Pro tip: stop painting over the date codes on vintage soda bottles

I went to a bottle swap in Phoenix last weekend and saw three different guys ruin their finds by spray painting over the tiny embossed dates on the bottom. That date code tells you the exact batch year and factory location, which is the whole point of collecting these things. Without it you just have a pretty bottle worth maybe $2 instead of $40. Am I the only one who notices this at meets?

2 comments

2 Comments

barbarahill27d ago

Guess they wanted to turn a $40 bottle into a $2 paint sample.

tara_palmer27d ago

@barbarahill exactly, they mixed up the whole batch and made it look like a $40 mess. A paint swatch would at least match the color on the label, but this is just a blob of nothing. It's like they grabbed random leftover pigments and called it a day.