Early Coca-Cola and Pepsi Collectibles Bubble Past Estimates at Morphy
Morphy’s Soda Pop Auction fizzed with history, featuring rare Coca-Cola and Pepsi treasures—from 19th-century bottles to early ads—that drew collectors and strong bids.
There are few things better than an ice-cold soft drink on a late summer day, so it was perfect timing when Morphy Auctions held a Soda Pop, Advertising & General Store Auction on August 18-20. The auction offered 1,780 lots of vintage advertising, breweriana, tobacciana, vending machines, salesman samples, and radios, and their selection of soda pop antiques proved to be the sweetest of all.
The top lot was an antique glass bottle dating to the 1880s, bearing its original paper label for Pemberton’s French Wine Coca, which sold for $31,200. Not only is it extremely rare to find a bottle this old with a near-intact paper label, but it is also an important part of soft drink history. Pemberton’s French Wine Coca was one of the patent medicines that pharmacist John Pemberton made and sold before he patented the drink we know as Coca-Cola.
More than 650 lots of Coca-Cola collectibles were available at the auction, more than any Morphy auction has offered before. Coca-Cola Chewing Gum, which was sold from 1903 to 1920, didn’t achieve the same success as the drink, making its advertisements all the more valuable; like a cardboard Dutch boy sign with an articulated arm holding an oversized pack of Coca-Cola Peppermint Pepsin Gum that sold for $20,910. Early ads for the familiar soft drink sold for high prices, too. A tin-over-cardboard sign with an image of a straight-sided bottle and the simple slogan “Drink Coca-Cola, Delicious and Refreshing” sold for $14,400, nearly twice its high estimate. This sign was a truly significant piece of Coca-Cola advertising, coming from the collection of the Schmidt Museum of Coca-Cola Memorabilia, which closed in 2011.
Coke’s eternal rival, Pepsi, was well-represented, too. The “runaway hit” of the auction was a one-gallon Pepsi-Cola syrup jug, circa 1920, that sold for $26,400, over four times its high estimate of $6,000. The jug’s colorful paper label was mostly intact, with a large picture of a small boy drinking from a glass over a horizontal band of soda fountain scenes. Another memento of the days of soda fountains, a colorful ceramic syrup dispenser from the early 1900s, beat its high estimate of $16,000 to sell for $19,680. It featured “Pepsi-Cola” written in script, fitting in with the curves and scrolls of its Art Nouveau decorations.
The auction wasn’t just a chance for advertising enthusiasts to bid on rare memorabilia. It was a taste of the history of soft drinks. After a hundred years or more, these mementoes are as refreshing as ever.
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