Coca Cola Startup\'s Chocolates Boxes (9) in Original Shipping Box Extremely Rare
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Coca Cola Startup\'s Chocolates Boxes (9) in Original Shipping Box Extremely Rare:
$5999.99
This is possibly a one of a kind find. Originally, it was an unopened box of Coca Cola Startup\'s Chocolates. The outside of the box was papered with a gold painted Startup\'s logo. The paper is glued. While you could hear something inside the box moving around, there was no way to verify the contents. A call was made to the current owner of Startup\'s Candy Company in Provo, Utah (yes, they are still in business). While intrigued, he could not be sure of the contents as he had never seen a shipping box from the Coca Cola Chocolates time period. He indicated the only way to be sure was to open the box and see the contents. So we carefully opened the large box and found nine (9) small, individually wrapped boxes with the white paper and a stamped black logo. After further discussions with Mr. Startup,he said that the company had a stamp that would stamp, in black ink, the logo on the paper for the smaller boxes. So it makes sense that the large box was not stamped, but painted as the small stamp would not look right on the larger box.
Again, after further discussions with Mr. Startup, he said that authentication may be made if we were to open one of the smaller boxes. So, again, we carefully opened the small box and immediately smelled years of closed-up chocolate aroma. There were three small kiss shaped chocolates and one filled chocolate. The filled chocolate contained a dried up fruit and a white substance that looked like a cream at one time. We sent the photos to Mr. Startup. He said that from what he was told by his father and his grandfather (who made the pieces) there should have been a fruit and a white substance, but said that what he had pictured in his mind didn\'t exactly match the piece that we had. However, I have uncovered an article interviewing the grandfather who said they could make thousands of different chocolates and candies. So it is very reasonable that this box is a sampler box that sat on a shelf and never opened.
As far as the timeline, the Startup company made Coca Cola chocolates in the early part of the 20th century. They made the Chocolates under the Coca Cola name even after Coca Cola sued the company to quit using their name. That suit was brought against Startup\'s sometime around the early 1920\'s. We could not find the date on when the court date actually was. However, the judge found in favor of Startup\'s since they had been using the name for so many years with no issue from Coca Cola. At some time later, Coca Cola and Startup\'s came to an out of court settlement where Startup\'s agreed to quit using the name. Mr. Startup looked through his records and could not find when that date was. He also contacted Coca Cola who offered no help. The date that Startup\'s quit using the Coca Cola name is somewhat important in dating this box because the small boxes were taped closed under the glued white paper. Scotch tape was invented in 1930. So it is plausible that the out of court settlement occurredafter 1930 but we can not verify that information. The large box also has clear tape under the glued white paper.
With all of that said, if this entire box that was originally sealed was made to deceive, someone spent a lot of money in the process. The tissue paper covering for the large box and smaller boxes is even old as verified with a black light.And no other boxes like this have ever been uncovered according to Mr. Startup. The fact that the small boxes inside the sealed main box has a stamp that matches the box shown in Petretti\'s Coca Cola Collectibles book is a huge factor. Mr. Startup said that the company had their own box making department and a stamp for the boxes. Also, the chocolates inside the one small box were extremely hard and the contents of the one were completely dried out. Therefore, we believe this to be an authentic, original box of sample chocolates from Startup\'s. While everything we have uncovered has helped with authentication, more discoveries in the future may provide complete authentication of the entire shipping box.
As a means of provenance, we video taped the entire process of opening the outer box as well as opening the small box and cutting into the filled piece of chocolate and one of the solid kiss shapes. That video will be provided to the buyer for your records. As for the history of this box, we purchased it from a high end coca cola collector. You can view our response and sold items to see two other pieces we recently sold from the collection including a mint condition gum wrapper and a gum shipping box.
The small boxes are 3\" x 5 1/2\" x 1\" (matching the one in Petretti\'s) and the large box is 11\" x 8 1/4\" x 6 1/4\".
One small box is valued in Petretti\'s at $1000. However, adding to that value is the large shipping box, which has, until now, never been known to exist.
Insurance and signature will be included in the shipping.
Coca Cola Startup\'s Chocolates Boxes (9) in Original Shipping Box Extremely Rare:
$5999.99