A Coca-Cola Journey - following the journey of Coca-Cola enthusiast Ron Antonio

By Blair Matthews

Ron Antonio's life might have turned out differently if he hadn't received a Vendo 44 Coke machine for Christmas nearly 32 years ago. The bright red machine was his foray into Coca-Cola collecting that spurred a passion lasting for decades and has taken him across North America dozens of times. Collecting lessons have been learned, scarce Coke pieces have been snatched up, and the most important aspect to Ron - lifelong friendships have been forged.

"That machine was the first piece, and I remember that from being a kid in Niagara Falls. Then we went up to my grandparents' in Burks Falls and my uncle had an old gas station and I got a sign from there."

Antonio's specialty quickly became Coca-Cola signage. When he began to collect in the 1970s, Coca-Cola signs were in healthy supply at general stores and grocery shops everywhere. Most retailers, Antonio says, were more than happy to part with the signs for a fair price.

"I'd go on these trips and would hit one unbelieveable score every trip," Antonio says. And at the time it wasn't hard to get retailers to give him these vintage pieces. "You'd go in and tell the truth - and the truth was that 'I collect this, I'm putting it in my parents' recreation room, would you be willing to sell it?' - and for the most part they got it for nothing and they couldn't believe that someone would want it."

Often, Antonio says, store owners weren't sure what he was referring to. Unless it was a functional piece like a doorbar or a thermometre, they were thrilled that someone was interested in it. "The odd time they'd want it replaced if it was a thermometer. Back in that era, nobody had ever bugged them before - you were the first person asking."

In the beginning, Antonio had a series of maps that took him scouring across Ontario in search of Coca-Cola signs to add to his growing collection. It wasn't long before he also realized that there were french equivilents of those same Coke signs available in neighboring Quebec. So he added that province to his roadtrip list, and his collection grew.

That plethora of Coca-Cola signage lasted for nearly 4 years (from 1974-78). By the time 1979 dawned, Coke signs were becoming harder to find since collectors were buying them up and hanging onto them. The re-birth of nostalgia had arrived.

"My biggest error back then was not going to the bottling plants and not doing what a lot of people did," Antonio says.

The only bottling plant he was able to get to at that time was in New York state, which turned out to be a goldmine of memorabilia. In one corner of the plant was a graveyard with the carcasses of more than a hundred Coke machines, eye-candy that would have most cola enthusiasts salivating.

"They had a traditional sign shop where they actually did the painting and they would do one-of signs and go out on location and paint signs."

When visiting with the sign painter, Antonio received an invitation to this man's house where he got to have a peek at his personal collection of vintage items, most of which he never paid a single penny for. "A lot of them were intended for the dump. The truth is, the advertising had changed, it was no longer appropriate, they never got it out when they should have because they got so much of it," Antonio says.

Hindsight being what it is, Antonio says he wishes he'd have sought out and then bought up warehouses of old signs when he had the chance and held onto them - something that, at the time, wouldn't have crossed his mind. "That was the thing... you just kept selling down to the bitter end. There's always the perception that the bubble will burst."

A Commercial Break:
 With his knowledge of Coca-Cola memorabilia, and with the volume of licensed memorabilia available from U.S. distributors, Antonio decided to leave the law profession in 1991 and pursue his dream of opening a retail chain. In their heyday, his six 'Commercial Break' stores (in malls scattered across southern Ontario) found their niche selling Coca-Cola, soda pop and beer-related licensed memorabilia and collectibles - much of it imported from the United States. The malls appreciated Antonio's concept, but eventually problems arose when he couldn't keep up with demand for product. Despite the stores having their best year ever, by late 1996 Antonio had lost faith in his retail dream and he closed all six stores.

He got back into buying and selling a variety of nostalgia and collectibles, primarily using eBay as his virtual platform. And it also freed him up to get back to his thirst for Coca-Cola knowledge and his passion for vintage items.

No such thing as a perfect collection:
 These days, a sign that might once have been worth $100 is now commanding as much as $3,700 depending on what it is and the condition that it's in. Antonio still has in his possession some of his Coca-Cola original signs in mint condition but he says if he was offered a huge sum of money, he'd seriously consider selling them. He's given up trying to make the perfect sign collection, and he sold a number of items in 1996 to help fund the expansion of his Commercial Break stores.

Instead of actively collecting Coca-Cola memorabilia, Antonio now gets his fill of Coke treasures by watching what vintage items are surfacing, and studying a specific area of Coca-Cola items that he hasn't explored before.

And as any seasoned Coke collector knows, if you want to attain a wealth of knowledge about Coca-Cola, its history, and the advertising pieces that were produced for it over the years, an excellent place to start is at the yearly national Coca-Cola Collectors Club Convention.

Held each June or July in a different US state, the Coca-Cola Collectors Club brings thousands of collectors together for a week's worth of wheeling and dealing, room-hopping, seminars, auctions, and Antonio's favorite - the comradery.

Of the 31 National Coke Conventions, Antonio has missed only one. "It's been a big part of my life and existence because that's a lot of years meeting the same people and volunteering."

Antonio has helped out at the Convention auction in years gone by and more recently he's hosted the "What's It Worth" seminar, advising collectors about the value of various Coca-Cola pieces.

To help with his seminar, Antonio selects items that are entered into the regular auction and asks audience members to guess what each item might sell for the following day at the auction. Antonio also assembles a panel of Coke experts who offer their insights on each item.

"People want to see what the stuff is worth and they want to hear people's opinions and seeing it sell in the auction the next day makes it a real winner when it comes to a seminar," Antonio says.

The 'What's It Worth' seminar has proven to be one of the most well-attended seminars at the Convention every year.

Some Advice for Collectors:
 For collectors that are just now getting into the hobby of Coke collecting and want to purchase vintage pieces, Antonio has some wise advice: "If you want to have it all and you want to have the best collection in the world, than you better have all the money in the world and be willing to pay for it. To me, that's not collecting. The collecting is the stories that I can give you relative to how I found pieces; the places I ended up, the things I did... it's just unbelieveable. That's the fun and enjoyable part."

For collectors that are simply wanting to surround themselves with the new licensed Coca-Cola memorabilia - like beach towels, kitchen and bathroom collectibles, Antonio says go for it. "There's lots of great stuff - you can do your whole house. There's part of me that thinks that's great, because people know you as a Coke person and I don't mind that as an identity." Don't buy it as an investment though, Antonio cautions, since it's not likely to appreciate in value.

The vintage Coca-Cola field is another story.

Words to live by: Buy every price guide and absorb every piece of information that you can. It may not give you an exact dollar figure for a specific item in question, but it'll give you information - and you need that, Antonio stresses. Attending auctions will get you more information about collectibles and help you to recognize a deal or it might prove the market price for a certain collectible you've been thinking about buying.

"You can still decide to pay 10 times market value if you want, it's your call," Antonio says. "But at least if you get all of this information together you're going to feel more comfortable knowing that you're getting good value."

And for collectors who may just now be getting into the serious side of vintage collecting, Antonio says it's important not to give up just because you're a latecomer. "It's so much easier now than it was before because you can learn from all these people's mistakes. You've got eBay at the click of a mouse and you can shop at your leisure. If you saw how many tires and vehicles I wore out and how many nights I slept in the back of the van because I was out searching for Coke stuff... now you can do it all at the click of a button. Count your blessings in many respects. It is available and you can see it through the power of the internet."

Oh, and don't get caught up in items that look like legitimate vintage items. Like, for instance, the man who was selling forged porcelain Coca-Cola signs and passing them off as authentic.

In the mid 1990s, this unscrupulous high-end vendor was making reproduction signs that Antonio says you'd swear were real.

"I held them in my hand, I knew all the collectors that bought them - the major auction houses were selling them. It was so unbelieveable. It would fool experienced collectors because he would make the back of the sign look like a turn-of-the-century back of the sign would look."

Eventually, the forgery operation was revealed, but only when one of the signs was broken and the materials were analysed. The chemical composition gave it away. "I don't know how many of these fantasy pieces were put out there and for a while, it made everything very suspect. Somebody could do it today in any of these fields, and the money is out there."

If the market ends up becoming flooded with fraudulent Coca-Cola items masquerading as vintage, it ends up ruining the thrill of Coke collecting for people who have been scammed. And that, Antonio says, is what could discourage collectors from sticking with the hobby.

The Future of Vintage Coke:
 Contrary to what you might think, not all vintage Coca-Cola memorabilia values have skyrocketed over the years.

While the value of many mint condition items such as signs and machines have soared to record heights, some have experienced a cooling off period.

"There's been peaks and valleys in certain areas like trays and in the various subsets of other Coke collectibles. But generally," Antonio reasons, "things in 'excellent', 'mint', 'near-mint' condition will continue to rise in value. There's just no reason to think that it's going to go down."

When you look at the wealth that people have been able to generate, Antonio says, and the values that have been put on inanimate objects, there's just no reason to believe that Coke memorabilia won't continue to be a piece of that.

"People are willing to pay millions of dollars for a painting, hundreds of thousands of dollars for a comic... huge dollars for all of these collectibles. It doesn't make a Coke item over-priced at $20,000 or $30,000."

But is it realistic? Antonio admits that it's a little bit bizzare to think that someone might step up and shell out $100,000 for a Coke piece. "Coca-Cola is so intertwined in our society - with America and the world - there's just no reason to think it will go away."

But then again, when Antonio received that Vendo 44, never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined that it would have changed his entire life so profoundly.