Soda bottle caps are popular, and have come into their own as a collectible. They are very popular with bottle collectors and crafters who make all sorts of things with them. The cork lined crown bottle cap was patented in 1892 by William Painter. He came up with a single use cap with a cork lining he called a crown since it looked like the Queen’s crown. These were the primary cap used on soda and beer bottles all the way up until the late 1960s. During the mid 1960s cork got more expensive and plastic began replacing the cork in crown caps. Generally, the older caps have fancier designs and less ingredients listed on the face of the cap. Newer ones often have so many ingredients listed that you can hardly read the brand name. Many crown caps have been replaced with twist-offs over the last 30 years or so, and the crown cap is slowly disappearing from the landscape.
Milk bottle caps pretty much disappeared when they stopped making glass milk bottles which was over 30 years ago in most parts of the country. They have been popular for years with dairy and milk bottle collectors.
The vast majority of the bottle caps we sell are unused old stock found in old bottling plants and dairies. It is not unusual to find a lot of unused old cork lined soda caps in an old plant as they often had cases leftover when they changed from cork to plastic. The same with the dairies. When they went to plastic screw on bottles, they often had plenty of milk caps left they never used.
