Anthora Paper Cup Designer Dies

The New York Times ran an excellent story a few days ago on the death of a New York icon, Leslie Buck. The 87 year old Buck passed away at his home in Glen Cove, New York. Buck is known as being the designer of the ubiquitous Anthora coffee cop that dominated the streets of New York for nearly 4 decades. Beck introduced his novel coffee cup idea to the masses in 1963 and since then it has become a part of the daily ritual for millions of people.

Sales of the cup reached 500 million in 1994 (when it was by far the most popular design for the company’s cups), but fell to about 200 million cups annually in 2005. One New York Times writer in 1995 called the Anthora “perhaps the most successful cup in history”. By 2007, it was mentioned in passing in a New York Times television review as “one of those endangered artifacts” – Wikipedia.

The Anthora coffee cup features the image of an ancient Greek amphora, a decorative border on the top and the bottom, and the capitalized slogan, “WE ARE HAPPY TO SERVE YOU.” The Solo cup company, which purchased the rights to the Anthora cup discontinued it from their catalog in 2006, however, they still have it available for custom orders.

Buck’s NY Times obituary can be seen here.

On the left is the original Anthora coffee cup and to the right is a replica ceramic version.

Photos courtesy of Flickr users mttsndrs and brotherM.