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This story is so interesting! - Lawyers screwing up the Coca-Cola founder on bottling - Founder strikes back by advertising low bottled prices - Price stable

This story is so interesting! - Lawyers screwing up the Coca-Cola founder on bottling - Founder strikes back by advertising low bottled prices - Price stable for 30 years - They then try to raise price to 6c - Company discovers that 1-coin pricing boosts sales - President tries to convince the US Treasury to mint a 7.5c coin (?!?!?) - Company using alternative strategies to bring the price up like placing empty bottles that some customer has to pay for - Finally Coca-Cola, company who owns like 80% of vending machines, basically invents a method to reliably deliver change on machines. Overall, I found it a surprisingly "canonical" story on how startup founders face adversities, how they try to lobby the government, screw up customers, and finally reach a creative solution based on technology that establishes their product!

jedberg 11y ago
> President tries to convince the US Treasury to mint a 7.5c coin (?!?!?) It was because at the time vending machines couldn't make change, and they wanted to raise the price, but doubling (from 5 to 10 cents) would be too much. Instead they figured out how to make the vending machine make change.
- carlesfe 11y ago
  Yes, the exclamation marks were more in the line of "WTF". However I need to give credit to them for trying a ... creative... solution
- Animats 11y ago
  Yes, and there lies the interesting story of National Rejectors, Inc., which for decades had a monopoly on fake coin detectors.[1] Even today, most vending machine coin mechanisms are clones of that design. In a mechanical unit about 4 inches square and an inch thick, coins are tested for size, holes, weight, resiliency, electrical conductivity, and magnetic properties. It's an elegant bit of engineering. [1] http://rwatts.cdyn.com/download/slug%20rejectors/national%20slug%20rejectors.pdf http://rwatts.cdyn.com/download/slug%20rejectors/national%20...
  - caminante 11y ago
    Interesting. Is it cost-prohibitive to circumvent those test parameters, now (or since inception)? edit: found an article [1] that answers my question. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slug_(coin) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slug_(coin)
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duderific 11y ago
> President tries to convince the US Treasury to mint a 7.5c coin (?!?!?) Shows you how much power the Coca-Cola company had at the time, that they would even consider trying to make this happen.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  There's a funny reference to that in the movie 'Dr. Strangelove'. The one (US Army) guy tells the other (Peter Sellers, acting as an English representative to the US airforce) after he shoots up a Coca Cola vending machine to get a quarter he needs to call the US president to avoid a nuclear war: "Now you're in trouble with the Coca Cola company", all this in the middle of total carnage as if that's an escalation of affairs.
  - ninjin 11y ago
    Almost, I believe that the line is "You're gonna have to answer to The Coca-Cola Company" [1]. Brilliant film, one of my all time favourites. [1]: https://youtu.be/DUAK7t3Lf8s?t=1m49s https://youtu.be/DUAK7t3Lf8s?t=1m49s
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      Ah right. Close enough... it's been a long time since I've seen it. I really should watch it again.
- logfromblammo 11y ago
  I wonder why Coca-Cola went with that ~supergenius~ idea instead of just minting their own "redeem for one Coca-Cola" vending machine tokens and selling rolls of 20 tokens for $1.50. Then, if you need to raise prices to $0.08 each, you can raise the price of a roll to $1.60, or keep it at $1.50 and replace one of the regular tokens with a non-redeemable collectors' token. And you definitely wouldn't have to follow up with a request for an $0.0833333 coin, or a $0.0925 coin, or any other completely useless fractional denomination.
  - 11y ago
pjc50 11y ago
If all else fails, innovate!

jedberg 11y ago

> President tries to convince the US Treasury to mint a 7.5c coin (?!?!?) It was because at the time vending machines couldn't make change, and they wanted to raise the price, but doubling (from 5 to 10 cents) would be too much. Instead they figured out how to make the vending machine make change.

carlesfe 11y ago
Yes, the exclamation marks were more in the line of "WTF". However I need to give credit to them for trying a ... creative... solution
Animats 11y ago
Yes, and there lies the interesting story of National Rejectors, Inc., which for decades had a monopoly on fake coin detectors.[1] Even today, most vending machine coin mechanisms are clones of that design. In a mechanical unit about 4 inches square and an inch thick, coins are tested for size, holes, weight, resiliency, electrical conductivity, and magnetic properties. It's an elegant bit of engineering. [1] http://rwatts.cdyn.com/download/slug%20rejectors/national%20slug%20rejectors.pdf http://rwatts.cdyn.com/download/slug%20rejectors/national%20...
- caminante 11y ago
  Interesting. Is it cost-prohibitive to circumvent those test parameters, now (or since inception)? edit: found an article [1] that answers my question. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slug_(coin) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slug_(coin)

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duderific 11y ago

> President tries to convince the US Treasury to mint a 7.5c coin (?!?!?) Shows you how much power the Coca-Cola company had at the time, that they would even consider trying to make this happen.

jacquesm 11y ago
There's a funny reference to that in the movie 'Dr. Strangelove'. The one (US Army) guy tells the other (Peter Sellers, acting as an English representative to the US airforce) after he shoots up a Coca Cola vending machine to get a quarter he needs to call the US president to avoid a nuclear war: "Now you're in trouble with the Coca Cola company", all this in the middle of total carnage as if that's an escalation of affairs.
- ninjin 11y ago
  Almost, I believe that the line is "You're gonna have to answer to The Coca-Cola Company" [1]. Brilliant film, one of my all time favourites. [1]: https://youtu.be/DUAK7t3Lf8s?t=1m49s https://youtu.be/DUAK7t3Lf8s?t=1m49s
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    Ah right. Close enough... it's been a long time since I've seen it. I really should watch it again.
logfromblammo 11y ago
I wonder why Coca-Cola went with that ~supergenius~ idea instead of just minting their own "redeem for one Coca-Cola" vending machine tokens and selling rolls of 20 tokens for $1.50. Then, if you need to raise prices to $0.08 each, you can raise the price of a roll to $1.60, or keep it at $1.50 and replace one of the regular tokens with a non-redeemable collectors' token. And you definitely wouldn't have to follow up with a request for an $0.0833333 coin, or a $0.0925 coin, or any other completely useless fractional denomination.
- 11y ago

pjc50 11y ago

If all else fails, innovate!