1900 · Beverage
Coca-Cola
Drink Coca-Cola 5 Cents
This turn-of-the-century Coca-Cola card leads with the price, '5 cents,' beside a portrait of stage soprano Hilda Clark, credited as the brand's first print-ad model (she appeared from roughly 1899 to 1903). The nickel was no passing promotion: Coca-Cola held that single price from 1886 to 1959, about 73 years, partly locked in by long-term bottling contracts. Printing the figure so prominently trained a national habit around one memorizable number.
