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Question:

In the summertime there are always bottle cap contests from Coca-Cola and other soda companies. Kids go wild collecting bottle caps to such an extent that when there is a kiddush in shul, they jump all over the kiddush table for the caps. Is collecting the caps muktzah on Shabbat?

Answer:

Ordinarily objects which don't have intrinsic functional use are considered to be mukzah, in the category of mukzah mechamat avtala . This includes orange and banana peels, clods of earth and - generally speaking - discarded bottle caps . However if an individual ascribes to them a specific use before the advent of Shabbat, and certainly if a community of individuals have a recreational use for them by playing permissible games with them on Shabbat, they are then removed from the category of muktzah. Hence, I believe that it is possible to collect bottle caps on Shabbat .

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