Add to your Coca-Cola memorabilia collection while learning a little geography and history in the process.

Did you know that Coca-Cola purchased full-page advertisements on the back page of 188 issues of National Geographic magazine between 1933 and 1965? Well they did!

The ads make great collectibles. They give you a glimpse of where The Coca-Cola Company and its customers were coming from during that time frame in history.

I’ve seen the ads at antique shops and flea markets matted and framed and being sold as collectible artwork but if you’re like me you can’t stand the thought of tearing the back cover off a National Geographic magazine. As a result I’ve managed to put together a collection of the ads still attached to the rest of the magazine.

The complete collection includes 32 December issues (1933 through 1964 inclusive) depicting different Haddon Sundblom Santas. Beginning in 1931 Sundblom created more than 35 images of Santa for The Coca-Cola Company and most of them found their way in one from or another to the back of a National Geographic magazine. The Santas are my favorites.

The February issues usually depict a Valentine’s Day theme. The ads appearing during the World War II years are also very interesting. Most contain military themes in various parts of the world involved in the war. Coke’s famous Spirit Boy also appears in many of the ads.

If you can get past the Coca-Cola ads on the back cover you can learn all kinds of things putting your collection together.

The August 1933 issue contains a 33-page article on Freiburg Germany - gateway to the Black Forest, with 40 illustrations. Another article contains 11 ‘Natural Color Photographs’ of ‘Time-Mellowed Germany’ featuring Mittenwald, Gross Bottwar, Heidleberg, Miltenberg, Nuremberg, Cologne and Hamburg. Both articles give us a glimpse of Germany before the ravages of World War II. The Coke back cover extols the ‘wholesome substances which scientists say do most in restoring you to your normal self.’

The December 1934 issue takes us on a half-mile dive off the southeast coast of Bermuda and introduces us to the strange creatures of the deep using 16 National Geographic Society paintings. It also takes us on a donkey ride through Mexico with 36 illustrations. The Coke back cover promotes ‘The pause that keeps you going - with tingling buoyancy’ and features one of the Sundblom Santas.

By the time August of 1944 rolls around (the month I was born) we’re in the middle of World War II. The titles of the articles in this issue include The Aerial Invasion of Burma; Gliders - Silent Weapons of the Sky; Woman at Work (on the home front to support the war effort); Low Countries Await Liberation; Palms and Planes in the New Hebrides (where my father-in-law served in the US Navy; Navy Wings over the Pacific. The issue is loaded with World War II photos and the Coke back cover features GIs in Newfoundland offering a Coke to a fisherman.

The December 1954 issue contains a map of Northern Africa (it looks much different today politically speaking) and a 50-something page feature article on a Safari from Congo to Cairo with 45 illustrations including 39 in ‘Natural Colors’. There is also a great article on New York Harbor that’s about 40 pages long. The Coke back cover contains another Santa.

June 1965 was the last issue to contain a Coke back cover and this one depicts a girl taking a couple of cartons of Coke to the beach. It contains an article on Alaska’s Marine Highway as well as one on Saigon: Eye of the Storm.

I could go on and tell you about each of the 188 issues and include scans of all of the ads but then you wouldn’t have to find the rest of them on your own and that would take all the fun out of it.

I hope you enjoyed this short article and hope it inspired you to add a few National Geographic magazines to your Coke collection.