“It’s strange. I don’t even drink Coca-Cola,” Jon Aschenbrener told cbc.ca. Aschenbrener’s Saskatoon home houses an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 individual items related to the beverage brand, a collection that spans roughly 30 years of acquisition.
The collection’s roots trace back to a large cattle and grain farm northeast of Cupar, Saskatchewan, about 60 kilometres northeast of Regina. Aschenbrener said that 15 to 20 abandoned farm yards sat in close proximity to his family’s property after previous generations survived the economic pressures of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.
“So when I was little, spring and fall would be the best time to go bottle picking in the bush,” Aschenbrener told cbc.ca. “I found some epic bottles and it just went from there.”
Family trips to auction sales during the 1990s expanded the hobby from buried bottles to signs and machines. A massive light-up sign acquired with his mother remains on the Saskatchewan farm.
“Then I became an adult and made real adult money,” Aschenbrener told cbc.ca. “That’s kind of when it blew up, because you have a little bit of money to play with.”
A 14th birthday gift from his mother—a pen and tin set—solidified his interest in the brand’s history. His rarer holdings now include serving trays, bottles, and signs from the 1920s, alongside cardboard pieces dating to the 1930s and 1940s.
Connections with antique dealers in Langley, British Columbia, helped secure a 1939 Coca-Cola Salesman Sample Cooler. Tips sent via text message or social media now bring several acquisition leads a week.
“At that time, it was like the ‘Holy Grail’ Coke bottle,” Aschenbrener told cbc.ca, describing a find his father brought home from a collapsed barn when Aschenbrener was 15. “And I just didn’t believe he found it in the wild. And I still have it.”
Roughly 60 per cent of the collection involves financial exchanges, while the remaining 40 per cent comes from family discoveries or gifts. Preserving fragile paper and cardboard items that otherwise faced destruction in burn pits provides the primary motivation for the ongoing preservation effort.
| Item Type | Time Period | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Glass Restaraunt Tumbler | Undated Vintage | Grandmother’s House |
| Salesman Sample Cooler | 1939 | Antique Dealers in Langley, B.C. |
Aschenbrener estimates his Saskatoon home contains between 5,000 and 10,000 individual Coca-Cola items.
The collection began on a cattle and grain farm northeast of Cupar, Saskatchewan, where Aschenbrener searched abandoned farm yards during his childhood.
The collection includes bottles, signs, and serving trays dating back to the 1920s.
“Some of these things are cardboard or Masonite that were just thrown in the fire pit, because they’re done at the store or the gas station,” Aschenbrener told cbc.ca.
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