---
title: "Which came first, Coca-Cola or the telephone?"
description: "Coca-Cola vs the telephone: the telephone came first, by 10 years — 1876 against 1886. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/coca-cola-vs-telephone/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Coca-Cola or the telephone?

**Which came first, Coca-Cola or the telephone?: the telephone**

1876 — 10 years before Coca-Cola

the telephone came first, by 10 years. Bell was granted US patent 174,465.

## Side by side

|  | Coca-Cola | the telephone |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1886 | 1876 |
| Date | 1886-05-08 | 1876-03-07 |
| Category | company | invention |
| What happened | John Pemberton first sold his syrup at a pharmacy in Atlanta. | Bell was granted US patent 174,465. |

## Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola went on sale in May 1886 as a patent medicine, selling about nine glasses a day in its first year. Pemberton sold the rights for a few thousand dollars and died in 1888 without seeing any of it. Pepsi followed in 1893 under the name Brad's Drink, renamed Pepsi-Cola in 1898 — so Coke is seven years older, and both are older than the Ford Motor Company.

## the telephone

Bell's patent was granted on 7 March 1876 and he made the famous call to Watson three days later. Elisha Gray filed a caveat for a similar device on the same day in February that Bell filed his application, and the priority dispute has never entirely gone away. Antonio Meucci had demonstrated a working voice telegraph in New York in 1860 but could not afford to renew his caveat.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Coca-Cola or the telephone?

the telephone, by 10 years — 1876 against 1886.

### When did Coca-Cola start?

1886. John Pemberton first sold his syrup at a pharmacy in Atlanta.

### When did the telephone start?

1876. Bell was granted US patent 174,465.

## Related pages

- [Big Ben or the telephone?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/big-ben-vs-telephone/)
- [the Statue of Liberty or the telephone?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/statue-of-liberty-vs-telephone/)
- [the Eiffel Tower or the telephone?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/eiffel-tower-vs-telephone/)
- [Germany or the telephone?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/germany-vs-telephone/)
- [the hamburger or the telephone?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/hamburger-vs-telephone/)
- [the bicycle or the telephone?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/bicycle-vs-telephone/)
- [photography or the telephone?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/photograph-vs-telephone/)
- [the fax machine or the telephone?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/fax-machine-vs-telephone/)
- [the telephone or television?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/telephone-vs-television/)
- [the lightbulb or the telephone?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/lightbulb-vs-telephone/)
- [the car or the telephone?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/car-vs-telephone/)
- [the car or Coca-Cola?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/car-vs-coca-cola/)

## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]
- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History — Smithsonian Institution (https://naturalhistory.si.edu/)