COMING
SOON
1991
HYUNDAIs
TO
AS AN
OLDSMOBILE•SAAB
HYUNDAI
354E3300
on Telegraph at
Tel-12 Mall, Southfield
Sta tion, Inc.
:
,‘
os'
c
Poetic Expression for
Special Occasions
4
C.) Words are wi ndows into our mind-
p Someti mes a better gift you can 't find-
Words describe thoughts others can see-
And read over and over so happily-
Creation Station writes for any special time,
For a person or event--their own little rhyme!
Judee Herman
West Bloomfield, MI • (313) 626-5877
©The Creation Station, Inc. 1990
* centerpieces
with "PIZZAZZ"
* gift baskets
* balloons
* weddings
* showers
CALL DEBI
399-4148
Bar Mitzvah & Theme Party Specialist
A Very. Happy and Healthy
New Year to All Our Friends
and Family.
Cheryl, Lew, Rebecca
and Jason Silver
66 FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1990
BUSINESS
Coca-Cola
Continued from preceding page
toward the cocoa plant
extract. A health-conscious
pharmacist who marketed
his own medicines and tinc-
tures, Mr. Jacobs often scoff-
ed at Mr. Pemberton's peppy
tonic as a "belly wash."
"He didn't think much of
cocoa as being a healthful
product," said his 67-year-
old grandson Sinclair (Tory)
Jacobs, a Miami investment
banker. "But he was enough
of a businessman that if he'd
had the imagination to rec-
ognize its potential, he
would not have stayed so
honorable."
A native of Jefferson, Ga.,
Joseph Jacobs graduated
from the University of
Georgia and received his ad-
vanced degree at the
Philadelphia College of
Pharmacy and Science. At
one time, he apprenticed
under the notable Crawford
W. Long, Jefferson's leading
physician who also ran the
town's only drug store. Dr.
Long was the discoverer of
the use of ether as an
anesthetic. Dr. Long's
discovery is considered to be
one of the two most impor-
tant developments in
Georgia pharmaceutical his-
tory. The second develop-
ment is the creation of Coca-
Cola.
Mr. Jacobs admitted he
erred in trading his interest
in the sugary syrup in 1887
to his friend Asa Candler, a
drug store wholesaler and
retailer up the street. Mr.
Candler ultimately took
complete control of the stock
from other investors and the
rest is sweet success.
"After disposing of my
Coca-Cola stock to Mr.
Candler, I never owned any
more of it, which evidences
my poor judgment," Mr.
Jacobs wrote in a 1929
pharmaceutical magazine
article called: "How I won
and lost an interest in Coca-
Cola."
With no hint of bitterness,
Mr. Jacobs writes in Drug
Topics of what amounted to
a worthless business deal
with Mr. Candler. In return
for his stock, Mr. Jacobs was
to receive a glass factory on
South Pryor Street. This fac-
tory, on which the insurance
had been allowed to lapse,
was destroyed shortly after-
ward by fire.
"In his office I spoke to
him in a jocular manner,
saying I thought I should be
recompensed for his wor-
thless glass stock," Mr.
Jacobs wrote.
In the agreement with Mr.
Candler, Mr. Jacobs would
also receive odds and ends
from Mr. Candler's store
such as pewter syringes,
wooden pill boxes, empty
bottles and bed pans.
Lest one consider Mr.
Jacobs to be a poor busi-
nessman, the pharmacist
went on to become the domi-
nant drug store chain
operator in Atlanta. At the
time of his death in
September 1929, Mr. Jacobs
owned eight stores in the
city. The drug chain, which
grew to 21 stores, was passed
down to his son Sinclair
Jacobs, a pharmacist. Mr.
Jacob's son sold the chain
after World War II to an In-
dianapolis firm. Today, Rev-
co Drugs owns the original
Jacobs' pharmacies.
In his heyday, Mr. Jacobs
became a master merchan-
Mr. Jacobs often
scoffed at
Mr. Pemberton's
peppy tonic as a
"belly wash."
dicer, the first to introduce
"cut price" retailing in the
South. Selling items priced
at $1 for 98 cents and 50 cent
items for 49 cents created a
stir in local retail circles,
since the smallest coin in
circulation in the South was
a nickel.
To make change, Mr.
Jacobs ordered 3,000
pennies from Washington,
D.C., according to Atlanta's
official historian, Franklin
Garrett. The author of
Atlanta and its Environs,
Garrett wrote that the
young druggist became the
target for threats of lawsuits
and even physical violence.
"But in time indignation
upon the part of other mer-
chants simmered down. The
penny was here to stay,"
Garrett wrote.
In his laboratory, Mr.
Jacobs duplicated many na-
tionally advertised patent
medicines and sold them at
greatly reduced prices, ac-
cording to a former employee
of Sinclair Jacobs named
Clarence Feibelman. Ten
years before he died in 1987,
Mr. Feibelman told the
Altanta Historical Society
that Mr. Jacobs duplicated a
female remedy called
Pinkham's Compound and
labled it Luxomni
omni-light).
The pharmacist, Mr.
Feibelman said, made a
practice of driving on coun-
try roads, advertising Lux-
omni on trees and posts.
Around one such sign, a
small community grew and
the settlers, seeing the sign,
named the town Luxomni.
The original preparations
Mr. Jacobs compounded
were medicines for gonor-
rhea, abortion, sexual viril-
ity, worm expellants and
rheumatism. They became
prohibited under the Food,
Drug and Cosmetic Act of
1938.
Mr. Jacobs became a
distinguished Atlanta
citizen and led a well-to-do
life on his 40-acre estate. His
grandson Tory remembers
attending pit barbecues at
his grandfather's home in
the 1920s and watching
guests play shuffleboard in
pavilions.
Mr. Jacobs and his wife
Claire had two children,
Sinclair and Wilfred.
Wilfred died in 1900;
Sinclair Jacobs lived until
1977 and had one child,
Sinclair Jr., nicknamed
Tory.
Tory Jacobs has a collec-
tion of mementos from his
grandfather's life. He owns a
one-of-a-kind piece of Coca-
Cola memorabilia that
would make a collector's
mouth water: an original
framed photograph of the
Jacobs Pharmacy fountain
where the first Coca-Cola
was served in 1886.
Tory Jacobs doesn't con-
sider himself an avid collec-
tor of Coca-Cola artifacts,
but in Tangiers, Morocco, he
once stumbled on a real find.
He picked up a dusty, six
ounce hourglass bottle with
Coca-Cola written in Eng-
lish and Arabic.
For a moment, the Miami
investment banker couldn't
help but wax nostalgic on a
family fortune that might
have been.
"It tickles me to see what's
happened," he said. "Coke is
now the best trademark in
the world, an ambassador of
goodwill for the United
States." ❑
N EWS
Planck Director
Awarded Prize
Tel Aviv (JTA) —
Belgian-born Professor Jozef
Stefaan Schell, 54-year-old
director of the Max Planck
Institute for Plant Breeding
in Cologne, West Germany,
is the recipient of the
$100,000 Wolf Prize in
agriculture for 1990, the
Israel-based Wolf Founda-
tion has announced.
Professor Schell is being
honored for development
and helping disseminate a
principal method for gene •
transfer now being used
around the world to breed
better disease-and pest-
resistant crops.