Coca-Cola Collectibles Price Guide: The Encyclopedia of Coca-Cola Collectibles

by Allan Petretti  (December 2008 edition)

Allan Petretti is considered an expert on the values of Coca-Cola collectibles. He’s been collecting, dealing and promoting Coca-Cola collecting since the early 1970s.

Allan covers the values of Coca-Cola collectibles from bottles, calendars, serving trays, signs, vintage advertisements, toys, coolers, dispensers and many other items.  If you want to learn about Coca-Cola collectibles and see what is out there this is the book for you or a gift for the Collector in your family. It is richly illustrated with black and white as well as color photos. He has also included some Coca-Cola Company history as well.

This book can easily be found on the internet as well as local bookstores.

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Digging with Doug Part 4

When we moved back to Georgia, this really became my non-digging period. I was in High School by then and was more worried about school, cars and work.  Then-off to the Navy. Once I returned home from the service, I began my bottle collecting habit again.    I moved into a SMALL apartment and did not have room for many bottles. So I brought my Soda bottles, since I had so few of those. Soon that is all I concentrated on! My collection quickly grew and at one point I had over 3500 bottles. I was back to digging on a regular basis for bottles.  I decided to sell or trade off all the extra bottles.  This got me thinking of writing a book (I had first thought of writing a book when I was around 12 or 13 years old).    I had always wanted to write a book on bottle collecting or about bottles and began brain storming ideas around the mid 1990’s.   Nothing really came out of that until 2002, when I decided I would really write one this time.  I narrowed down my book ideas to a few and decided that Coca-Cola bottles would be my subject. I had gathered a good bit of information on Coca-Cola bottles already from fellow bottle diggers and bottle collectors and had many notebooks full of information that needed to be shared. In 2003 I joined The Coca-Cola Collectors Club and met some wonderful people that would end up helping me a great deal with research for the book.  I had never written a book before, so it was a learning experience!  I did not realize how much work it would be.

Next time-All about the book writing adventure.

The Coca-Cola Bottle

I have been getting several questions a day about how my book ‘The Coca-Cola Bottle’ is doing. I self published the book, so I have had to wear many different hats, writer, editor, photographer, art and layout department, publisher and now the marketing department.   It has been a great deal of work, but it has been worth it.       I have sold/sent copies to Japan, Africa, Australia and Canada and so far to 21 States.                    I found an odd market to sell my book in besides to bottle collectors-Archaeology.  I happened across some information last year that made me think that the book would be a useful tool to the Historical Archaeologist, by showing the years the different bottle types were made and to show how to read the Date Code found on most Coca-Cola bottles. I was able to get my book listed on a website that Archaeologist frequent and I have sold several copies already with more orders coming in.   I don’t think I will make it to the New York Times Best Seller List anytime soon, but I have been happy so far with where it is headed.

  Thank you for your support!

Another Good Read

Over the weekend I went to a few Antique Stores in North Georgia and Tennessee. I found a few good bottles, but the most interesting thing I found was a book ‘How About a Coke?’ by Frank Barron, printed in 2001.  The Barron family was a long time Coca-Cola bottler in Rome, Georgia as well as being involved in several other bottling plants around Georgia.  This is a personal look into bottling, the early years up to when they sold the business (and why they sold the business).  It has some very interesting details of bottling and puts a personal spin on it. I had never heard of this book before, but I did look it up on the internet today and saw two copies available on Amazon.   I think it is a book worth reading if you want to learn more about the bottling side of the business or just for some good detailed information on this North Georgia bottler.

 

Another Museum to see!

If you are ever driving past Vicksburg, Mississippi be sure and stop to see The Biedenharn Coca-Cola Museum. Biedenharn was the first place to bottle Coca-Cola (unauthorized though) in 1894. A very interesting variety of exhibits displaying the beginnings of Coca-Cola, history of the Biedenharn family, the process used to first bottle Coca-Cola, a reproduction of the equipment  used to bottle Coke, a history of Coca-Cola advertising, and lots of Coca-Cola memorabilia.  

 The website also offers a wealth of information and photos. It has to be one of the most interesting museums I’ve seen dealing with soft drink history.  The link is below. Take a few minutes and check it out.

http://www.biedenharncoca-colamuseum.com/