Big Boy Bottle Worth $0.99 or $129.30

[JayBeck]

I was browsing some sold listings on Ebay when I noticed that an embossed Big Boy bottle from Charlotte, NC sold for $129.30 with 14 bids and 5 different bidders. BIG BOY

There are many similar embossed Big Boy bottles out there that typically sell for under $20 so I figured the Charlotte, NC bottle must be quite rare. I looked a little further just to make sure but I was blown away by the price this one sold for: THE SAME BIG BOY!?

Unless I am missing some small detail, these 2 bottles are identical, from the same city and about the same condition. I know you can get some good deals on Ebay and sometimes things go way too high but I've never seen such a huge difference like this before.

Any thoughts or ideas are appreciated because now I am just curious. NC collectors, is this bottle rare locally?

 

[RED Matthews]

WOW That is a strange spread in collectability value. I guess is happens like that but I am never on the high end of success like that. RED Matthews

 

[MisterSilverSearcher]

This seems to happen a lot with SS Cokes on ebay. Most of them go wayyy above their top value. Guess some people really want it at the same time others really want it.

 

[celerycola]

I was the only bidder winning a Dr. Brown's Celery Tonic dispenser for $149 three weeks after one sold for nearly $600 with fifteen bids. I think ebay pricing depends on planetary alignment between Jupiter and Mars.

 

[zecritr]

as my wife pointed out with those datees who knows it could be the same bottle lol

 

[M.C.Glass]

It appears to me that the $129 bottle was mint in that the ring around the side showed no case wear. The other one had a lot of pictures but only showed certain areas and distant views.
Knowledgeable collectors jousting over a sweet example are exactly the ones who would run the price up, and also leave a rough example behind.

 

[jays emporium]

The seller of that $129 bottle is professorshipsalot on ebay. I have looked at some of his bottles before, mostly decco sodas, that seemed to bring outrageous prices. In particular one of his Texas sodas sold in the $100 range when I had just sold the same bottle on ebay 3 weeks earlier for under $10. Then when I looked at his other items there was another bottle I'm familiar with that was about 10x what it should be. Maybe he just has a large following of bidders for that type of bottles that like to bid on his items. I dunno.

 

[ncbred]

Strange indeed. Couldn't get $10 for that Big Boy on your best day here in NC. Maybe he should sell a green one and really blow the winning bidders mind.

 

[motorhead00603]

The eBay marketplace for bottles, or really any collectible is weird. I buy and sell cast iron banks when I can scoop them up for a good deal and you'd be amazed at how the prices vary. I watched an auction for the "Jolly" banks one of which was a Starkies sell for less than a modern reproduction Stevens that had other postings for buy it now for around $50. The repro Stevens sold for around $160 I believe.

I am not really sure how to explain it

 

[JayBeck]

Mohr or less

ORIGINAL: ncbred

Strange indeed. Couldn't get $10 for that Big Boy on your best day here in NC. Maybe he should sell a green one and really blow the winning bidders mind.

Thank you everyone for your input. I suspected this was a fairly common bottle locally.

I did some more searching and I found another interesting example with a huge price difference: MOHR $$$

I was shocked when I saw this price because I have one and I have seen quite a few for sale. It's not rare and here is another similar condition same bottle that sold for substantially less money: MOHR FOR LESS $

There is also yet another example currently listed on Ebay with an inflated starting price of only $85!

Looking at these examples and comparing to the Big Boy bottles the answer to this mystery seems so obvious now. Jays Emporium was on the right track mentioning how professorshipsalot gets some outrageous prices for his soda bottles on Ebay. Both of the highest selling examples were sold by him. So what really makes one bottle worth so much more money than another example of the same bottle???

My answer is keywords. It is quite clear here that what seems to be driving the high prices for professorshipsalot's bottles are the two keywords: ART DECO. Both of the lower priced bottles lack those keywords in their listing title. I would suspect that decorators or just people into that style are willing to pay more than your average soda bottle collector. Obviously this will not work for every bottle but it seems to do the trick for those nice clean deco sodas that have the right look. Nevertheless it is a good thing to keep in mind if you plan on listing any good looking "art deco" sodas on Ebay in the near future.