These two photos show ads for a variety of bottle and can openers used for soda and/or beer. These ads date to about the 1950s. The first ad is for Vaughan Novelty Mfg. Co. of Chicago, Illinois. They were manufacturers of a variety of kitchen accessories and made bottle and can openers for Coca-Cola as [...]

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The Vendo Company was founded in Kansas City, Missouri in 1937. Vendo manufactured soda vending machines exclusively for the Cola-Cola Company. In 1956 they merged with their largest competitor, Vendorlator Manufacturing Company and moved to Fresno, California. In 2005 Vendo was bought by Sanden of Japan and moved to Dallas, Texas. They were renamed SandenVendo [...]

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These two photos are of the lunchroom inside a Vendo vending machine factory lunchroom sometime in the 1950s. As you can see in the first photo, the lunchroom was fully stocked with Vendo vending machines of all kinds. These were soda, fresh food, ice cream, milk, juice and coffee machines.
The second photo shows a [...]

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I love old buildings and signs, so I guess that is why I find these four photos taken of RC Cola plants so interesting. Check out this first one with the giant “Drink Royal Crown Cola” neon billboard.

The second photo is of the Lubbock, Texas RC plant. It features classic 1930’s or 40’s industrial architecture. [...]

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The Royal Crown Company had marketing pros that understood the value of advertising and product promotion. With the help of their marketing agency, BBD&O, Royal Crown Cola experienced incredible growth through the 1940s.
Starting in 1939, RC Cola became the sponsor for the CBS radio program “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” with Robert Ripley. The [...]

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The Wurlitzer family had a reputation for purchasing and making very fine instruments dating back to the 17th century in Saxony (a German-speaking region that became part of Germany in 1945). In 1853, 22-year-old Franz Rudolph Wurlitzer emigrated to the U.S. to make his own way, rather than joining the family business as was traditionally [...]

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