Friday at Auction Finds is readers’ questions day. I try to guide readers to resources to help them determine the value of their items. I’m not able to appraise their treasures, but I can do some preliminary research to get them started. So, when values are noted, they are market values based on prices I find on the web, not appraisal for insurance purposes that I suggest for items that have been determined to be of great value.
This week’s question is about a vintage Coca-Cola bottle.
Question:
Reading your blog made me wonder if my super rare bottle is actually a fake Coke bottle. I can’t find anyone who can tell me about my recent estate sale find. I have a mint condition clear Coca-Cola (bottle) that is embossed in block letters on the front in a circular pattern with Brenham, Tex. The bottom of the bottle simply has embossed CC in large typical Coke style script letters.
On the bottom edge approximately 2 inches of this flat sided bottle is 10 flat edges like the base of a glass mug. The neck of the bottle has what looks like stretch marks in the glass. It looks old but the top is a 1900s pop-top type lip.
I would love to know if these bottles even exist or if it may have been a prototype or something. I don’t collect Coke bottles but I blindly bought a large collection of bottles, knowing that I would eventually find something of value in the group. (The reader later noticed numbers and letters on the lower edge of the bottle: 1703EG24.)
Answer:
The reader emailed me after coming across a blog post I wrote a year ago about how to spot fake Coke bottles. I’ve learned that it’s not so easy to do. After I wrote the post, I got emails from two different readers about a bottle with Chattanooga embossed on the bottom. The first reader said that it was a reproduction from 1989. The second reader told me that it was in fact a real Coke bottle and not a reproduction.
So who is right?
I’m no expert on Coke bottles, but I do love a mystery. So I decided to do some research to see if the reader’s bottle – or one like it – would turn up. I checked Wilsons’ Coca-Cola Price Guide from 1994 that I had picked up at auction, but found no lookalike. The ones in the guide were similar to the most common Coke bottles I encounter at auction, along with a historical series of bottles whose images are similar to ones on a magnet I have on my refrigerator.
From there, I began a search on the web, where there are tons of sites about Coke bottles and other products, most of which are highly collectible. Then I stumbled onto something called a flavor bottle.
Phil Mooney, the Coca-Cola archivist, wrote in 2008 about flavor bottles bearing the Coke name. Many of Coke’s bottlers wanted to create drinks in other flavors, he explained on the Coca-Cola website, so they sold their grape or orange sodas in bottles bearing the Coke name (usually in block letters). The name appears on the bottle because the sodas were bottled by a Coke bottler, not because they were the actual Coke product. Until 1960, Mooney wrote, there was only one type of Coca-Cola soft drink.
These soda bottles are not Coke bottles, he said, estimating their cost back then at about 10 bucks. True Coke bottles are contour in shape and have the familiar Coke script, Mooney noted. The bottles are called hobble skirt and were patented in 1915 and first produced in 1917.
On the site, Mooney has a photo of a soda bottle with bottom-edge cutouts similar to the reader’s bottle, and I found others – also called soda water bottles– on the web. According to one site, small bottling companies made their own line of sodas to earn more money. The most ubiquitous of these bottles appears to be the “Star” bottle.
The site antiquebottles.com noted that bottles with the word Coca-Cola in script contained the true soft drink and are more valuable. Bottles with the name printed in block letters contained a flavored drink and are not worth as much. The real Coke bottles I saw on that site and others carried the Coca Cola name in script on the front of the bottle.
Flavor bottles were new to me, and after seeing a few on the web, I suspect that two Philadelphia and Bethlehem Coca-Cola Bottling Co. bottles that I once had were flavor bottles rather than real Coke bottles.
I suspect, too, that the reader’s bottle is a flavor bottle that once bore a product produced by the Brenham, Texas, bottling company, which was named Brenham Bottling Works in 1910 and closed as the Coca Cola Distribution Center two years ago.
If you can help us identify the bottle precisely, please drop me a line in the Comments box below.
i certainly enjoyed you how to tell a fake. i think that the flavor bottles were all 6 1/2 oz.
I have a coke Christmas bottle that has Cincinnati and Cleveland on the bottom. Is this rare? I’ve had it since the early 1970’s and can’t find any info on it.
Hi, did you check eBay? I just did a cursory search and found a Pat. Dec. 25, 1923 Coke bottle with Cleveland and Cincinnati on the bottom that recently sold for $17. One sold for $25.99 two years ago (I found this via Google). I also found a current listing using the search terms “cleveland cincinnati coca cola bottle.” Ebay is always a good place to check to see how much folks are willing to pay for an item. It quite often sets the price for many items. Take a look at the bottle on eBay and via Google, and see if your bottle matches them. The eBay seller said it was super rare (which I question), but that doesn’t mean much if no one’s interested in buying it. There were two bidders vying for that bottle and they were only willing to pay $17 for it. There are a lot of info via Google about Coke bottles and lots of photos. Good luck.