The bottle, one of only two known, forms part of the three-day sale held by Morphy Auctions in Las Vegas on April 12-14.
It was in early 1915 that the Coca-Cola Bottling Company in Atlanta sent a proposal to several large glass houses requesting designs for a standard Coca-Cola bottle.
A committee of several bottlers and company lawyers met in Atlanta in August 1915 to consider the eight submissions with a design created by Earl Dean of the Root Glass Company, selected for testing.
After trials across a number of bottling plants, some alterations were suggested (as the middle diameter was larger than the base it was unstable on conveyor belts) and on November 16, 1915 a patent was filed for the design familiar to consumers of the world’s most popular soft drink.
Final design
After some small tweaks, a final design was issued across the US until April 1917.
This bottle, stamped Atlanta to the heel, has a faceted rather than rounded neck - a feature known in a bottle seen in advertising of this early period.
In the 1970s, a bottle dig conducted in Birmingham, Alabama, at a dump used by a local bottler, a number of these straight sided bottles were found including several damaged 1916 test bottles (those embossed Birmingham).
This is one of only two intact bottles of its type known to exist. The other example was sold for $240,000 by Juliens, New York in 2011.
This bottle, and another 1933 Christmas variant offered for sale with an estimate of $10,000-25,000, were both recently discovered in a collection acquired from a retired Coca-Cola employee who worked for Chapman Root. With an estimate of $100,000-$150,000, it has already received an opening bid of $50,000.
