This is a 7Up Progress A1 picnic cooler that we restored, as well as the cooler stand it’s positioned on. This cooler was designed to keep 24 bottles of 7Up cool. The stand allowed for additional bottles as well as empties. A setup like this one was ideal for relatively low-volume sales of soda pop.

Manufactured by Cronstroms of Minnesota, this 7Up cooler is referred to as the #12. It was produced in the 1950s. All 7Up coolers were manufactured with white paint. The red embossed 7Up logo that is on this restored cooler looks just like the original. The pinstriping is an embellishment that was added. The lid attaches

This is a 7Up stadium vendor, also known as a bottle carrier. Vessels like these were carried by soda hawkers at baseball games and similar venues, as they sold refreshments to people attending the events. This metal carrier dates to the 1950s and would have been filled with ice and then the bottles of 7Up.

Produced in the late ’40s to 1950s, this Progress A1 picnic cooler is embossed for the Red Rock Cola brand. This is a tall cooler, measuring two and one-half inches taller than the standard A1 coolers. Red Rock is one of the original brands of colas to be manufactured in the U.S. Lee Hagan and

Most likely from the late 1930s to early 1940s, this countertop style Coca-Cola cooler was built to hold bottles of Coke that were kept cool with ice. There is a spigot at the base for draining the water after the ice has melted. The bottles were removed simply by lifting off the lid. Although this

This cooler was produced by Glascock Bros. Manufacturing in the 1930s. It has a 36-bottle capacity and bottom storage for either two cases of additional bottles of Coke or for empties. It was a smaller version of the standard Glascock cooler, and was intended for locations with limited floor space. The bottles and ice were placed

We don’t know a lot about this Coca-Cola cooler from Mexico. The manufacturer is unknown. Most likely it was manufactured sometime in the mid- to late-1950s (that is the time period we begin to see the Coca-Cola logo in red on a white background). The embossing itself is pretty extensive on this model. The type

Some years ago, when we were in the restoration business, we worked on this Mexican cooler. It’s a beer cooler, manufactured for the makers of Carta Blanca “cerveza” (Spanish for beer). It’s a simple concept unit, meaning one filled the cooler with ice and then placed the bottles to either cool them or keep them

A US patent for a parking meter was filed by Roger W. Babson in 1928. It called for a meter to be connected to the battery of a vehicle. The first installed meter was in Oklahoma City in 1935, and mass production began the following year. Ever since we’ve been dropping coins (and nowadays swipe

Inspired by the design of the 1950 Cadillac, the Kidillac was the most sophisticated of the Garton pedal cars. Top-of-the-line, it featured a one-piece steel chassis, chain-powered pedaling, and a two-tone paint job. Resembling an actual Cadillac, this pedal car sported an electric horn, as well as headlights and taillights. It even came with a