Do you love collecting items, antiques, or some other stuff? Back in childhood, I loved collecting coins and I still have a small coin collection that has some centuries-old currencies. When I was in the hostel, I used to collect shopping bills, train, and bus tickets but that was only to keep a track of expenditure. A few years ago, I got to know that there are people who collect beverage bottles. I have read about people who collected stamps, cards, antique music posters, concert tickets, and whatnot. However, the old bottle collection was new to me and made me wonder why people loved collecting vintage bottles. One of the most interesting collections I got to know personally was collecting antique Pepsi bottles. Thus, I thought of doing an article on why people love to collect vintage Pepsi bottles.
The pic above is from 1932.
It all started when I published an article here on my blog, History of Pepsi Bottles. The article went live on 30th Oct 2015 and ever since it went live on my blog, people have been contacting me asking me about the vintage Pepsi bottles they have collected or they found while digging up in the backyard or somewhere around. I was even contacted by a student through email who was doing a school project on vintage Pepsi bottles. And that’s how it all started. That blog has comments from people who collected vintage Pepsi bottles. Some even asked me if I could help them selling those old bottles of Pepsi. In one comment, someone mentioned that these vintage bottles of Pepsi could be sold as high as 1K USD or even more than that. And that gave me an idea about how much vintage Pepsi bottles can worth. However, I am not sure how that works. People have listed their vintage Pepsi bottle collection on websites like ebay.com.
So what is the reason that people love to collect vintage Pepsi bottles?
In some cases, these vintage bottles are produced in limited quantity, as we call “limited edition” which makes them highly valuable. Also, just like any other beverage company, Pepsi went through several experiments, and the bottles, cans that we see today in our fridges, traveled a long way to reach here. The soft drink giant spent years and invested heavily and today we have these stylish cans and bottles flashing in the aisles of supermarkets.
Read Here – The History of Pepsi-Cola
I did a little research to understand the market value of ancient bottles and why people love collecting them. I was reading an article on https://www.coca-colacompany.com/ and got to know some antique Hutchinson bottles (from the 1890s to the early 20th century) could give you up to $2,500 to $4,000. That’s a whopping amount for a single antique bottle. But those are hard to find, very rare. I came across an article published by Erica Chayes Wida on today.com which mentions that Morphy Auctions (an LA-based auction house) owns a bottle that is priced from $100,000 to $150,000. It’s a Coca-Cola bottle that is supposed to be released somewhere in early 1900s. The article further mentions that a similar bottle was sold at $228,000 in 2011.
Read Here – Pepsi vs Coca-Cola: Market Rivalry
I contacted some people who contacted me through emails regarding the vintage Pepsi bottles they own. I dropped them a mail asking if they would like to tell me how they got to collect vintage Pepsi bottles, from where they found those antique Pepsi bottles, etc. And a few of those happily reverted. Thus, here I am putting what they have to say about their hobby of collecting vintage Pepsi bottles.
Read Here – Controversies of Pepsi
Debby, Morgado from Toronto, Canada dropped me a mail on 25th Sept 2019.
“Hello there,
I found a website with your email thread I was hoping you could help me. My husband and I are doing some major landscaping and he found this bottle 2 feet down under some heavy clay soil. I have looked and can’t seem to find the exact bottle. There seems to be a second logo missing from the neck. Do you know what era this bottle comes from?“
I replied to Debby and sent her a link to my blog post where I mentioned Pepsi bottles through years and it helped. So, I contacted her a few days ago asking if she would want to be a part of this article. And she happily agreed. On 16th January, she dropped me a mail.
“I found this bottle when my husband and I were digging a foundation from a shed in our back yard in Toronto, Canada. It was buried beneath approximately 2 feet of thick, clay soil which was unusual. It didn’t look like any Pepsi bottle that I had ever seen so we wondered how did it get there and how long has it been there? I immediately began to do some research which leads me to a website that had an article on the history of Pepsi bottles. I found a bottle on that website that looked similar to mine so I knew it was pretty old. That was exciting so I’ve kept this bottle. Usually, things that are old and no longer around are worth keeping so this bottle now sits on a shelf in my kitchen where it will stay (unless someone offers me lots and lots of money for it).“
Pic sent by Debby
Robert Fazio who is a private in-home and online Maths tutor specializing in Algebra, Geometry, Pre-Calculus, SAT/Act, dropped me a mail on 22nd July 2020 and sent me some photographs of the ancient Pepsi bottle he has. While I was doing some research for this blog post, I reached out to him and asked if he could share how he got to collect vintage Pepsi bottle and share his experience, this is what he mailed me on 16th Jan 2021,
“I listed them on eBay and a fake buyer bought them and I haven’t relisted them yet. I didn’t collect them. I actually found them while cleaning a condo I purchased. I purchased from an elderly woman and the two Pepsi bottles were sitting in a cabinet that was above the refrigerator. This cabinet hasn’t been opened in many years because it was most likely too difficult to reach.“
Pics sent by Robert
Derek dropped me a mail on 28th Sept 2019 and asked me about the antique Pepsi bottle he owned. So I asked him if he could help me out by sharing his experience of how he got into collecting vintage Pepsi bottles; he shared the following in the mail on 16th Jan 2021,
“This Pepsi bottle became a part of my collection for a handful of reasons. Not least if which is how I came to find it. As I am primarily an avid arrowhead hunter/collector, I come across various forms of discarded antiquity in the course of searching for the prized ancient relics. More often than not, however, these “finds” are mere fragments, or broken pieces of antique items, and very rarely whole and unblemished. So, when I run across complete, undamaged pieces, I usually keep them.
The Pepsi-Cola bottle was found in what is commonly referred to as a “farm” or “bottle” dumpsite that I uncovered, quite unexpectedly, high in an old creek bank while looking for arrowheads. It was actually resting by itself in about six inches of water on top of a gravel bar just inside the creek.
It seemed so incredibly out of place at first to find a completely undamaged, clean (apart from some mud inside), antique glass bottle in such a deeply wooded remote creek bed with no sign of any other man-made remnants to be seen around it. But its seemingly mysterious placement lead to my discovery of the bottle dump high up in the 8-10 foot high eroding creek bank that it must have only just before had washed out the form.“
Pics sent by Derek
Paulie dropped me a mail on 10th Nov 2019 and sent me photographs of an antique Pepsi bottle that was found while readying his father-in-law’s house for sale in Philadelphia. The house was built in 1945. I found that those bottles were from 1945. So when I asked about sharing his experience how he got to collect such bottles, this is what he shared in the mail on116th Jan 2021
“I collected it because it’s a piece of history. That bottle isn’t made anymore. We need to preserve the simpler times. I found it in a crawl space in my father-in-law’s house. The house he lived in was built in 1945 in Philadelphia. So, maybe left by a worker when building the house. “
Pics sent by Paul
Rhiannon Starkey dropped me a mail on 9th Nov 2020 along with a photo of an antique Pepsi bottle and asked me if I had any information of that. That bottle had the word Pepsi-Cola and the beverage company stopped using Cola word after 1962. So, that bottle was produced before 1962. Upon asking if she could share her experience of collecting such a vintage Pepsi bottle, I got her mail on 16th Jan 2021.
“My husband and I were walking behind a horse pasture in the creek. It’s my friends’ family farm so I am sure it’s from someone in her family from back then. I love old things in general and it was always something I did with my grandma. This is the first fully intact bottle I’ve found on my own.“
Read Here – How is Pepsi Manufactured?
Pic sent by Rhiannon
Tiffany Anne Lewis on June 11, 2020, dropped me a mail regarding an old Pepsi bottled she had. She mentioned that her husband worked in the construction business and found the bottle at a construction site in the region of the capital district NY.
Pics sent by Tiffany
I received a mail from a student named Madi on 1st April 2017 (that’s what it was mentioned in the mail). She told me that she was doing a school project and the main topic was Pepsi-Cola and wanted to know how many designs and changes Pepsi has made to their bottle since they first opened. I recently dropped her mail asking her to share for this blog post but it turned out that the email address no longer existed.
I have mailed some more people who contacted me through emails asking about the antique Pepsi bottles they own. I haven’t received any response from them yet.
Some people throw away such items in the trash while some dig them out from the trash and find value in them. This world is a strange place. I never knew if these ancient bottles would be of so much worth. Thanks to everyone who shared their experiences for this blog post. Without their contributions, this post couldn’t have been written.
Just recently I found an old Pepsi can in very good condition and the label is upside down I’ve read about some cans that actually the hole was on the wrong side but this one the label is actually upside down because you can tell which side is the top and bottom it’s pretty old it was canned in Norfolk Nebraska but it’s in great condition is it worth anything?
Hi Joe. Please mail with some clear photographs.