Collectors  Guide  to

Tampa

Embossed Soda Bottles

1880  to  1939

 

 Ken Badgley

2nd edition

2025

In the past few decades there has been growing interest in collecting antique Florida soda bottles.  This interest has produced some guidebooks for some of the most collectible regions of Florida: Pensacola, Jacksonville, Key West, and Southeast Florida.  These guidebooks pretty much cover the state’s largest cities.  Unfortunately, there has been little if not any information available for one of Florida's largest cities, Tampa.  After decades of collecting bottles from Tampa I figured if no one else is going to make a guide I might as well.  So here it is the first ever collectors guide to Tampa soda bottles:

178 color pages

Over 500 bottle photos

Every known Tampa embossed bottle

Every known Ybor City embossed bottle

216 total bottles (so far)

58 bottling companies

48 companies with embossed bottles

47 Hutchinson bottles

8 Baltimore Loop Seal bottles

15 straight sided Coca-Cola bottles

44 hobble skirt Coca-Cola bottles

The 1909 Tampa Pepsi:Cola bottle

Florida’s first & oldest brewery located in Ybor City

the GATOR hutch

 

 

Most soda pop brands were bottled in Tampa:

Coca-Cola, Pepsi:Cola, Bludwine, Shamrock, Chero-Cola, Budwine, Orange Squeeze, Cherry Blossoms, Hi-Roller, NuGrape, NuIcy, 50-50, King-Cola, King-Kole, Cola-Nip, Honey Boy, Orange Crush, Grapico, Try-Me, Tampania, Mit-Che, NeHi, Celo, Jumbo, Dr Pepper, 7up

 

Plus list of all known druggist medicine bottles,

seltzer bottles, milk bottles and spring water bottles

 

Detailed price guide showing eBay sales for the past 20 years for all bottles

 

rarity grading  for all known bottle variants

 

Detailed spreadsheets listing the details of every bottle variant

 

Foldout bar chart showing dates of operation for 58 soda bottling companies documenting the year of Sanborn maps, city directories, gazetteers, trade magazines, local newspaper stories and advertisements


This book explains in detail the evolution of the soda water industry for a typical large growing city.  In this guide you can see the progression of the industry and how these glass bottles evolved from hand blown to corporate patented Art-deco style bottles in a 50 year span. 



 a must have for any antique bottle collector, not just  Florida collectors!

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Shipping:
 USPS Ground Advantage. 12x10x1 packaged very well
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I've been on eBay since 1999 with a flawless feedback record.
I'm an eclectic collector and buy as much as I sell on eBay.
I'm not out to make $$, i just want to pass my collection and knowledge on to others to enjoy and learn.


THANKS FOR READING
AND HAPPY HUNTING!