As early as 1974, manufacturers started to gear up for the nation's upcoming BiCentennial milestone. Everything seemed to come in a "Special BiCentennial Commemorative Edition", whether it was collectable plates, cookie tins, beer cans, colored bottles with corks in the top (mom had 8 of those bottles and i pushed the corks down into the bottles and she couldn't retrieve the corks from inside the bottles so they were all ruined.... after all, I was only 8), candy bar wrappers, flags, belt buckles, playing cards, ceramic tiles, soda bottles, cereal boxes, etc. The list was endless. It was all pretty worthless junk, and the actual event itself seemed overshadowed by all the hype and marketing.