Commemorative Mexican Contour Bottles

I recently received some news (but no bottles yet!) about a new series of commemorative bottles that are being released in Mexico this year.

The purpose of the bottles is to honor Mexico’s Independence Bicentenary and the 100 years of the Mexican Revolution.  The program is a shared initiative by Coca-Cola México and Coca-Cola FEMSA and involves the development of a collection of 32 original designs that will identify Coca-Cola’s iconic “Contour” bottle in Mexico for the 2010 historical celebrations.
 

The Coca-Cola commemorative bottles special edition will be available from January to September, incorporating between 2 to 5 designs each month, including a special design for each state within the Mexican Republic.

Bottles representing eight states have been released: Sonora, Baja California Sur, Chihuahua, Guerrero, Tlaxcala, Tamaulipas, Nayarit and Veracruz.  I have created a photograph album on our Coca-Cola Archives facebook page where you can see these and the other bottles as they are released.

The two photos are the bottles due to be released in April; Colima and Quintana Roo.

Happy Songkran Day

A few weeks ago, I told you about the Nowruz holiday celebrating the Iranian New Year. Today is April 13, the first day of the annual Songkran festival that marks the new year in Thailand. It is a favorite time, in part, because it involves splashing one's friends with water in friendly combat and cooling off at the same time during Thailand's hottest month. Water throwing during the Songkran is believed to protect a person against calamity in the coming year; in addition, it traditionally helps to provide adequate rainfall for the forthcoming crops. The first morning of Songkran, April 13, is devoted to giving food to monks, and praying for happiness among other things. In addition, parades are held as is the case of this photo from a 1969 Coca-Cola Overseas magazine featuring a Songkran parade. If you look closely at the photograph, you'll see a red disc hanging under the tree. While you receive a refreshing splash of cool water today, also be sure to have a refreshing bottle of Coca-Cola. Cheers!

Masters Week and Bobby Jones - Spotlight On The World of Coca-Cola

As the Masters Tournament teed off this week in Augusta, Georgia it reminded me of our long association with the great golfer and co-founder of the tournament, Bobby Jones. 

For our Friday Spotlight on the World of Coca-Cola, I wanted to call out a Jones piece from the 1949 All Time Sports Greats series.  It is on display in the Sports and Entertainment portion of the Milestones of Refreshment gallery.  In good condition, one of these cardboard signs are typically valued around $ 500.00.

One other thing that you might not know about Bobby Jones is that he was a close friend of our longtime leader, Robert Woodruff and was even a bottler for a period of time. 

In 1947, Jones and business partner and Augusta National Co-Founder, Clifford Roberts took a trip to South America to review their bottling plants.  The report Jones submitted to The Coca-Cola Company was dated March 17th, which also happened to be Jone's birthday and St. Patrick's day.  The 1947 Masters was contested three weeks later and was won by Jimmy Demaret.

1974 Coca-Cola Trays of the 20's Promotion

I wrote yesterday about the Springtime in Atlanta Collectors event, and I'm following up today with a post about a collectible that some of you may have in your collections. In 1974, we ran a "Recapture the 20's" promotion which offered a series of reproductions of historic 1920s serving trays, including serving trays made in 1922, 1923 and 1925. The reproduction trays were available by mail for one dollar with proof-of-purchase or alternatively, in special in-store deals. This promotion was actually the second reproduction tray promotion after the "Good Ole Trays" promotion of 1973 in which one and a half million trays were redeemed. This promotional video from our collection gives a brief overview of the in-store portion of the program, which was billed as "One of the biggest promotions ever for Coca-Cola". This series of trays featured models commonly referred to as "Autumn Girl", "Flapper Girl" and "Girl At Party", and the reproductions have copy stamped on the edges of the tray identifying them as reproductions. Do any of you collectors remember when these came out?

Live Auction For Golf Sign - Coca-Cola Collectors Club

We recently attended the Springtime in Atlanta event hosted by the Atlanta Chapter of the Coca-Cola Collectors Club.  The event was fun as always and it was great to see Coca-Cola collectors trading and buying the Coke memorabilia. The event even received a writeup in the Atlanta Journal Constitution prior to the Swap Meet. 

While at the live auction on Friday, we video taped the sale of a really cool 1950s golf tee box marker.  While the camera (and cameraman) were a bit shaky at the beginning, I hope you enjoy the video and that it gives you an idea of what the auction is like.  That, and now we know the tee marker is worth around $ 475.00.  We already had one on the collection which I have included at the bottom of the post.

Coca-Cola for Passover Sign

To commemorate the ending of Passover, I'd like to share this sign that we brought into the collection a few years ago. This sign, with the arciform Coca-Cola logo (also known as the "fishtail" logo), is from the early 1960s, and it reads "Coca-Cola for Passover (Pesach)". The term Pesach is the Hebrew term for Passover, of course.

New Baseball Case At World of Coca-Cola

Keeping with our baseball theme this week, as we approach opening day of baseball season, for our Friday Spotlight of the World of Coca-Cola I wanted to highlight a new exhibit case we just installed with artifacts from the bottle we recently removed from Turner Field.  The case displays a variety of the sports equipment and balls that were on the old bottle.  Make sure to check it out if you are in Atlanta.

We also had a a couple of Braves schedules that Coca-Cola has used as advertising.  One from Milwaukee (where the Coca-Cola Collectors Club will meet this summer,) from 1953 and the other from Atlanta from 1979.  Quite a change between the two schedules.

Play Ball!

Coke and Baseball... and Bottling

Opening day for the baseball season is right around the corner, and I thought you might be interested to find out why Coca-Cola and baseball are linked in more ways than the fact that both are national traditions. The next time you drink a Coke in a bottle, you can thank baseball. Legend has it that a couple of baseball fans were the innovators of the bottling system that has distributed Coca-Cola all over the world. The baseball fans - Benjamin Thomas and Joseph Whitehead of Chattanooga, Tennessee - were deprived of Coca-Cola whenever they went to baseball games back in the 1890s because the product was only available as a soda fountain drink. Initially, their response was to put Coca-Cola into corked bottles to take with them to games. They saw the obvious opportunity and eventually requested and received the rights to bottle and sell Coca-Cola nationally in 1899. The rest is history.

Bottling in the early days was not quite as speedy and advanced a process as it is today, it was actually a very laborious process. As a toast to this year’s baseball season, as well as Coke in bottles, enjoy this video clip from Refreshment Through The Years. If you watch carefully, you may be able to spot a "Cityville Coca-Cola" delivery wagon very similar to the one we just acquired that is pictured in my blog post from earlier this week.