Coke

Front of packaging with cut out showing front of tin design

The polar bear first showed up in Coca Cola advertising in France in 1922 and continued to show up periodically over the next 70 years. The modern polar bear debuted in 1993. This double deck was produced by USPCC in 1998 (blue seal) and Bicycle branded. The two decks are enclosed in a tin with a flip top opening and contains a sporty theme. One deck shows a polar bear cooling off on top of a cooler of Coca Cola, and the other shows a polar bear reaching for a Coke while climbing a mountain. These are standard poker sized decks sealed in original packaging, including two stickers. Read more »

“It’s the real thing”

Until the 1980’s, Coca-Cola® only issued between two and four sets of cards a year. This deck is circa 1971 (though I found one source saying 1973), with the famous tagline, “it’s the real thing.”

This deck is new, still in its box and wrapped in plastic, and was acquired in a lot purchase at an antique store in Ridgecrest in April of 2016.

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Coca-Cola® Mini Deck

This deck of Coca-Cola® cards has the trademarked curve bottle with bottle caps on it. Stars and circles (or bubbles) float around the bottle. This mini deck is 1.75″ X 2.5″. This deck was printed by the United States Playing Card Company (USPPC). As best as I can find, this design dates to the early to mid 1990’s. This deck is unopened.

You can find standard size copies of this deck, printed by Bicycle® (a USPCC company) sold online, but other than a couple copies on eBay, or specialty shops, I found the most copies in France and Japan. I only found one seller on eBay selling the mini deck.  Read more »