Sets/series
From Crownpedia
Crowncap sets and series are a specialized area of some bottle cap collections. There are several different schools of thought on the exact definition of a set or series but in general they can be defined as:
Set(1) - Visually different caps placed onto the SAME style of product at the same time of introduction to the marketplace. An example is Rolling Rock's "Caps Off to Boston" from the United States or the Budweiser NFL football logos from Canada.
Set(2) - Crowns with a theme that are RANDOMLY placed onto all products of a manufacturers product line. Examples of this are many of the Italian sets, such as the Pokemons sets from the years 2000 and 2001 or some of the Stone Brewing products from the USA. It is possible with this type of set that you would see the same cap randomly on any of the bottles.
Completing bottle cap sets is usually fairly difficult to accomplish. This is because generally bottle cap sets are produced for a specific marketing push or in celebration of a specific event. This makes them very time dependent. Additionally, many bottle cap sets are large in numbers. It is not uncommon to see complete bottle cap sets in the range of 20-100 crowns. There are even some complete sets out there that number into the 100's or 1000's.
Sets also have one other distinction; they can be both on the face of the crown as well as the underside. For the majority of the bottle cap collectors who are actively seeking sets, the differences on the face of the crown are where most of the collecting interest is.
Caps from USA's Sierra Nevada, Canada's "Wild Rose" Brewery or Belgium's "Looza" brand are not sets as per the definition above.
Series - A bottle cap series is a grouping of bottle caps that are manufactured for the same product usually as a special yearly or seasonal release. The caps must visually differ from product release to product release. An example of a crowncap series is Sierra Nevada's "Bigfoot" Barley Wine from the United States.
Depending on date of first introduction of the product along with its popularity and distribution area series can also be extremely difficult to complete.
Generally set and series caps are traded amongst collectors for other set and series caps, but this is not always the case.
