COCA COLA / 1915 PROTOTYPE / EARL R DEAN / RAY A GRAHAM

[epackage]

Blown up pics from Rob Mathison's article...

 

[epackage]

.

 

[epackage]

.

 

[zecritr]

ool knew you could do a better job.

 

[cokebottle1916]

Thanks for the nice job with the picture. Gary

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

ORIGINAL: SODAPOPBOB

Gary:

If its good for you, I will call you tomorrow (Monday) evening at 5:00 PM Pacific Time / 8:00 PM Eastern Time.

Please let me know.

Thanks.

Bob

Gary:

I got your emails and thank you for providing me with your phone number. I will call you this evening.

Bob

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

I just got off the phone with Gary Salb and had an amazing hour-and-a-half long conversation with him. I plan to share more about that conversation in the morning but I can tell you now that Gary is what I consider a regular guy who just happens to have inherited what might very well be the most sought after and most valuable soda bottle on the planet. People around the globe are drooling over it as if it were a Van Gough painting which, in my opinion, is far more interesting than any ol' painting ever will be. After all, it's a one of a kind Coca Cola prototype that has been tucked away for ages and is just now seeing the light of day, not to mention that it's for sale if Gary's magic number is met. And even though I don't know exactly what that magic number is, I can tell you if the right person comes along the bottle will be theirs. But before you break open your piggy banks and start counting your nickles, you might want to consult someone like Donald Trump first, because I suspect it will be someone like him who will eventually end up purchasing the bottle.

More later ... (I took notes)

Bob

 

[zecritr]

Sweet Would Love to hear More

trump stole my Piggy bank so I'm out of the Running hehehe

 

[epackage]

I look forward to tomorrow...

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Please keep in mind the phone conversation I had with Gary Salb was just that, a conversation and not an interview. Gary did most of the talking and I kept notes as best I could. Gary gave me permission to "tell all" because he is eager for his story to be told in order to bring as much attention to his bottle as possible. But rather than my presenting this information word for word as told to me by Gary, I thought it would be easier to format it in a timeline. Some of the first names and dates might not be 100% accurate but should be close enough for our interest here. But first, a little about Gary himself ...

Gary lives in Jasper, Indiana and is 57 years old. He does not consider himself a bottle collector despite the fact he possesses one of if not the rarest soda bottle in the world. Remember, there are at least two of the Earl R. Dean prototypes but only one of the Graham prototypes, which just happens to be owned by Gary. It was left to him by his grandfather who I will discuss shortly. And speaking of the Graham Glass Company, Gary has already confirmed that no one named Graham has any legal claim to the bottle and that the patent on it ran out many years ago.

Note: Gary shared a lot of funny anecdotes about his family with me, but are too numerous to include here.

1870:

Gary's great grandfather, O. Arnold Kremp, starts a bottling business in Jasper, Indiana. (I assume the name Kremp is on Gary's mother's side of the family but I never did confirm this with him). Gary said he has bottles with the name Kremp on them and that some of them are embossed and some have (acl) painted labels. The bottling company was a family business from 1870 until it was sold in 1986.

Early 1900s:

Gary's great grandfather purchases the first motorized vehicle in the town of Jasper, which was a truck he used for deliveries. Ironically, the truck was made by the Graham brothers who originally owned Graham Glass. Gary said the truck's fuel tank was poorly designed in that the truck would quit running when going uphill. Thus, they literally had to drive it "in reverse" in order go up hills.

1910:

Gary's great grandfather becomes an independent Coca Cola franchise bottler in Jasper, Indiana.

1915:

Gary's grandfather (whose first name I did not get) is 15 years old at this time and attends the Coca Cola bottlers convention with his dad, O. Arnold Kremp.

Gary isn't sure if it was his great grandfather or his grandfather who actually removed the bottle from the display table at the convention but assumes it was his great grandfather who in turn gave it to his 15 year old grandfather as a "souvenir" of their visit to the Atlanta, Georgia convention. But irregardless of which one of them removed the bottle, it went home with them to Jasper where it was displayed for a time at the family bottling plant there.

Jumping ahead to the 1970s and 80s ...

Gary worked in the family bottling business as a teenager as did Gary's father along with other family members. Gary said everyone was aware of the bottle's existence but that no one really thought much about it other than it was a novelty and family souvenir.

I'm not sure when, but somewhere along the line Gary's grandfather eventually put the bottle in a safe deposit box where it remained until 1987 which is when his grandfather passed away. It was always known that the bottle would eventually become Gary's because it was promised to him by his grandfather. Apparently Gary was one of the most devoted and hardest workers at the family bottling plant.

As it turns out, Gary's mother took the bottle home from the bank and for some unknown reason placed the bottle and the canvas bank bag it came in, into a "kitchen drawer." Inside the bag with the bottle were the two Kurtz cards (see article pictures) but to this day no one knows exactly what the cards refer to or when Gary's grandfather acquired them. The assumption is that the cards had something to do with the Coca Cola Companies interest in the bottle. Because Gary's grand father was a Coca Cola bottler, the parent company has been aware of the bottle's existence for many, many years and had often expressed an interest in someday acquiring it for their museum archives. However, Gary indicated that Coca Cola was not prepared to "pay the price" and apparently wanted Gary's grandfather to donate the bottle to them, which he was not interested in doing.

Current:

I have intentionally left out a lot of stuff, which for the most part are tid-bits of information that Gary shared with me that would make for great reading if Gary ever does a book, but hopefully you have a general idea now of the bottle's timeline.

As you know, the bottle is for sale and Gary is considering offers. And even though this is pure speculation on my part, I predict that if/when the bottle sells, the price will exceed $500,000.00 ... Or should I say, on Gary's behalf, "I hope it does."

If I think of anything else of interest, I will post it later.

In the meantime, I want to thank Gary for speaking with me and for allowing me to share just a small fragment of a much larger and more interesting story than I have been able to tell here.

Bob