Nostalgia @lemmy.ca The Picard Maneuver @lemmy.world 1 mo. ago

Winning stuff from bottle caps.

Apparently the story goes that this 20-25 year old bottle was found in 2016(?), which went viral online, and Nintendo wound up sending the guy an unopened SNES anyway. (Plus a bunch of other stuff)

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Just the whole contests being offline and straightforward in general.

Nowadays, it's "enter the code on our website, view the ads, give us your name and email so we can send you more ads and sell your info to other advertisers. Also, you're not a winner. Buy more [product] and try again!'

I miss the days when your bottle cap said "You won a free 20oz bottle" and you could just hand that to the cashier as if it were cash.
- I worked in a grocery store during these promotions. Only the winning bottles had anything printed under the cap, so you could hold an unopened bottle up to the light to see. If you saw text, it was a winner, and I would stash those in the beer cooler for break time.
  
  I know you could peek under the cap that way, but I also recall caps that said "Sorry, try again" or something like that. Maybe those "not a winner" messages were added as a response?
- In the summer of 1980 RC Cola was giving cash prizes from the bottle caps of glass bottles. None of it was serious money. I remember five, ten, and twenty five cent winners with maybe a dollar thrown in there every once in a while.
  
  It was pretty exciting for me to find a quarter under my bottle cap. That would buy a candy bar at the time, so sugar rush bonus!
  
  I love the idea of that, but it does not sound very sanitary at all lol.
  
  Edit: Actual quarter or something you could redeem for a quarter?
- I did always wonder the logistics behind that. Did those businesses get reimbursed from the contest runners? I like the idea of them trading in their piles of caps for cash
  
  Yes, you can find dollar off coupons in stores and the fine print says the merchant will be reimbursed
  
  They did.
  
  When the distributor came to re-stock them, they'd settle up and either get reimbursed or would have a credit applied to their current/next shipment.
  
  They gave it to the soda distributor who would stock the soda. Guy in the Pepsi or Coca Cola truck would take it.
  
  Or, ya know, a bank transfer. Or check. I'm not imagining RC cola coming in with a bag full of cash.
  
  That seems like a "only at participating stores" sort of thing, wbere the local owner eats the loss in exchange for more people in the store.
- I miss the days when your bottle cap said “You won a free 20oz bottle” and you could just hand that to the cashier as if it were cash.
  
  Stop. PLEASE!
  
  ........I can only get SO erect!
- One time I went on a weird streak of one free soda winning me another free soda. It kinda freaked me out, hah.
  
  Loved when that happened. I think my best streak was 3. It was the 10-year old version of winning the lottery.
  
  I had a really long steak of that with scratchers lottery tickets. I bought five $1 scratchers, won a couple dollars, so bought scratchers with them, and just kept doing that. At some point, I cashed in my original $5 because I'd won more than that on a round, but it was a freakishly long streak and I was sad when it ended.
One time I bought a crunch bar in 1993. I won a free crunch bar. So I walked back into the store to redeem it almost immediately after walking out. THAT one won a free crunch bar. And again, I walked right back in and redeemed. THAT ONE TOO won a free chunch bar.

This went on for some time. After like the 6th one I stopped walking out, and just opened the wrapper at the counter. I ended up paying for 1 crunch bar, and walked away with 17.
- I'm sorry to hear about your diabetes.
Nintendo probably also sued him, just because.
- I mean, we can assume OP is lying but there is a follow up in the description of the post.
  
  Mine was a joke. I read the post. (For anyone who doesn't know, Nintendo is very litigious and sues individuals often for piracy. They have the legal right to do so, but other companies kind of ignore the piracy scene. Nintendo is very protective. They are often vicious in seeking punitive damages.)
That's clearly a game boy, and it seems to be just a third of it.
- It's very odd. To me, it sort of looks like a SNES cartridge, but with a dpad and buttons added.
  
  That’s 100% a GameBoy, and it’s even got Tetris on the screen.
  
  The ME next to it makes me think that maybe you had to get all the bottle-caps to spell the whole name, like GA, ME, and BOY. That’s just a thought though.
Nintendo wound up sending the guy an unopened SNES anyway.

It’s the one no one claimed from the contest.
Nintendo wound up sending the guy an unopened SNES

Of course they did, it says '92', which clearly meant an expiry in 2092 starting as of, I don't know, about the year 2000.
Looks like a Gameboy to me.

It's definitely a Gameboy with Tetris on it.
It's like that episode of the Simpsons where Homer eats a box of 30 year old animal crackers and wins an African safari.
Also known as how to get the rest of the kids in the car mad at you for winning a free Dew.
Originally posted to Reddit (His cousin found it): https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/2bltau/my_cousin_found_a_1992_mountain_dew_bottle_in_a/

Nintendo & Mountain Dew came through (An SNES, Wii U, and Mountain Dew swag): https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/2dc93v/update_super_nintendo_mountain_dew_bottle/

Sorry for Reddit links. I don't know how to bypass. Especially on mobile!
My friend taught me how to find winners by just looking up at it at an angle. Many free cokes were had in my childhood. It was a sad day when they switched to redeemable codes.

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