Missed It by That Much

Well, we had a busy weekend, hitting a few antique stores and finding a few items, and making it out to the World of Coca-Cola on Sunday.  A new exhibit opened in December, the vault, where the secret formula is now kept. It was an interesting exhibit, seeing some of the early copy cat brands, etc. on display.  To see more on that check out this link: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2011/12/coca-cola-moves-secret-formula/

Missed it by this much, we went on Sunday and on Monday they rewarded the 5 millionth visitor to the World of Coca-Cola, so we were close to being the one. Here is a link for that story:  http://www.ajc.com/business/duluth-girl-is-world-1304678.html

  Also, we were able to see the 125th Coca-Cola Anniversary painting done by Steve Pendley on display in the Pop Culture Room of the World of Coca-Cola. Well worth going downtown to see.

And, sometime over the weekend I hit the 41,000 visitor mark. I wonder if I will ever hit the 5 millionth visitor?

Thanks everybody for making my blog so popular!

Looking for Bottles

Over the holidays I heard of a local hardware store that was closing. It had been open since the 1920′s.  I decided to go and glad I did.  They had been cleaning out the building and finding many items that had been forgotten. Among some of the items were; horse drawn plow parts, horse shoes and a few things I ended up bringing home were bottle related.  They had found a few old bottle cappers, used to apply the crown cap onto a soda or beer bottle. They were old, but still in the box, never used. I bought one of those.

I also found bottles. Through the years, people would stop by and buy a soft drink. The bottles were places all over the store in hard to find corners,etc. I found a few Coca-Cola bottles, Tab bottle and a Sprite bottle.  

 You just never know what you will find at places like this. They also had a lot of old advertising signs, etc.  The next time you hear of an old store closing, stop by, you never know what you might find.

2011 in Review

WordPress sent me a 2011 in Review of my blog. Here are some of the Stats. Amazing to me!

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 24,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 9 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Visitors from South America: Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and Columbia

Visitors from Australia, New Zealand, Solomon Islands,  Northern Mariana Islands and Guam

Visitors from Africa: South Africa, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria and Algeria.

Visitors from Europe: England, Italy, Netherlands, France and Spain

Visitors from Asia: Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, India and Malaysia.

Visitors from North America: USA, Canada, Mexico,  Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic.

I want to say Thank you to all my bottle friends from around the world who visited my site in 2011.  I look forward to continuing the blog in 2012 and hope that everyone has a great year with lots of bottle finds.

Happy 2012

Doug

Happy 2012!

I hope everyone had a GREAT Christmas!  It is hard to believe that 2011 is almost over. I will post a few interesting things I’ve seen or done next year (next week sometime).

  Hope 2012 is a wonderful year for everyone!  Thanks for a great year here at the blog with all the questions, etc.

December Half Over!

Well, here we are with December almost gone and 2012 just around the corner.  I hope everyone finds a great bottle or bottle go with in your stocking Christmas morning!

  In 2012, I hope that you try to make it to an antique bottle show or a Coca-Cola Club event. Check the links for Bottle Shows or the Coca-Cola Club and find something close to you. Who knows, we might run into each other at an event.

Look forward to seeing you in 2012!

Keep the questions coming too!

And thanks for a great year here at the blog.

Doug

Christmas Is Just Around the Corner!

Hard to believe that Christmas will arrive soon. Do you have a bottle collector on your shopping list?  Here are some ideas of what to get them. 

Bottle brushes are always a much needed item. This set of three brushes from Lee Valley are great for getting into the hard to reach places on those dirty bottles we find. http://www.leevalley.com/en/garden/page.aspx?p=10209&cat=2,50560

bottle brushes  8.95

 For those stubborn spots this kit works wonders. Using stainless steel ball bearings and a cleaning agent and a little water can do wonders. Just swirl the ball bearings around the bottle with the cleaning fluid of your choice and it can remove rust spots, grime and some stains. I’ve got one of these kits and it does help a great deal! http://www.leevalley.com/US/garden/page.aspx?p=57618&cat=2,42194,40727

Bottle Washing Kit 22.50

 Now for those stains and grime on the outside of the bottle. I use Bar Keepers Friend to clean ACL or Embossed bottles. Use a sponge, some water, elbow grease and Bar Keepers Friend to clean the bottle up. (Be sure and see my directions in the blog for cleaning ACL bottles with Bar Keepers Friend)  It can be found at most grocery store chains as well as at hardware stores. http://www.barkeepersfriend.com/

A good go with would be sponges, one with a soft side and one with an abrasive side, a dish pan to use for bottles only, etc.

 Now that you have the bottles all washed, how do you dry them? Leaving them upright with water in them can leave water spots on the glass. I use a Beer bottle tree, to dry out the bottles upside down, they can drain, won’t leave water spots on the inside of the bottles. Search for a beer bottle drying rack to find other versions on the web. Here are a few listed that you can check out: http://www.amazon.com/Beer-Bottle-Tree-45-Bottles/dp/B000OF8U76/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321363563&sr=8-1

Or on Ebay http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=bottle+drying+tree&_sacat=0&_odkw=wine+bottle+drying+rack&_osacat=0&_trksid=p3286.c0.m270.l1313

Part of Coca-Cola History Up For Auction!!

You can own a little piece of Coca-Cola history. On December 3^rd two pieces of history go up for sale.  One is an original Coca-Cola contour prototype bottle, one of two known to exist. The Coca-Cola Company owns one. And YOU could own the other one! It is estimated to bring somewhere between $10,000 and $20,000. Now this would be the ULTIMATE bottle to add to your collection. Check out the bottle here:

https://www.julienslive.com/view-auctions/catalog/id/37/lot/11931/from/find-lots/

The second piece in the same auction is an original sketch of the Coca-Cola prototype bottle. It is estimated to bring between $3,000 and $5,000. Check out the sketch here: 

https://www.julienslive.com/view-auctions/catalog/id/37/lot/11930/from/find-lots/

I think both items will go higher than the estimates.  I won’t be adding them to my collection though.

 Good Luck with bidding!

Getting Ideas in the Shower

Before you get the wrong idea, let me explain! I am always trying to think of new ideas for articles, or working on book(s) on soft drinks and I never know where or when an idea is going to ‘Pop’ into my head. While in the shower this morning ideas and thoughts for future articles as well as ideas for my book began to pop in my head.  I guess the hot water was getting ideas flowing in my brain.  I had to quickly exit the shower and try to write all these ideas down before they were gone.    I have a ‘space pen’ that can write upside down, thru grease,  it can even (supposedly) write under water, which would have come in handy this morning. Problem is, I can’t find any waterproof paper to write on. Maybe I need to invent some.

35,245 Mark

Hit the 35,245 mark today!  I have been having issues logging in the last week or two, so I missed on what day I hit 35,000.

Thanks for the visits!

Digging with Doug

In an earlier post I mentioned Hayden and how my seminar in 2007 helped him decide to collect bottles.  Here is an article based on the seminar I gave. It is on page 5 of the 2007 Coca-Cola Club newsletter:

http://www.cocacolaclub.org/docs/November%202007%20newsletter.pdf

Here is the link about Hayden from the earlier post: http://cocacolabottleman.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/you-never-know-2/