The Vintage Soda Bottles That Could Be Worth Thousands

Walk down any soda aisle in any given grocery store and you'll see all the familiar faces of mass-produced soda pop. These recognizable brands are, for the most part, packaged in aluminum cans or plastic bottles. But vintage soda bottles are way more interesting. Often depicted with colorful, creative logos and artwork, it's no wonder that thousands of people make a hobby out of collecting vintage soda bottles. And while some of the best looking bottles may come from small soda companies, some bottles from big brands like Coca-Cola are potentially worth thousands of dollars today.

For example, the very first bottles that Coca-Cola used for its groundbreaking beverage are called Hutchinson bottles. Straight-sided with a bulbous top and a stopper made of rubber and metal, these bottles were used from the mid-1890s to the early 1900s. They even required special shipping cases so they could be stored upside down. According to Petretti's Coca-Cola Collectibles Guide (a book which estimates the value of various Coke memorabilia), an authentic Hutchinson bottle etched with the Coca-Cola logo from this time period could be worth anywhere from $2,500 to $4,000. These bottles are extremely rare since they weren't used for long before the company switched to cap tops, and finally its signature, curved bottle which was introduced around 1915. Today, if you see Coke bottles with yellow caps, it denotes Kosher ingredients.

Authentic Hutchinson Coca-Cola bottles have sold for $1,050 to roughly $1,400 at auction, but these prices pale in comparison to a few rare bottles that the soda giant commissioned in the early 20th century.

Perhaps the only Coke bottles that are tougher to get your hands on than early Hutchinson bottles are prototypes of a later model. By the time 1915 rolled around, Coca-Cola had established itself as a fast-growing company producing a product that the public loved (Later, Coke cured a digestive condition, proven by science to dissolve gastric masses). At the same time, Coke created the Santa Claus we know today. Naturally, a lot of copycats came out of the shadows to manufacture their own sodas masquerading as "the real thing," complete with the same type of Hutchinson bottles. To set itself apart from the posers, Coke opened a contest to nearly a dozen glass companies to design a new bottle. The winning design came from Earl R. Dean of the Root Glass Company in Terre Haute, Indiana, and featured a curvier shape, resembling a cocoa bean pod.

Prototypes of the bottle were created and, miraculously, some were preserved and discovered nearly a century after they were made. In 2019, one of these prototypes was sold at auction for a staggering $110,700. During a separate auction, another bottle was estimated to fetch between $10,000 to $20,000 and ultimately sold for $250,000. Also at that auction, Earl R. Dean's original sketch of the bottle sold for $237,500. It's unknown just how many of these prototypes may still exist since many were intentionally destroyed for secrecy reasons. But between the Hutchinson bottles and these rare test bottles, I might just start to scout out my local flea markets and become a bottle collector.