Nehi Soda Pop rare 1927 Advertising Calendar

 See the eBay listing here (sold for $349)

Photo Caption:  Michael Elling wins an original copy of the first NEHI beverage calendar on eBay.  Classic pose of pretty girl ashore at lifeboat is rarely offered.

Contributed by Mike Elling -- 

"All Bottlers;  From our Femme Fatal desk comes the news Elling has achieved possession of his second in a series of glamor girl beverage calendars. 

In 1924, the Chero-Cola Company in Columbus, Georgia, issued a series of seven sweet artificial colored fruit flavored soft drinks in a larger 9 fluid ounce NEHI stocking bottle.  The standard size soda bottle for an individual serving was 6 fluid ounces, so making the bottlers purchase and use 9-ounce bottles was a revolutionary idea. 

NEHI, playing on the combination of the terms KNEE HIGH, was the right idea at the right time.  The products were an immediate success in the market place with the flavors orange, grape, or strawberry, often surpassing the standard cola products in various territories.

So successful was the brand, that by 1926 the company offered this calendar as an advertising piece for promoting their customer products in the new year.  The calendar artist is undefined indicating it as a standard product of the company.  They often made glamor pictures by an illustration team of artists under employment.  Later calendars signed by famous artists are far more valuable! 

The company changed its name to the NEHI CORPORATION in 1929. 

The seaside illustration is of a vibrant young lady with boyish short wavy hair dressed in a sailor-collared orange frock with a modesty cinch at the thigh.  That was to keep her flapper from revealing too much during those unpredictable sea breezes.  Her legs are warmly protected from splash and wind by white stockings and fashionable saddle shoes of brown and white leathers.  She is shown refreshing herself alone reclining against a life boat hauled securely to the beach.  The choppy white capped waves of the sea and the mostly cloudy day allow us to enjoy her bare arms which show no sign of sunburn. 

Ladies of the time always sipped from a straw when the container was a reusable bottle!  Her focus of attention is on the picture viewer who is invited to share the soda bottle in the foreground, which by illusion appears with her to be knee high. 

On calendars it is always best if they contain a full pad.  Collectors of the time, however, often trimmed off the expired pads and kept only the top illustration, which is today the most common way you find them.

Not everyone saw the trend as playful over and under by the sea!  Jeremiah Horsley, writing in the Journal of Social Trends, in July 1927, forecast increasing the size of sugar drinks could lead to dangerous levels of added fat to a nation already growing lazy from inadequate exercise.  The cause?  Riding everywhere in automobiles.  Woe to people of the future!"

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