Collector buys 100-year-old Coca Cola bottle for £55 then discovers its staggering true worth

A collector has shared the story of how they discovered one of the oldest Coca Cola bottles in existence for just £55, before discovering its staggering true worth at an antiques show.

Any fans of daytime TV will be familiar with some of the finds people show off on the BBC show Antiques Roadshow, and the results can often be pretty surprising, as one lad found out that a table he owned was worth more than the house he found it in.

When we talk about antiques, we usually think of old paintings or artworks, jewellery or furniture, but it can apply to pretty much anything that's older than your Gran.

It's very rare to think of antique food or drink items, for the very obvious reason that the vast majority of them don't last that all that long.

A 100-year-old drink is never likely to look or taste good, with a 100-year-old milk carton probably being enough to destroy a small town, but in the case of this old, sealed Coca Cola bottle, the contents look to be just fine and perhaps a first-ever in-person look at pre World War One Coke - unless you've also seen that viral video of the American diner that 'still makes Coke the old-fashioned way'.

Another image of the vintage Coca Cola bottle (r/partyjam3)

Reddit user partyjam3 has shared how they discovered a Coke bottle which is believed to be over 100 years old at a vintage shop over two years ago, but didn't have the $100 he needed to pay for it at the time.

However, after a visit to the Coca-Cola museum, he found that they oldest bottle they had on record was from around the 1940s, and he believed that his find was even older.

After returning to the shop, he was delighted to find that the bottle was still there, and that it had even dropped in price to $75 (£55). He swiftly paid the fee and took it to the US version of Antiques Roadshow at the Georgia State Raceway Museum.

Speaking to Newsweek, he said: "My appraiser was baffled when he found nothing on his computer with which to compare my bottle. He could only 'guesstimate' a value saying he had never before seen a sealed early 1900's bottle."

And as for the value?

"He was quite sure it had never been opened," he went on. "He thought the historical value could range from $1,000 (£745) to way more at an auction."

Other commenters on the thread suggested that he could make a fortune through other means, whether it's taking it to Coca Cola themselves, or selling its secrets to Pepsi.

As a Coca Cola collector, it seems likely that he will go for the former rather than the latter.