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Hey, it's Nick Fountain. Today, we're going to replay one of my absolute favorite episodes.

It first ran in 2012. Here it is.

This is Planet Money from NPR.

You know what the price of a Coca-Cola was in 1886? A nickel. In 1900, still a nickel.

Ten years later, 1910, a nickel. 1920, a nickel. 1930, a nickel. 1940, a nickel. 1950, a nickel.

As late as 1959, you could buy a six and a half ounce bottle of Coca-Cola for one nickel.

And for economists, this is a total freak of nature kind of thing.

Prices you can read in any textbook are supposed to go up and down.

The price of gasoline goes up and down depending on how much is available, how many people want it, how hard it is to get out of the ground.

The price of a television depends on how expensive the components are to make and the price of labor.

The price of butter goes up and down. Corn, cars, houses, everything.

Prices change. They adjust. It's the basic mechanism for how markets work.

And yet, for 70 years, you could buy a Coke for five cents.

Coca-Cola is the best drink in the land. Men, women, children in the country will.

But drink more Coca-Cola than any other one drink. It's the five cent drink of the nation.

Proof that Coca-Cola quenches your thirst, refreshes your spirits, throws your taste as nothing else does.

Get that handy six bottle cotton now. There's only one Coca-Cola in the distinctly bottles.

You know the bottle that fits your hand.

Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm David Kestenbaum.

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