Greetings: A relative recently gave me this Chattanooga Coca-cola 75th Anniversary silver art bar. I've scoured the web for info on it, and seem to have turned up an anomaly. The Chattanooga silver bar seems to be very common, and all the images of them appear identical to this except for the "ONE TROY OUNCE" and ".999 FINE SILVER" text on the bottle side of the bar. From what I've seen, this, or similar text appears on the sides of the bar, but not on the bottle bearing face. Has anybody ever seen a Chattanooga Coke bar like this? Is it valued any differently than a regular Chattanooga bar? Regards, Christopher
Welcome to CT. There is a member here who should be able to help you with your question. He's off/on here somewhat, but you could leave him a message or send a PM to get in touch for an answer. His member name is: 1970 Silver Art
Christopherg, Welcome to CoinTalk and I apologize for not seeing this any sooner than now since I have not been posting on CT as oftern as I used to. As for the Chattanooga Coca-Cola bar, I have seen (and have) several Coca-Cola Chattanooga silver art bars but this is the first time that I have seen a Coca-Cola Chattanooga silver art bar like that one that is pictured. This is very interesting. These Coca-Cola silver bars are stamped with a serial number on the side of this bar. What is the serial number on the side of this bar? The reason that I am asking this because it might give me a clue that might possibly help me figure out this. You are right in that regular Chattanooga Coca-Cola silver art bars have the weight and purity stamped on the side of the bar and the mintage number for the Chattanooga Coca-Cola bar is 10,000. To be honest with you, I am stumped on this particular Chattanooga Coca-Cola because this is the first time that I have seen this particular bar but there is someone that is more knowledgeable than I am that can possibly help you in terms on giving you more information on this particular bar. I will PM you the email contact.
Christopherg, I have been a long time collector of Coca-Cola 75[SUP]th[/SUP] Ingots and have done years of research on them. Most of what I have learned comes from many different sources, as it was 20 + years before I began my quest to find out more about them. Now from what I know, I would bet you have a test strike ingot. When Chattanooga was in the process of coming up with the design for their ingot, they completed test strikes to show the Key Decision Makers at the bottler what it would look like. Recommendations were made to change the ingot to what was eventually the final product and then mass-produced. As noted, Chattanooga had approved 10,000 ingots to be minted (what we see today on Ebay and other retail sellers). Chattanooga is a very common ingot given the high mintage, but you have one that is very rare and may only have a mintage of 5 to 10 ingots (possibly less, no one kept this information). What is it worth? MARKET! I can assure you there are a lot of Coca-Cola 75[SUP]th[/SUP] Anniversary Ingot collectors that will pay you top dollar for this one. If you would like to speak with me more about this or any other Coca-Cola Ingot I would be happy to share, what ever I can with you.
DietCoke1117, Thank you for posting this. It is also very helpful to me because even though I have seen several Coca-Cola Chattanooga bars in the past, this is the first time that I have seen that particular Chattanooga bar and I did not know what to make of it. Thank you for providing your knowledge on this topic because I had no idea about this being a test strike.
Notarized Authentication Certificate How would I go about getting a notarized authentication certificate for this? I can't find any info about folks doing this with coca-cola art bars.
cpm9ball, I haven't, and it's not a bad idea, but I'm looking to sell this bar and the serious buyers are all asking for a notarized authentication certificate. I don't think Coca-cola can provide me with this, but they may be useful in piecing together this bar's history. Thanks for the idea.
I think you found 2 very serious collectors in this thread. One of them asked if there is a serial number stamped on the side or edge of the bar, is there one there?
I don't think there would be anyone better than Coca-Cola to authenticate it. Surely they would be able to provide a letter of authentication. This is done all the time with collectibles. Haven't you been watching Pawn Stars! Chris
Coca-Cola could probably lead you to the manufacturer of the bar, and then contacting them would probably be more effective. From what I understand, the bars were made by different companies depending on which plant the bar was made for. Contacting the Chattanoga plant might work too. While some plants are corporate owned, there are some that are still independent (sorta like a franchise). You will have to be persistent to find info from the company or one of it's plants. Many of the employees could care less about this stuff, while others know a great deal as a hobby. My father worked for CCE, and when they did plant remodels, he literally pulled collectables out of the dumpsters! (He even got one of his Coke art bars out of the trash when a plant was decommissioned!) Coke will probably get you the name of the manufacturer, and that is all. The manufacturer of the bar would probably get you to an authentication.
PeacePeople: There are no markings on the edge of the bar; I cannot find a serial number anywhere. I think this is another reason we think it is a test strike ingot.
ratio411: That's a pretty cool opportunity for your dad. As for the manufacturer, there is, what appears to be, a superimposed WWA stamped below the bottle. I knew whose logo this was at one point, but now I can't remember or figure it out. Maybe somebody knows off the top of their head.