Ink Blotter, Coca-Cola "Sprite Boy" Promotional Advertising, Original Lithograph, NOS, USA, 1953

Before there was a Sprite the soda, there was Sprite Boy — Coca-Cola's cheerful elfin mascot with a bottle cap for a hat.

Ink blotters were the desk essential of the pre-ballpoint era — absorbent cardboard cards distributed by businesses to soak up excess fountain pen ink, kept flat on desktops and glanced at dozens of times a day. Coca-Cola was a master of the promotional blotter, commissioning full-color lithographs that turned a utilitarian object into a tiny billboard. This one, copyright 1953, features Sprite Boy — the impish character introduced in 1942 who appeared on Coke advertising until the late 1950s. Found in an old Coca-Cola plant in New York state in unopened bundles, these are New Old Stock: never used, never bent, never placed on a desk. The slight yellowing is the only concession to seventy-plus years of existence.

A wonderful addition to a Coca-Cola collection, a mid-century desk display, or a gift for the ephemera lover who thinks they've seen everything.

• Type: Original promotional ink blotter — not a reproduction
• Brand: Coca-Cola, copyright 1953
• Image: Sprite Boy mascot, full color lithograph
• Dimensions: Approximately 7.75 inches wide
• Condition: Excellent NOS — slight age yellowing only; no creases, no bent corners, never used
• Material: Sturdy cardboard
• Quantity available: 3