottle means to them, you most likely will get four different answers. The answers would be something like this:

• An antique purist may say any coke bottle that is more than 100 years old
• Another collector may say any coca cola bottle that is more than 50 years old
• One may answer the question by saying Hutchinson bottles
• Another by responding any bottle that is older than himself

In the world of soda bottle collecting, the question of how old does a soda bottle have to be for it to be considered an antique is often confusing. To add to the confusion, the popular auction website eBay, lists coca cola bottles from 1900 to present day as modern, and anything older than 1900 as antique. Yet respected websites specializing in coca cola bottles, such as Reggie’s Antique Coca Cola Bottles, list bottles through 1965. Generally, most old coca cola bottle collectors use the term antique for bottles that are more than 50 years old.

In1886 when Dr. John Stith Pemberton first created his unique brown colored syrup and brought it down the street to Jacob’s Pharmacy; he had no idea of what he was starting. At the pharmacy, the syrup was mixed with carbonated water and everyone there that day agreed that it was something special.

Frank Robinson, Pemberton’s bookkeeper, named the drink Coca Cola and with his unique script handwriting wrote out that name. That distinctive handwriting is still used on all coca cola bottles and products to this day.

Eight years later, in 1894, Joseph Biedenharn became the first person to put the popular drink into bottles at his candy company. The bottles used were called Hutchinson style bottles. Bottles dating before 1900 are very rare and highly sought after by serious coca cola collectors. The most valuable style Hutchinson bottles are embossed with the words Coca-Cola.

To view excellent examples of these rare bottles visit the Antique Coca Cola Bottle Hall of Fame. This website has pictures of 18 of the rarest coca cola bottles.

• The twelfth bottle on the page is an extremely rare Hutchinson Coke with the words Coca-Cola in script. The bottle is part of the Coca-Cola Bottling Company collection.
• A reproduction, the thirteenth bottle, illustrates clearly the differences between the original Hutchinson bottle and the reproduction.
• A Biedenharn Hutchinson-style bottle is number fourteen on the page. Bottled in Vicksburg, Mississippi, this bottle is an example of an early Root bottle manufactured at the Root Glass Works which opened in 1901. Root bottles have ROOT 471 on the foot.
• A beautiful Hutchinson embossed Coca Cola bottle is number 15 on the page. This Root bottle is from the Birmingham Coca Cola Bottling Company.

Referred to as S-S bottles, straight sided coca cola bottles were used from 1900-1919.

Produced in a variety of colors, the amber colored bottles are generally considered the most valuable bringing the highest prices at auctions and sales. Other straight sided bottle colors were:

• Clear
• Blue
• Green
• Aqua

Coca cola straight sided bottles were embossed two ways:

• Script embossed bottles contained Coca Cola
• Bottles embossed with block letters contained a different drink

There are nine basic styles of straight sided coke bottles. The styles are based on the location of the script Coca Cola logo. To view examples of each of these S-S styles visit Antique Coke Bottles. This website also contains information on the S-S bottle labels and illustrations of reproduction labels. The Antique Coca Cola Bottle Hall of Fame is another website with wonderful photographs of Coca Cola straight sided bottles.

When the Coca Cola Company decided they wanted their bottles to be unique, a design contest was held at the Root Glass Company in Terre Haute, Indiana. The winning design is the distinctive contour bottle still used today. The design was chosen because it was original, attractive and distinctive enough that consumers could tell it was a bottle of coca cola even in the dark. The company patented the contour design in 1915.

Production of the contour bottle, popularly called the hobbleskirt bottle, began in 1917. The bottles were produced in an array of colors:

• Ice blue
• Green
• Aqua
• Clear

One of the most important resources for any collector is an updated price guide. These books are essential for current pricing, value and identification.

• Petretti's Coca-Cola Collectibles Price Guide by Allan Petretti
• B.J. Summer's Guide To Coca-Cola: Identifications, Current Values by B.J. Summers
• Petretti's Coca-Cola Collectibles Price Guide: The Encyclopedia of Coca-Cola Collectibles by Allan Petretti
• Warman's Coca-Cola Field Guide: Values and Identification by Allan Petretti

• The Coca Cola Collectors Club
• The Collectors Weekly
• The Coca Cola Company
• 2 Collect Cola

If you love coca cola, old bottles or glass collecting, than the hobby of collecting antique coca cola bottles may be the perfect pastime for you.

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