This Commemorative Olympics Coke Bottle Sold For $2,500
Unlike the world's relationship with New Coke, Coca-Cola has had a long-lasting connection with the Olympics. According to the company's website, Coca-Cola's association with the Olympic Games started all the way back in 1928 and has been going strong ever since, outlasting all other corporate sponsors. This is great news for Coke bottle collectors, of course, as some pretty sweet merch was created for these heroic, global competitions — and some of those souvenirs are worth a lot of money today!
According to Rarest, one such lucrative artifact is from the 1988 Summer Olympics that took place in Seoul, South Korea. For those games, Coke created a commemorative bottle that was sold in a cardboard box. Most of these bottles were purchased and have long since been consumed, according to the outlet, but one elusive, unopened specimen appeared on eBay this year. Its selling price? Just a cool $2,500.
That's quite a lot of cash for an unopened bottle of soda. But, if you are thinking that only unopened Coke bottles are worth anything, think again!
Other Coke bottles that can sell for big bucks
For anyone who wants to start a Coke bottle collection, Coca-Cola has some advice. According to the corporation's website, the hardest bottles to collect are called "Hutchinson" bottles. These bottles were the first ones the company used, and they are especially hard to find because they were only used from the mid-1890s to the early 1900s. The good news is, if you are lucky enough to get your hands on one of these early bottles, it can be well worth your trouble. According to Coca-Cola, one guide puts the worth of one Hutchinson bottle (one with a script-lettered logo in particular) between $2,500 and $4,000. The bad news? There are only around a dozen varieties of Hutchinson Coca-Cola bottles and those are only from a few towns in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and Mississippi (via Coca-Cola). (Now, might be a good time to reconsider that Happy Meal toy collection you were pondering.)
If you're not up for the collection challenge and just want to get your hands on one profitable bottle, then Rarest may have a better game plan for you. According to the site, the rarest Coke bottle just might be the Root Glass Co. Modified Prototype Bottle that was designed in 1915. There were only eight of these bottles made, and one sold in 2011 for a jaw-dropping $240,000. And we thought the sodas at the movie theater were expensive!