Wanted: A Whole Buncha Bottle Caps

September 20, 2006 9:07 PM

Where can I find/order/steal/buy large numbers of bottle caps in a hurry?

Okay, to make a long story short, I need large quantities of bottle caps. There's a project at my school that requires me and about 600 other people to get bottle caps by next week. The caveat? We each need 110 of them, so sources here are going to be completely dry.

So, I need a source for bottle caps, preferably on the internet and with overnight/quick shipping. I need at minimum 110, but I would ideally be able to get 3800 or so for the group of people I'm doing this with. Unfortunately, all Googling has garnered me is links to endless collectors sites, whereas I need bulk quantities of cheap, simple bottlecaps.

Can anyone help? Are there any recycling/bottling companies or something that you know of that would sell bottle caps or something? I'm in Texas and have limited transportation, if that helps.

posted by internet!Hannah to Shopping (15 answers total)

how 'bout these? The only issue is that they aren't bent all the way in like one you removed from a bottle would be.
posted by clarahamster at 9:12 PM on September 20, 2006

A beer brewing shop will have them.

If you want an online site, try Morebeer.
posted by Argyle at 9:14 PM on September 20, 2006

What kind of bottles? Beer bottles? Soft-drink bottles?

If the former, any bar should have a lot of them.
posted by lunchbox at 9:14 PM on September 20, 2006

Any brewing supply store will sell you bags of them. William's Brewing, for instance will sell you 320 caps for $5.50.
posted by octothorpe at 9:14 PM on September 20, 2006

Best answer: Home brewer stores should carry this. Try searching for "brewer supply" or the like on google. First 10 results gave this which offers 144 ct plain gold caps for $2.95 -- if that's not cheap enough, I'm not sure how much cheaper it'll get.
posted by fishfucker at 9:15 PM on September 20, 2006

Yes, you need to specifiy what type of bottle caps you need. There are tons of different kinds. You say the project is for your school, and so I assume beer-bottle-type caps, that many mefites have linked to, are off-limits. Do you mean pop bottle caps that twist on plastic soda bottles?
posted by ifranzen at 9:44 PM on September 20, 2006

110?! psh

Put up a sign at your local university/college. $0.01 per bottle cap. If there's on-campus housing and/or frat/sorority housing, you'll hit your quoto over the weekend.
posted by porpoise at 9:44 PM on September 20, 2006

In denton there's miller of denton and budweiser north texas. Chances of them selling a lot of bottle caps seems fairly high.
posted by nadawi at 9:59 PM on September 20, 2006

A redemption centre will have them.
posted by ODiV at 10:38 PM on September 20, 2006

Here's a list of 60 plastic bottle cap molders (2 pages), which produce caps for soda bottles, bleach jugs, and similar products. Call for quantities and prices, but 3800 caps is a vanishingly small quantity for these guys; they typically sell by the pallet box load, around 1000 lbs of injection molded parts. Tell 'em you are looking for sample quantities, for trials of a packaging machine.
posted by paulsc at 12:45 AM on September 21, 2006

If you can call up a few bars that serve beer in bottles, many have a separate bin for caps (underneat the counter-mounted opener). Depends on where you are and the volume that the locals have been drinking, but it could be a free option. I know arts-and-crafty folk who have done this for different projects, albeit with a little longer notice.
posted by zachxman at 1:58 AM on September 21, 2006

Response by poster: These are some great links, thanks! The bottle caps we need are the metal beer bottle type caps, and they'll be getting hammered flat, so how bent they are doesn't matter. Also, the college idea won't work--it's a large college organization (the Corps at Texas A&M) that's using these bottle caps, and you can bet some of the other people in it have already made the rounds. Still, those bottling supplies websites look really promising. Thanks for all the great help so far!
posted by internet!Hannah at 6:04 AM on September 21, 2006

I am interested in what you do with flattened bottle caps. I have several hundred bottle caps and sort of hunting around for a good use for all these things.
posted by mattbucher at 7:35 AM on September 21, 2006

Keep in mind that caps purchased from a beer store will likely be un-bent since they are designed to be sealed onto a bottle with a beer-capping-device. Since you are pounding them flat, this is probably ideal since they are halfway there already.

Also, these caps will often be blank. if you want something more colorful, consider collecting used ones in the methods others have suggested.
posted by utsutsu at 7:42 AM on September 21, 2006

A bar?
posted by DenOfSizer at 10:38 AM on September 21, 2006