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Ice Cold: 1962

Circa 1962, another uncaptioned snap from the News Archive. Which way to the club meeting? 4x5 acetate negative. View full size.

Circa 1962, another uncaptioned snap from the News Archive. Which way to the club meeting? 4x5 acetate negative. View full size.

 

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Coke, Deposits, and Gambling

I traveled extensively in the Deep South in the time of this photo, which I think was about the time our culture was rocked to its foundation by the shift from five cents to ten for vending machine Cokes.

Deposits were mostly of interest in gas stations and such, as Cokes consumed more formally were usually served fountain style. The deposit was always, in my experience, done on the honor system.

If you were taking your Coke on the road, you handed an employee your penny. If consuming it on the spot, you just burped and then slid the empty into the rack beside the machine. No one was monitoring anyone; it just worked back then.

The endless re-use of the incredibly durable bottle led to a universal game of chance. All bottles had the name of their first bottling plant cast on the bottom. After countless sales and refillings, the bottles were very widely distributed, to the point that it was unusual to find two the same in most encounters.

So, two people would purchase their Cokes and immediately invert them. Whoever had the most distant bottling plant marked paid the other the cost of a soda.

The penny

When I was a first grader in '62 we would get a carton of cold milk for our lunches from the cafeteria vending machine for a penny. It was the only drink vending machine that I ever saw that took a penny. Today I try to imagine the job of emptying the change from that machine; why bother?

Bottleneck

It's difficult for this current generation to understand the strength and durability of the 6 ounce coke bottle. Back in the early 1970s the Whirlpool Appliance Company released their first homeTrash Compactor. I was in the appliance business on Long Island at that time and we started selling them. They outfitted our display model with a lucite front panel allowing the customer to see the inner workings. We would demonstrate by throwing cans, bottles and general garbage in the unit and watch how the flat steel plate would come down and mangle anything in its path. One day one of my guys decided to put one of those Coke bottles in the compactor upright. That plate came down and when it reached the top of the bottle and kept pressing down on it the machine started to shake violently and I told them to turn it off before the thing exploded.

Six cents worth....

Look more closely and the six cents label is for the deposit on the bottle. I haven't any idea how they enforced it with nobody seemingly there to collect and refund the money.

[The cost of the Coke is 6¢. The sign instructs customers to deposit 1¢ first, then a nickel, dime or quarter. -tterrace]

Buddy, Can You Spare a Cent?

I well remember the monumental inconvenience when Coke machines began demanding $0.06. All of a sudden, that stray penny you might have tossed into the sandbox to impress your friends took on genuine meaning.

Extra Hand

Based on the extra digits this young man is exhibiting, my guess is he is attending a meeting of those afflicted by Polymelia.

6 cent Coke

I remember when the price went up from a nickel and inflation hit my dime a week allowance...

Six Cent Coke

Wow, seen five cent Coke and a dime, but not six.

Army brat?

Is this another Columbus, Ga., photo? If so, I'm guessing that kid's dad is in the Army. Nearly every military dependent, including me and my sister, during that period had a similar jacket brought back from Japan or Korea by their U.S. Army dad.

Who you gonna call?

There seems to be some Ectoplasmic being gliding down the hallway.

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