The Coca-Cola Company sought ways to increase their prices, even approaching the U.S. Treasury Department in 1953 to ask that they mint a 7.5 cent coin.[1] The Treasury was unsympathetic. In another attempt, The Coca-Cola Company briefly implemented a strategy where one in every nine vending machine bottles was empty.[1] The empty bottle was called an "official blank".[2] This meant that, while most nickels inserted in a vending machine would yield cold drinks, one in eight patrons would have to insert two nickels in order to get a bottle. This effectively raised the price to 5.625 cents.[1] Coca-Cola never implemented this strategy on a national scale.