1950s Drink Coca-Cola Mileage & Route Table, RARE

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1950s Drink Coca-Cola Mileage & Route Table, RARE

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Sold Date: 08/27/2008
Channel: Online Auction
Source: eBay
Category: Advertising

Thanks for looking at my item. I have a large personal collection of commemorative Coke items that I am listing on eBay for sale. If you have any questions, please email me.

O.K. Coke Collectors lets reminisce about the history of this Coca-Cola Mileage & Route Information Table. I was a teenager in the 1950's and lived on a farm in the country near the small town of Hawkinsville, GA. T wasn't a lot of entertainment during that time but it didn't matter because we were too busy on the farm to have any "free" time. However, whenever my brothers and I were able to get away from the farm, we liked to go to town and "hang out" at Pete Butler's Texaco Service Station in Hawkinsville. We had our cars, mine was a '54 Chevrolet, that we would sit on and listen to Hank Williams, Brenda Lee, Johnny Cash, Elvis, Jerry Lee, etc. We drank a lot of Coca-Cola in the hobbleskirt bottles. Later, I delivered Cokes from the bottling plant in Hawkinsville (which has been closed for some time now).

I guess by now you are wondering how all of this has anything to do with the Mileage & Route Information Table. As I mentioned, we met at Pete Butler's Texaco Service Station and drank a lot of Cokes. Pete had this same mileage table mounted on a rack that he would roll inside at night. Before the interstates, Hawkinsville, was a busy by pass to some of the larger cities and Florida and Pete would have this table for the use of his customers. However, we used it for other purposes. We didn't have the lottery and PA would not have allowed us to play anyway, but we did have Coke bottles with the names of various cities on the bottom of the bottle. The idea was to buy a Coke and the one with the city the furthest away won. That's w the mileage table came into play. We probably used it more than the regular customers but Pete didn't mind.

In 1961, I got married and moved to Bonaire. (If you will note, I didn't stay on the farm or at Pete's all of the time.) I never saw the table again until a couple of years ago when my wife brought it home. While she was in an antique mall in Hawkinsville a man brought in the mileage table and she immediate bought it. I don't know w the table has been all of these years but apparently it has remained in Hawkinsville, maybe in someone's garage, attic or storage shed? However, it is up for auction. T are picture of it but let me describe it in as much detail as I can.

It is one of two styles that was made in the 1950s. This one has "Drink Coca-Cola Travel Refreshed" and the other mileage table has "Drink Coca-Cola in Bottles Travel Refreshed". It is 10" wide and 7 1/4" tall and weighs almost 3 pounds. It is made of plastic with a cardboard cylinder containing the cities, distance from Hawkinsville and the route (highway) number to take to get t If you wanted to go to Atlanta, you would go Highway 341, & 41; now you go I-75. The pictures will show the front of the mileage table, the opposite side, and both ends. T is a close-up showing "Hawkinsville" printed on the top near the Routes. Each mileage table was unique to the town w it was used and this is the only one I ever saw in Hawkinsville. When you flip it over to look underneath, you can see the round cylinder with the city and route information. The plate that goes on the bottom is missing. The screw is still t w it was fastened and nothing is broken off. The paper that contains the information is in very bad condition; stains, and some tears and a hole in the paper but after all, it is close to 60 years old! The plastic case is in fair to good condition. T are some scratches (picture of the worst one), one hardly noticeable slight chip near the bottom and several short hair line cracks.

Petretti's Coca-Cola Collectibles Price Guide lists the value of the mileage table in very good condition at $1,000.00. I have a fair reserve price on this one. It would make a nice addition to your collection.

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