Creative Ideas for old bottlecaps

@Lahoi the anchor is really cool. The states are nice too, but the anchor works best. Nice work!

 

Thanks. The links got removed. I didn't mean to derail the thread or anything, moderators. Sorry. Now, in response to the OP here is the link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/141868108@N08/shares/082482

 

I use this: http://gropener.com/ . Dumb name but it's very nice. Magnetic side so it sticks to the fridge, keeps caps completely flat, and small so it packs easy if you need to.

Also, most of these style openers don't bend the cap in my experience:

 

This is becoming increasingly hard to photograph: Like Mothergooose was saying, I am running out of room around here! (Don't tell my wife, but the doorway to the laundry room is going to have a bottlecap-covered door soon...) I have almost 6,000 different ones, with about 60-70 more to add. I just got about twenty new caps on a road trip to Oregon and Seattle; Seattle alone could have filled up the rest of this wall if l had the money!

 

Wow. Impressive, to say the least. Do you also catalog them? My collection is miniscule compared to yours, but I am already seeing that I cant keep up with the details in my head.

 

Thanks - my collection is twnty-eight years old this month! I write the name of the brewery and the state/country of origin on the backs of them if it isn't otherwise obvious. I kinda wish l had also written the dates l received them, too. I also keep them in order of country, brewery, style and age.

 

28 years??? Well that puts me on pace. I've been at it for merely one year, and in that time I have accumulated almost 250. So that will put me at 7000 in another 27 years. Gulp. Sounds daunting! I have a feeling each passing year will become increasing difficult to add unique caps. Simple math would tell me that. Oh well. It is fun for me, so I will try not to make it a competition.

 

I don't know if you trade or not, but there are websites dedicated exclusively to bottlecaps and trading. It is all too easy to increase the size of your collection, believe me! I think that l've added 400-500 in trades since l started trading, but it's time-consuming and costs dough, of which l have little. This is especially true of international trades! (Watch out if you go this route: collectors from former Eastern Bloc countries and Spain WANT YOUR CAPS...badly!) I could go a lot crazier if l wanted to, considering l'm sitting on an extra 30,000 crowns!
Ebay is another way to get them fast but, again, you could spend plenty of $$ quick. I have never done it but, damn, there a lot of caps there!
I got most of mine from either friends or family on their travels, finding them on the ground (not too often anymore) and the best way: buying the beer underneath them!
As much as l love beer, collecting caps got me into good beer, not the other way around!

 

Don't look now, but I think I might have finally figured out how to post pics. One small step for man, one giant leap for me.

Here is a test run.

 

A friend of mine bought a lamp at an antique shop that had a glass bowl as a base. He had started saving caps before he got the lamp. So, when he was ready (had enough caps) he put a layer of the ones he liked best (different breweries, colors, beers, whatever) leaning against the glass, facing out. Then took a bunch of the duplicates, bent ones, boring one and filled in the center. Repeated the process all the way up, so that the interesting ones are facing out all the way up. It's a good way to use up all the dupes ya end up with.

 

Sign up on Photobucket. You just drag 'n' drop your picture from your desktop to your 'library' on Photobucket, click on the image, save it, come back to BA, click on the little mountain/sun icon in the reply box, paste the image on the line, click on 'insert' and BAM! You need a service to load photos here, and l've found PB to be the easiest. (I'm not too computer-literate, but this is easy!)

 

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I just purchased the US and then the NY. They look great on my den/office wall. Just wish I had been saving caps all this time! I would post a pic if I could ever figure out how.

 

See the post by SirBottlecap just above yours.

 

Thanks for sharing! These are really cool. Can you share info on how you get the caps to stay on the wood? Might need to add this to my 'to-do' list.

 

Thanks. I enjoy making things like this. If money was no object I would be a full time folk artist!

To affix the caps I use a little electric brad/nail gun. The gun is made by Arrow and I bought it at Home Depot several years ago. It shoots various sizes of nails, and I typically use a 5/8 inch nail. Mine came with a rubber bumper to keep from marring wood, or in this case, denting the caps. Hope that helps. Good luck.

 

Just a note for those of you that go with the maps they only fit standard caps so if you get Belgian 750 that are capped not corked they won't fit in the hole. They did just come out with a metal one that would not have that issue. Wish I would have waited.

Another idea is to make coasters. 8 caps will fit in the mold that I have from Michaels. Then just use epoxy to keep them in place. something like this...https://www.etsy.com/listing/175243...ALGLIY9oEHaIcJlvgqnrkh3iNAbZgF_eg4hoCVTLw_wcB