Coke bottle questions

[BladeRunner2019]

Hi all.

I'm not a collector and these aren't mine. Posting for somebody else. They, along with some others were found on their property. I thought these 2 looked unusual, so I grabbed a couple pics. Do either of them have any value?

Thanks!

I don't remember there being any cracks in this one, but it looks like there are.

 

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[Jason in Enid]

Of course they have value, just not as much as you might hope!

Coca cola has a huge base of collectors, but there is a ton of items available. With the old glass bottles, its a lot like coin collecting... condition, rarity, and desire all interact to set the price. You can fill a room with variations because the older bottles were all up to the local plant for the exact bottle design. So the exact features, and placement, as well as the bottle plant they were made for are widely varying. Some bottle plants are very common, some are considered rare.

I'm certainly not an expert, but I can tell you that what you have are "straight side" bottles, before they adopted the iconic shape. The bottom one is probably from around the 1900 timeframe, the top is a little bit newer, probably just before the new bottle design. Its also possible the top one was for another variety of soda that was bottled by coca-cola and could be newer. It has a 20's - 30's art deco feel to it.

If there are no breaks or cracks, they are probably worth around $30 each. If they are intact but with cracks you might get $5 from someone wanting that specific variety to fill a hole in their collection.

edit to add - I think the bottom bottle might be a little newer than I said. Its hard to tell from the pic, but I think its from an automatic bottle machine (ABM) that took over the industry around 1910. Earlier bottles were hand-blown in a mold (BIM) and the lip was hand formed. These are easy to spot because they typically have a very noticeable seem on the sides, which disapears close to the top. You can see circular marks on the very top of the neck from the forming tool on those bottles.

 

[RustyRelics]

I'm a collector of straight side Coca Cola bottles. It all depends on the town name. One from Birmingham Ala. may be $10, and one from Portsmouth Ohio about $400. That one appears to date around 1910, but the base mark may be able to shed some more light on it.

Let me know if he would consider a trade on that one if it's not cracked.

 

[Dug]

RR is on point. Besides condition, city and state on the bottle will play a big part of the value. The quantity that were distributed for each city varied and you have collectors who want to collect for the town they are in while you have other collectors trying to amass a bottle from each town.

If you could get some better shots of the base and the lower body displaying MFG codes and city you could probably get a better idea.

 

[RustyRelics]

Base marks are incredibly important. I found a Coca Cola bottle with a rare base mark in an antique shop. There are 9 known in existence. I'm still waiting for someone, anyone to tell me about it, and the value.

 

[sandchip]

Usually, the smaller the town, the more rare and more valuable. No towns usually stay at the low end of things. The deco style Coca-Cola products never tend to bring near what straightsides do.

 

[BladeRunner2019]

Thanks for the help guys. These bottles belong to a homeowner who let us detect their property. They were just showing us some of the bottles they have found. Those 2 looked unusual so I snapped a couple of pics. If we get back over there again to do some detecting, I'll see if I can find out some more info and if they are interested in parting with any of them.

 

[A2coins]

Great info I find old coke bottles all the time gotta grab a few now. Those are some cool ones they found.

 

[Bass]

Top bottle is a product of Coca Cola, a flavored soda of some type, 1920-1950ish. The bottom one has the improved Coca Cola script so it is likely1910-1916 or so