Coca Cola Collectibles at the Root Family Museum

Coca Cola collectibles carry one of the best-known logos in the world, one that has become almost a shorthand for United States consumer culture.

With every imaginable item relating to the bottling, advertising, and consumption of Coca-Cola in their collection, the Root Family Museum has one of the most historically important compilations of Coca Cola collectibles on which their family fortune was founded. Through a selection of glass bottles representing the changing trends in bottling over the decades, this exhibit chronicles the transition of the Root Family Glass Works into associated Coca-Cola, the largest independent Coca-Cola bottler in the nation. This collection includes everything Coca-Cola, from the evolution of the Coca-Cola vending machines to the science behind the construction of the Coca-Cola bottle.

One of the most recognizable brands in the world is Coca-Cola. From the iconic design of the Coke bottle to some of the most famous advertising slogans, fans of Coke are also avid collectors of all things related to the brand.

One of the largest private collections of unique Coca-Cola memorabilia resides just minutes from Orlando at the Museum of Arts and Sciences in Daytona Beach. Gifted to the museum by the very family who designed the iconic Coke bottle.

The Museum of Arts and Sciences in Daytona Beach is just 45 minutes northeast on Interstate 4 from downtown Orlando which contains Root Family Museum which features one of the largest and historically important collections of vintage Coca-Cola collectibles and memorabilia in the world. But who is the Root Family, what is their relationship with Coca-Cola, and how did this amazing collection come to reside in Daytona Beach? It is a fascinating story.

In Terre Haute, Indiana, the Root Glass Company lead by Chapman J Root, who had a notable history in the glass industry, and as a leader in the development of semi-automatic bottle making machines, gathered his team together - composed of himself, his son William, Alexander Samuelson, Earl Dean and Clyde Edwards. Samuelson reportedly asked during the meeting, “what was Cola-Cola made of?” and Clyde and Earl, a bottle designer, were tasked to come up with a new design for Coca-Cola that would win them the business. After researching for ideas at the Emeline Fairbanks Memorial Library, they came across an illustration in the 1910 Encyclopedia Britannica of the Cacao pod with an elongated shape and distinct ribs that would serve as the inspiration.

Earl Dean was under immense pressure to complete the concept, design, and casting of molds to produce prototypes of the bottle. Union rules dictated that at noon on a published schedule the tanks of hot molten glass at the bottle works would be emptied, known as “fire out”, in order to allow the tanks to be cleaned and repaired. If Earl missed the deadline to get casts made of his design and installed on the machinery to create the prototypes to submit to Coca-Cola, the opportunity may have been lost. With 15 minutes to spare a few bottles were cast and submitted to Coca-Cola, who chose the Root bottle to represent the new packaging for Coca-Cola. For their efforts, the Root Glass company was paid a royalty from the manufacture of the new contour Coca-Cola bottle.

But there were changes to come. Ones that would lead the family away from Indiana, to make a new home in Central Florida.

The Root Family Coca-Cola collection includes an invaluable history of fully restored and authentic Coca-Cola ice chests and vending machines spanning the early 1900s through the late twentieth century.

The collection also includes restored vintage Coca-Cola sales and delivery vehicles – some that were used by Chapman Shaw Root himself, as a young employee of Associated Coke Bottlers.

Also on display is antique bottling equipment that serves as an unmatched exhibit highlighting the technology of the early 20th century industrial age.

This priceless bottle collection includes nearly every Coke bottle ever made.

Some of the more irreplaceable pieces include this 19th Century Coke syrup dispenser that ushered Coca-Cola from a tonic into the soft-drink era – this stained-glass bottle rumored to be designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany and a pristine example of an original early 20th Century promotional paper kite so rare it is considered one of the holy grails for Coca-Cola aficionados.

There are several displays containing rare examples of early to mid-twentieth century Coca-Cola advertising and promotional materials.

But the collection’s highlight undoubtedly, are the original Coke bottle patent papers and one of only 2 remaining examples of Earl Dean’s 1915 prototype Coke bottle, one in Atlanta kept in a safe, and this one on permanent display in the Root Family Museum.

The Orlando Guy: Episode 206

00:00 Intro
02:30 Lightning in a Bottle
03:58 Time in a Bottle
05:24 Every Empty Bottle Is Filled With Stories
07:56 The Root Family Museum Collection