News

‘Extremely rare’ Coca-Cola bottle to enter auction at $150K

An “extremely rare and important” 104-year-old Coca-Cola bottle is about to go under the hammer for a starting bid of $150,000.

The 1915 bottle was one of many prototypes for the drink company’s iconic curved bottle design, though it was eventually ditched for something more practical because the wide middle was found to be unstable on conveyor belts.

“Advanced bottle collectors we have consulted consider this bottle to be extremely rare and important,” reads the listing on Pennsylvania auction house Morphy Auctions.

“The bottle is as close to pristine as one could envision, with no chips, cracks, nor case wear.”

Coca-Cola’s iconic curved bottle wasn’t introduced until 1917 when the company was desperate to come up with a design that would distinguish themselves from other soda producers, according to collecting website Just Collecting.





“We need a bottle which a person can recognize as a Coca-Cola bottle when he feels it in the dark,” Coca-Cola Bottling Company co-founder Benjamin Thomas said in his design brief.

Designer Earl R. Dean was reportedly inspired by the shape of cacao pods, the fruit of the cacao tree which become chocolate.

To keep their curvaceous scheme a secret, all of the previous prototypes were destroyed.

But this bottle somehow escaped and is believed to be the only surviving one of its kind, making it very sought after by Coca-Cola bottle collectors.

It previously belonged to a retired Coca-Cola employee and will go under the hammer with Morphy Auctions.

Previous prototypes have sold for a whopping $240,000 at auction.

Safe to say this isn’t a bottle you’d want to be feeling around in the dark for.





Share this: