FOHBC official advertisement for the 50th National Antique Bottle Convention in Augusta, Georgia, August 2019
In recent years, I have had the pleasure of both attending and participating in a number of bottle shows here in Florida. After discovering last year that the 50th FOHBC National Convention was going to be in hosted in Augusta, Ga in 2019, I new that I wanted to be involved in this event.
With that being said, I have started the planning for both having a vending booth and most important working on creating an educational display from my collection of ACLs. I have started this page as a journal of the planning and journey to Augusta in 2019. Hope you enjoy, Tom
October 2018:
After pondering around many ideas for my educational bottle display, I have finally decided on my main topic and mission of my display. The main idea of my display is give a complete overview of the evolution of vintage soda brands, mostly focusing on Applied Color Label (ACLs). The title of my display is “Vintage Soda Brandology”. My display will provide an extensive overview of the different brands and how they played a role in America’s soda history. I will also put together a webpage that will coincide with my display so stay tuned for that. Of course this topic is pretty much inline with my collection and passion of soda history.
After finally deciding on my topic, the next big decision up was the design of my display. After reviewing tons of websites and many of the display videos from the past national conventions, I narrow down this decision into two factors. Did I want to have the standard table-top display? (sits on 8’ table) or did I want to make a free standing display grand in size? I decided to go with the free-standing display. Going with a free-standing display, there are many concerns and questions such as:
How is the display going to stand up?
How am I going to get this display mobile and be able to move it into the convention center?
How can I make this display light-weight?
How am I going to move and display my valuable bottles using great care?
One of the main goals of my display is to Reuse or Repurpose material instead of buying new whenever possible. This is going to add more of challenge, but I’m up for it! :)
In addition to the work I’m planning on doing for the display, I also wanted to focus on the Recycle-Repurpose Ideology and wanted the major portion of my display to be made up of recycled or repurposed material. I will note the material used on the display throughout this journal. The more I think of this “RE” initiative it makes me think of those days when I would collect up soda bottles and exchange them for the deposit$. Just think of all the bottles we would have out there if we didn’t reuse them back in the day.
So in summary, here are main decisions/guidelines for my display moving forward. 9 months and counting!
Work detailed webpage to coincide with my display mission and historical knowledge of Vintage Soda Brands.
Self Standing display. Lets go big!
Mobile and light-weight as much as possible. Lets put in on wheels!
Reuse, Repurpose material whenever possible instead of buying new. Lets save mother earth!
November 2018:
As I have continued to visualize my display this past month, I have done some extensive searches for store closeouts, Craigslist and Facebook market ads looking for a display rack base or some used slatwall that I could repurpose for my display. Finally around the end of the month, I ran into a Dollar store closing and found a nice gondola display that seem to meet all my needs. After a cheap cash offer, in no time I was dismantling the rack and loading it into my truck. Later that weekend, I reassembled the rack and did a mock-up of how I wanted to build the display using the rack.
Below are some pictures of the used clothes rack and my initial layout of the display.
At this time, I was able to draft a mock-up of what I had vision for the finished display. Please see draft. For now, its holiday season, so going to put it away in the garage until the new year. Talk to you in January.
Late December 2018- January 2019:
Well the holidays are wrapping up and I got some free time to start the building of my display. I spent time making the brackets and also mounting the 45 degree angles on the side carts attaching them to the center.
February 2019:
Started this month with the start of Phase II. This consist of bolting down the wood backing 1x4s to the metal display carts. At this time, I painted the entire cart a chocolate brown color. For the main body of the display, I tried to locate some used pallet wood, but could never get a consistent size of wood, so I opted to use 6’ fence pickets 6” wide. These made a great backing and uniformed look.
March-June 2019:
Well, time has flown by and I have been working many weekends on the display. Thru some trials and errors, I have completed the overall build and finished the display in brown. In May, I worked on weatherizing corrugated aluminum sheets and cut out the roof panels. In addition added LED lighting tracks at the base and also for the sign. After drafting several designs, I stencilled and hand painted the sign to my desire. Next will be to stage up the all the bottles in July prior to packing it up for the trip.
July 2019:
Time is up. Spent most of this month doing the final prep. Printed out the labels and staged up the full display. In addition worked on a stand in order to display my documentation for visitors to view. Time to pack up everything and head to Augusta. Hope to see you there! Tom
Here is the documentation of the content of the display: Vintage Soda Brandology
Happy 2024 to everyone and hope all is well. Finally was able to make some updates to both the Library and Links section of my site. Check them out for some great ACL knowledge!