This is a factual request. I’m not having much success with Google.
Coke prices in vending machines seem to be consistent from state to state. Usually the price point stayed the same for many years. .35 cents for example is the price I recall in high school, college, and even into my early working career. Then it seemed to jump to .50 cents for quite a few years.
I’m trying to find a chart of Coke (vending machine) prices beginning back in the 30’s to present. Bottles at first and then it switched to cans in the 70’s.
Lets ignore the 20 oz bottles. Just the 12 oz. (or smaller back a long time ago) is a better price point.
I mention vending machines because those prices stayed the same. Grocery stores often run specials on six packs and cases.
I’ve been trying to remember the price in elementary school. It was either 20 cents or 25. I just can’t recall.
I can remember hanging around the gas station drinking my Coke and putting the bottle back in the rack. You weren’t supposed to leave with the bottle unless you paid the deposit.
I’ve been searching around on google. Lots of hits on vending machines. No luck on a list of Coke prices throughout the years.
It would be interesting to see what I paid at different periods in my life. Might trigger some old memories.
This may or may not turn up anything useful, but Google Books will allow you to search only books from a particular year or range of years. You may at least be able to find the price of Coke mentioned in a few places.
I can state for a fact that a can of Coke was 2 Finnish marks in Helsinki in 2000.
I think such an effort would have to track volume and container type as well… would glass bottles be more expensive than cans for the same volume? Or less? And what of aluminum cans versus steel cans?
It seemed like the really old vending machines had cheaper prices. I wonder if the old coin mechs didn’t take quarters? It was cheaper to just sell the cokes at 20 cents. Eventually they’d have to upgrade the coin mech or get a new vending machine.
The old machines may have been where I found 20 cent cokes in elementary school.
The switch over to cans made all the old vending machines obsolete.
I recall the price as a nickel, plus a 2c deposit. I don’t remember buying one from a vending machine; I’m not sure how they would charge–or refund–the deposit. I do know that grocers were not happy to give you back the deposit if you hadn’t bought it there. We would go round up 5 bottles to get the dime we needed to buy a soft rubber ball for our games. This was in the 40s.
There were still 10 cent Coke machines in the late 60s. There would have been only one price change before then when it went up from a nickel. In the mid 70s I was servicing vending machines where the price varied from 15 to 20 cents, but a quarter was in use in some places. That was for cans, glass bottles were on their way out at the time. Upgrading from 10 cents required more complicated coin mechanisms. Some of the dime machines took only dimes, and some that took two nickels still couldn’t give change from a quarter. The machines that followed could take quarters and give change, and depending on the contract with the supplier the price could be set up to 25 cents. As the price went up the coin mechanisms became more complex dealing with any coin combinations and eventually bills and the price became totally programmable.
ETA: That is about the general trend in soft drink vending machine prices, Coke may have had more specific policies about pricing.
I bet you recall servicing a lot of machines with pull tops in the coin mech. It was a big problem at my Boy Scout Camp. They repaired the machine a couple times. The third time they unplugged it. We spent the rest of that week at camp with no cold sodas. All because of some jerk that messed up the machine.
Those were probably 25 cent cokes. I’d always bring a few quarters with me to camp for sodas.
Pull tabs were no where as bad as gum, and ridiculous slugs including plastic game pieces. The pull tabs wouldn’t get far into the mechanism and could be pulled out pretty easily, the slugs would get further in before jamming. Gum obviously didn’t get far, but was a pain to clean out. It was also a pain keeping enough nickels in the machine for change, almost everyone paid with quarters, so it needed to 2 or 3 nickels for each soda sold.
How has the price of a vending machine coke stacked up against an in-store, single serving coke, e.g. at 7-11, not a 12 pack at the supermarket. The price of the latter varies considerably, of course. As it is now, I see 20 oz. (I know you’re asking about cans, but the idea is similar) cokes cost $1.50 in machines, and at 7-11 et al. they’re $1.79 to $1.99. To my memory, it might have been switched at some point so that machines were more expensive, but my memory may be faulty.
In 1960 the price was 10 cents for the 12 oz. bottle, 5 cents for the 6 1/2 oz bottle from a vending machine. 10 cents also at the Rexall Drug counter in the town where I grew up. Price remained pretty constant through Jr and Sr high at 10 cents.
We spent the rest of that week at camp with no cold sodas. All because of some jerk that messed up the machine.