{"product_id":"1970s-sun-rise-grape-soda-cap-coca-cola-minnesota-vintage-treasures","title":"Vintage Sun‑Rise Grape Soda Bottle Cap 🍇 Coca‑Cola Bottling, Marshall MN (1970s)","description":"\u003ch2\u003eWho Bottled Sun-Rise Grape Soda? 🍇 A Sun Rising Over a Purple Horizon\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/4\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wq5vYUrzxzA\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eLook at the design before anything else, because whoever drew it was paying attention. The brand is \u003cstrong\u003eSUN-RISE\u003c\/strong\u003e, so the cap gives you a sun — a half-disc with rays coming off it — climbing over a silver band that runs straight across the middle of the cap like a horizon. The name is the picture and the picture is the name. On a deep grape-purple ground, in silver, at about an inch across. For a throwaway piece of tin, somebody thought about that.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🔍 Everything Printed on It\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eSUN-RISE\u003c\/strong\u003e curved across the top in silver capitals, with a registered \u003cstrong\u003e®\u003c\/strong\u003e beside it\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe \u003cstrong\u003erising-sun device\u003c\/strong\u003e below the name, rays fanning out over the horizon band\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eGRAPE SODA\u003c\/strong\u003e in heavy silver capitals across the lower half\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAround the bottom rim, small: \u003cstrong\u003eARTIFICIALLY FLAVORED AND COLORED. PRESERVED WITH BENZOATE OF SODA.\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eOn the crimped skirt, the bottler's line — \u003cstrong\u003eSUN-RISE INC., MARSHALL, MINN.\u003c\/strong\u003e — struck into the flutes and only partly legible on this example\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat rim line is worth a second of your time. \"Artificially flavored and colored\" is printed right on the front, not buried. So is the preservative, by name. There was a stretch of the twentieth century when a soda told you exactly what it was in plain type on the cap, and this is one of them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🏭 Where Sun-Rise Came From\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSun-Rise started a long way from Minnesota. The \u003cstrong\u003eTazewell Manufacturing Company\u003c\/strong\u003e was founded in \u003cstrong\u003e1910 by W. A. Scott\u003c\/strong\u003e in \u003cstrong\u003eNorth Tazewell, Virginia\u003c\/strong\u003e — deep in the coalfields of southwest Virginia — and Sun-Rise was its line of fruit-flavored soft drinks, sold alongside a root beer. Strawberry, orange, black cherry, lemon sour, grape. The kind of regional brand that owned a few counties and never expected to own more.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🥤 The Coca-Cola Chapter — and Marshall, Minnesota\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe brand later moved north and became \u003cstrong\u003eSun-Rise Incorporated of Marshall, Minnesota\u003c\/strong\u003e, and then it got the break most regional sodas never get. In \u003cstrong\u003e1956 the Coca-Cola Company took over the bottling and distribution of the Sun-Rise line\u003c\/strong\u003e, and a southwest-Virginia fruit soda went national on the back of the biggest bottling network in the country.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat is the single fact that makes this little cap interesting. Coca-Cola did not buy every flavor brand that came along — it carried Sun-Rise. For roughly two decades a Sun-Rise grape could turn up in a cooler a thousand miles from Tazewell County because a Coke bottler put it there.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt did not last. \u003cstrong\u003eSun-Rise ran into the 1970s and then disappeared\u003c\/strong\u003e, the way most of the second-tier flavor brands did as the soda business consolidated around a handful of names. The cap in front of you is from that last stretch — the brand still going, still under the Coca-Cola bottling umbrella, near the end of the line.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🎨 Why the Color Is Right\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrape soda caps had a job: tell you the flavor from across a room, upside down, in a dark cooler full of ice and water. Hence the purple, hence the silver, hence lettering heavy enough to read at a glance. The silver horizon band does double duty — it splits the cap so the brand sits on top and the flavor sits underneath, and it is the horizon the sun is rising over. Good, economical design in a format about the size of a quarter.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e✅ Condition\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNew old stock. Never crimped onto a bottle, never opened, no rust and no bends. Unused caps like this survived because a bottling line shut down, or a flavor was dropped, and a box of caps went on a shelf instead of onto bottles. The ones that did their job were levered off and dropped on the ground.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🎁 Good For\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eSoda and Coca-Cola bottling collectors\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eMinnesota and southwest Virginia local history\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBottle-cap collections, shadow boxes and magnet projects\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAnyone who likes a defunct brand with a real story behind it\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e❓ Questions People Ask\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eHow old is it?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e1970s. No date is printed on the cap; the dating comes from Sun-Rise's own timeline — national distribution under Coca-Cola from 1956, and the brand gone by the end of the seventies.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWas Sun-Rise a Coca-Cola brand?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNot originally. It began with the Tazewell Manufacturing Company in Virginia in 1910. Coca-Cola took over the bottling and distribution of the line in 1956, which is what put it on shelves nationally.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat does \"benzoate of soda\" mean?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSodium benzoate — the preservative. It is printed on the cap face, which is how soda labeling was done at the time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eHas it been used?\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo. New old stock, never put on a bottle.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1970s-coke-sun-rise-orange-soda-bottle-cap-coca-cola-moultrie-ga\"\u003eVintage Sun‑Rise Orange Soda Bottle Cap 🍊 Coca‑Cola Bottling, Moultrie GA (1970s)\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/1970s-big-b-grape-soda-bottle-cap-vintage-coca-cola-collectible-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1970s Big B Grape Soda Bottle Cap 🍇 | Coca‑Cola Bottling Thomasville NC\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/cock-n-bull-soda-bottle-cap-incredible-collectible-treasures\"\u003eRetro 2000s Cock 'n Bull Ginger Beer Bottle Cap 🐓 Soft Drink Crown, Dr Pepper Bottling, West Jefferson NC\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45132512887016,"sku":"VAG-8461662945512","price":5.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.5556711855_1xyi.jpg?v=1785440474","url":"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/1970s-sun-rise-grape-soda-cap-coca-cola-minnesota-vintage-treasures","provider":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","version":"1.0","type":"link"}