My brother and I did the same thing.
Enough 3¢ bottles and we had a 12¢ comic book or package of Hostess cup cakes, Twinkies or Snowballs.
Only 10,000? PIKERS!! Years ago we would “smuggle” 40,000 cans from Iowa to Michigan...........cans were double stamped Iowa 5 cents, Michigan 10 cents.
We got busted! Fined us $25 and gave us our cans back!
After spending the night in the Benton Harbor slammer.