PARKERSBURG, W.Va. (AP) – Local businessman Gary Traugh recently received the recognition he’s been seeking for two of his most prized possessions.

Traugh is the owner of two early point-of-sale advertisement cards by John Pemberton, inventor of Coca-Cola. The cards are featured on page 401 of the most recent edition of Allan Petretti’s Coca-Cola Collectibles Price Guide.

One card is listed as being worth $10,000 and the other more than $2,000.

The cards are advertisements for pre-Coca-Cola drinks developed by Pemberton. One of the cards features a parody of a Henry Longfellow poem. Traugh said he finds it interesting that an early advertisement for Coca-Cola featured a parody.

“Parodies are huge in advertising today. They’re still popular. To think Coke started their whole business on a parody,” he said.

A druggist, Pemberton invented his French Wine Coca in 1885 in Georgia. It was an alcoholic beverage he claimed would cure or treat all sorts of diseases and ailments, from morphine addiction to impotence.

“French Wine Coca was kind of like the big brother to Coke,” Traugh said, sipping from a glass bottle of Coca-Cola.

When Atlanta and Fulton County passed prohibition legislation, Pemberton developed a nonalcoholic version, which he named Coca-Cola.

Traugh’s cards were found by a peddler in 1994 along with a Pemberton business card. The peddler sold them to a Coke collector in Kentucky. Traugh acquired them in 1999.

“They had never been seen before and no one’s seen any like them since,” Traugh said. “These might be the only ones in existence.”

One card is mentioned via a brief description in a 1901 book on the history of Atlanta. A Coca-Cola company archivist also provided an early Pemberton invoice that included a number of advertisement cards.

“Everyone came to the conclusion that this card was it,” he said.

Traugh and his cards also were featured on an episode of History Detectives. The Petretti book was the last piece of authentication Traugh felt he needed for his cards. After buying the cards in 1999, he contacted Petretti hoping to get them in the next book. However, Petretti published his next edition in 2001 and it did not include the cards.

However, Traugh said he stayed in contact with Petretti, who told him the cards were accidentally omitted and he would include them in a future edition of the book. The latest edition of the book was just published, Traugh said.

Traugh said that it’s exciting to see the cards featured in the book. Petretti’s book is like the “bible” of Coca-Cola merchandise, he said.

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