February 24, 2004

1965 Coke Football Caps

There is one period in the history of football that continues to fascinate me.  The 1960’s were such a glorious time for football in general and it is a time that holds great memories for me. 

The 1960’s had it all.  The National Football League that was dominated by Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers…  The upstart American Football League with run and shoot offenses and great players like Broadway Joe Namath…  A Canadian Football League with many American legends playing up north…  A college game that was played before large crowds on a Saturday afternoon…

Yes 1960’s had it all for football fans.  To me it was a great time to grow up watching football games and reading about the heroes of that time.  The 1960’s also produced many different types of collectibles.  Football cards, football magazines, bobbin heads, and felt pennants were just some of the wonderful collectibles of this era.  I love this time of football as the men who played it, in many cases, played it for the guts and glory of the game, not the commercialism that is evident in the game of 2004.

For collectibles, one interesting type collectible were Coca Cola bottle caps that featured NFL and AFL players from 1964 to 1966.  There was also a 1965 CFL set produced.  I always liked the 1965 Coke caps sets.

In 1965 Coke produced different sets.  Back in the old days, soda had a metal cap that had to be lifted off the bottle with a bottle opener (no we did not have screw on caps).  The underneath of the cap had a photo of the NFL or AFL player along with the players name and team.  Coke produced a national set of AFL and NFL stars, along with individual team sets that saw distribution in a certain team’s area.  The caps were found on Coke, Tab, Fanta and Sprite bottles although I have seen the most caps being with a Coca Cola top.  The National set was distributed in areas that did not have a team near them.  This National set had 70 caps to it. 

As a kid I remember saving these caps (and still have a few of them today) and bugged family to save the caps for me.  Living in Connecticut, I remember that there were many Giants and Jets caps available.

Coke produced a 34 All-Star set for both the NFL and AFL (68 caps in total) along with a saver sheet to put your caps in.  Remember to get the cap you had to lift the cap up off the bottle.  Therefore it is tough to find caps that do not have some sort of bend mark in them.  Coke also produced team sets for the Bears, Bills, Broncos, Browns, Colts, Eagles, Giants, Jets, Lions, Packers, Patriots, Raiders, Rams, Redskins and Vikings.

Since it was produced in 1965, these caps had many of the great NFL and AFL players in them.  The stars included Joe Namath, Bart Starr, Mike Ditka, Fran Tarkenton, Sonny Jurgenson, and Johnny Unitas just to name a few.

Up north in Canada, a 230 cap set of CFL players was produced in both English and in French.  Joe Kapp, Tommy Joe Coffey, and Angelo Mosca are some of the CFL legends that graced that set.

All in all the 1965 Coke caps have a niche in football collecting history and are pursued a great deal in 2004 by NFL, AFL and CFL fans alike.  I am currently collecting any 1964 to 1966 Green Bay Packers cap and have many in my collection.  Collecting these caps will not break your collecting budget either as many in lesser grade can be found at a reasonable price. 

I can almost taste the sweet soda of 1965 again.  I can still picture myself looking at those caps and the fun that I had with them.

Until next time good luck with your collections.

Bob Swick has been collecting football cards since 1965.  He also collects programs, yearbooks, media guides, ticket stubs, pocket schedules, and team photos of the Green Bay Packers, of which he is a shareholder.  He is also a member of The Professional Football Researchers Association.