A SODA POP STORY

[Anthonicia]

Great story! You had me going for a minute. My great-grandmother turned 99 this year. Wish she collected bottles, although I did get some blue Ball Mason's from her house that are fairly old. Let me know when you want to get rid of the Wizard of Oz first edition; I will give you the fair market 1913 price for it. lol

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Anthonicia ~

Here ya go! Plus, I'm including it's "current" estimated value. Just put a check in the mail today and I will gladly send it to you on Tuesday. Lol []

SPBOB

Frank L. Baum. THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ. Geo. M. Hill, Chicago and New York, 1900. Current Selling Prices: $12,500 - $40,000 (Depending on condition).

Original Book and Cover. Note the title ... The "Wonderful" Wizard Of Oz.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

~ CHAPTER TWO ~
　
I thought it would be of interest to fill in some of the gaps regarding my life-long interest in collecting Coca Cola bottles. I will start with 1919 when I graduated from high school. I was eighteen years old at the time, and by then I had managed to accumulate what I considered to be an astonishing 328 bottles. I also had a number of wooden cases I stored them in. Once each individual case was filled I would place it on the growing stack I kept safely tucked away in one of our out-buildings on the chicken ranch. And while I am on the subject, let me take a moment to clarify the difference between a chicken “ranch†and a chicken “farm.†They are different, you know. Typically, a chicken ranch, like the one I grew up on, raised chickens that in turn produced eggs which were sold to other ranchers who hatched them. The chicks, or pullets, were then raised as laying hens for the fresh egg market. And it’s these fresh egg facilities that were referred to as “farms.†It was a lot of work for my family to keep the ranch going back then, especially through the Depression. But we somehow managed to keep it going until around 1952 when my dad finally retired and sold the place. Dad was 82 years old at the time. But I am getting ahead of myself. So let’s turn the clock back again to 1919.

The Great War had been over for about a year when I graduated, and at the time I still worked on the ranch. But by then I had fixed up one of the sheds on our property , and even supplied it with electricity to make it comfortable for me to live in. I even had me a girlfriend at the time, whose name was Lucy and who I absolutely adored. Lucy worked for her father who owned the corner grocery store that was just up the street a ways from the ranch. And it was because of my friendship with Lucy and her family that I was able to accumulate so many of my first bottles. Sometime around 1917 the Coca Cola company started distributing a different style of bottle. It was the one they later started calling the hobbleskirt, or conture bottle as some referred to it. Of course, if I wanted an ice cold bottle of Coca Cola at the time, which I did on a daily basis, it would have to come from one of the newer bottles.

But when it came to collecting, I still preferred the older style bottles with paper labels. And it just so happened that Lucy’s father had an entire back room of them. Once Coca Cola introduced the new style, their bottlers no longer wanted or would pay deposit on the older ones. So there they set in Mr. Hamilton’s back room accumulating dust. That is until I came along one day and asked what he intended to do with them. In response to my question, Mr. Hamilton just looked at me for a moment with a puzzled look on his face. He knew from what Lucy had told him about my having a bunch of old bottles, but I suppose it never really occurred to him I was interested in obtaining every single bottle he had. But once he realized I was serious, he finally broke the silence and asked, “What in the world are you going to do with what must be five hundred old bottles?†My reply was a simple one. “Keep them.†I said with a smile on my face. I then proceeded to tell him about an article I had read in a copy of the very popular "All-Story" magazine about some guy in the southern California mining town of Calico who had built a small house entirely of old bottles, and how I wanted to do the same thing someday, but that it would take thousands and thousands of bottles in order for me to complete such an arduous project. By the way, it was in 1912 when All-Story magazine published the very first Tarzan stories written by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I read every single story, and stayed up many a night fantasizing about Tarzan and his amazing adventures.

And so it was that Mr. Hamilton told me to take the bottles, with a “good riddends to them†thrown in for good measure. Lucy helped me transport what totaled to about forty cases. We used my dad’s 1909 Model-T, and it took us most of an entire day to get them moved to my shed where we stacked them one by one with the others. I think I hit the one-thousand bottles mark that day, and I was as happy as a Jay bird about it. And even though I was serious at the time about using the bottles to build that small house, I would soon realize that was one dream of mine that would never come to pass.

(To be continued)

Calico, California Bottle House.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

"All-Story" magazine cover with first Tarzan story October 1912.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Calico Bottle House Closeup.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

~ CHAPTER THREE ~

Looking back now, I’d have to say it was the 1920s that were my most memorable years. And not just because I was in the prime of my youth, but more so because there were so many exciting things going on at the time, that the newspapers and history books could barely keep up with them. Later it would become known as the “Roaring Twenties,†or “Jazz Age.†Silent movies were in their hayday with many notable actors constantly in the limelight, a few of which were the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo, Tom Mix and Clara Bow. My favorite was Tom Mix and his horse Tony, and just about anything western. Of course, my girlfriend Lucy preferred the more romantic features. I can still recall falling fast asleep during many a Saturday afternoon matinee. And even though they served fountain-style Coca Cola at the theatres back then, I still preferred it straight from the bottle. I think it was in 1922 when I tried to sneak a bottle of Coca Cola into the theatre with us one day when one of the ushers noticed the bottle sticking out of my back pocket and took it away from me. With a prohibition on alcohol in effect, which lasted from 1919 to 1933, anyone seen with a mysterious looking bottle on their person was immediately considered a suspicious character and often times confronted. But in my opinion the only thing suspicious looking about a Coca Cola bottle back then was the fact they no longer had paper labels. I never could understand why they stopped using labels. To me, other than being the best tasting cola of the day, it was the paper labels I liked most of all. There was just something about them I could never get enough of.

And just to mention a few of the more notable events of the era; Babe Ruth, after several years with the Boston Red Sox, joined the New York Yankees in 1919. Then there was the introduction of radio in Pittsburgh, PA. in 1920. Followed by the first “Winnie The Pooh†book written by A. A. Milne in 1926. The first talking motion picture starring Al Jolson was released in 1927. Of course no one will ever forget the crash on Wall Street in 1929 that later became known as “Black Tuesday,†and in turn thrust the country into the Great Depression which would last well into the late 1930s. It was also during the 1920s when names like Charles Lindbergh - Albert Einstein - Al Capone, and many others were making their marks. And all the while the Coca Cola Company was making leaps and bounds of their own, and was by then was the most popular soft drink in the world!

I failed to mention earlier that soon after I graduated from high school in 1919, my dad and I formed a partnership on the chicken ranch, with my three older brothers pulling up stakes and moving on with personal careers, marrying, and starting families. And it was during the summer of 1921 that dad and I finally purchased our first truck for hauling supplies and whatnot for the ranch. It was a brand new 1921 Ford flatbed with dual rear tires and side-racks along the bed. It still amazes me how much stuff we loaded onto that old truck. Prior to this we always had the larger items we needed delivered. We kept the 1909 Model-T but primarily used it for driving to church and other outings like going into the city and beach. We loved going to the beach, and occasionally would stay overnight in one of the tent-cabins they rented for one dollar per night.

And now that I had the use of a truck to do my hauling, I really started gathering up Coca Cola bottles in earnest. Most of the area grocery stores still had cases upon cases of the older paper label bottles they had no idea what to do with, with many of them eventually winding up in dumps. And that’s when I started offering to haul the surplus bottles away for free in exchange for being allowed to keep all or as many of them as I preferred. And if you can’t guess it already, I kept just about every single bottle I could get my hands on. Later I would go through them and sort out the damaged ones that I would take to the dump. But there weren’t too many of those, and by the end of this time period, which lasted for about three years, I had accumulated so many bottles I could barely count them.

One day during the summer of 1925 I finally took a full inventory of my stock and was surprised to discover I had 160 full cases. This translated into a grand total of 3,840 individual bottles, every one of which was neatly stacked and kept dry in my now bulging at the seams storage shed. The only person who shared my dream of eventually building that bottle house, and who didn’t think I was completely crazy, was my girlfriend Lucy. And after an amazing seven years of courtship we finally married on June 17, 1926. If you’re wondering why we waited so long to tie the knot, all I can say is that it had something to do with “being sure,†as Lucy used to put it. Heck, for me it was love at first sight, and I bet I asked that girl ten times a week to marry me before she finally consented.
Needless to say, my bottle collecting days slowed down a bit after Lucy and I were married. What with all the responsibilities I had around the ranch and Lucy expecting our second child, it was a miracle I had time for everything that was already on my plate, let alone accumulating a bunch of old bottles. Besides, by then I had pretty much cleaned out most of the bottles the grocers had, and it was becoming harder and harder for me to locate bottles that were worth keeping. That is until …

(To be continued)



　
　






　
　
　
　

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

This poster should give you some idea what the rest of the country was up to in the 1920s while I was collecting Coca Cola bottles, courting Lucy, and shoveling chicken poop. I never did like bath-tub-gin anyway. []

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

This next one will give you a better idea of the real me and the real Lucy around the time we got married in 1926. Of course, it suggest I liked soda fountain Coca Cola ... but the truth is I preferred it straight from the bottle.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Lastly is this photo of my dad on the ranch in 1929 with a few of or best roosters we were so proud of. The rooster on the left with it's head down I named Coca. And the one on the right was Cola. That one in the background didn't have a name. Which was good because he ended up on the Sunday dinner table anyway.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

I didn't intend to post this next photo, but my daughter Lillian insisted on it. It's of me and my dog Prince in 1913 when I was twelve years old. The building behind me is the shed where I stored all of my bottles over the years.