Collecting beer cans. The largest collection of beer cans

The Australian Beer Can Collectors Association has held its annual CANathon, a gathering of beer can and other paraphernalia collectors that has been running since 1980. Every year CANathon takes place in a different city and lasts four days. Collectors bring only small portions of their collections, which can number in the thousands. Serious collectors even remodel their homes, adding sheds or converting garages to house their collections. However, many collectors don’t even drink beer.

This year the meeting took place in the city of Echuca in northern Victoria. A VICE correspondent asked collectors why? Why do they collect beer cans?

Adam Murphy

VICE: Who are you and how many cans do you have?

Adam: Well, I've been the Victoria chapter president for 29 years. I have over 8,000 jars and I just love jars!

Do you like cans, or do you like beer?

No, just the appearance. My wife also collects cans. She has about 12 thousand of them. We have a large basement under our house where we store all this. I have my own den, and next month I will build another one. A new room will cost me about 14 thousand dollars (660 thousand rubles).

Describe an evening in your den. Do you drink beer from cans?

No, they're $50 a box and I don't empty them. Look, I'll show you a photo...

So what do you do with them?

I put them on the shelf. I have several photos with me, I will show you. Here's the updated downstairs bedroom. There are lanterns and signs there - cool. I had a room under the house, so I just needed to spend a little time on it.

And all those cardboard cutouts?

These are my guards. Almost the entire lower part of the house is a collection of beer cans from all over Australia. The figures protect her.

Gaylin and David Burtt

VICE: How did you start collecting?

Gaylin: We collect together - we started on our honeymoon. There we bought our first set of cans. I collect mostly everything from cola. There is also a large club for cola collectors.

But why don't you collect beer cans? Is this a men's club?

Simply because he was already collecting beer cans and I needed to collect non-beer cans. If someone wants to exchange a cola can for a beer can, fine. We have a joint collection.

What else do you collect?

I have 3500 frogs.

Whyfrogs?

Don't know. One appeared, then two. And then one day there were 3,500 of them - about like a snowball. When I ran out of room for frogs, I started collecting Glomesh handbags, kewpie dolls, and branded coffee mugs.

Why are you both collecting cans?

This is something we can do together.

When do you think enough is enough?

Never - you just keep going. I collected things before I met my husband, and now we have been collecting together for 38 years. This is something we can do together and we will never stop.

Have you ever thought that collecting is a recipe for clutter?

No. We have a museum at home. We have equipped everything for our collections. We're neat.

How much money did you spend renovating your home to house your collections?

We could have gone on a cruise around the world, but instead we built another garage for our collections. It cost 70 thousand dollars (3.3 million), and it was built specifically for collections.

What happens if your house burns down and you lose everything? What will you do?

I'll cry and start again.

Ron King

VICE: Tell us about your favorite can. Is she here?

Ron: My favorites are at home. I don't give the best.

Tell us about the first jar in your collection.

I was 17 years old. It was Carlton Draft, I opened it from the bottom and that's where it all started. I got into this club in 1980, and it opened in 1979. So I've been here for 38 years.

But why are you doing this?

Well, it's too late to stop and ask this question, right?

Interestingly, only 50-60 year olds seem to be at the meeting. Why are there no young people here?

Yes, it's worrying. I've been at the club for 38 years, and it bothers me that young people don't come to us. You probably like going to the pub and drinking Jim Beam or Jack Daniels. When I was growing up I would go to the pub and drink beer. It's hard to promote our cause. We send letters to invite you to the club. In the old days, people would go to a supermarket or shopping center and set up a table there. For a long time I was a member of the American Can Collectors Club, but now I'm just here.

Lindsay Watson

VICE: Lindsay, why are you doing this?

Lindsay: I'm more interested in the container rather than the content. You can see how beer cans have changed significantly over time. You can see their development. Good example- XXXX jar from Brisbane. They used to have a picture of a brewery with smoke coming out of the chimney. But then security became popular environment, and XXXX removed the smoke. These are the little things. Banks document changes in the world.

How many cans do you have?

I have about 6 thousand - quite small compared to some here.

What do you do with the beer you don't want to drink?

I'm emptying cans. I have friends who are willing to help me drink it, but most of the time I just throw the beer away.

What will you answer to those who call you a “shopper”?

I think that any hobby can get out of control. You become selective. Some cans may have minimal differences - just the inscriptions change or something like that. I don't pay attention to it. But if you start collecting cans with minimal differences, then things have gotten out of control.

Colin Kennedy

VICE: Colin, why are you doing this? How did you start collecting cans?

Colin: My neighbor and I were close friends; many years ago we used to go on holiday together. We tried different beers there and started putting the can on a small shelf at home. One day my friend asked, “Did you know that a lot of guys collect beer cans?” I replied: “Lie more! Who will do this? He said: “Well, we will!” Then my friend joined the collectors club and soon said: “You should come to the meeting with me and look at these guys. They went wild." And indeed, it is so.

Have you gone crazy?

Yes! I moved the collection from the bar area to my daughter's bedroom.

Have you moved the jars into your daughter's bedroom?

Yes, after she moved out and got married. She won't come back to us.

What does your wife think about this?

Well, she's glad that I'm not at home, but in the barn. She collects teddy bears. She has something like 60 bears. My son is 45 and he collects model cars. He still lives with us and has no plans to move out!

What do you enjoy most about the collecting process?

Drink beer.

Steve and Janet Chadwick

VICE: Why do you like banks?

Janet: I don't like them. I'm tired of cans. Steve drinks from cans. He doesn't even collect them. I'm currently in the process of going through boxes and boxes and boxes of cans and I've found so many duplicates of everything. I told him: “If you bring home more duplicates, I will break them all.”

Steve, what would you do if your wife broke all your cans?

She wouldn't do that - I would have provided myself with an alibi first.

Do you only collect cans?

Janet: We have over 600 mirrors. We have neon lights. We have a cola collection, a unicycle collection and a coffin collection; we have everything.

Paul Sirak

VICE: Paul, how many cans do you have?

Paul: I've been collecting for 30 years and have about 4,000 cans. This is the average amount. Some collectors have up to 10 thousand of them. I would call four thousand a fairly average collection. I keep the collection in a shed in the garden. She can't be in the house.

What does your wife think about banks?

As long as they're in the barn, she's happy.

Tell us about these banks with the young ladies.

They are from Scotland. For several years they released cans with different girls. In the last five or six years there has been an objection to the pictures of girls on the cans, so they are no longer produced.

What do you think about the young ladies? Do you miss them?

Yes, I think they are quite attractive. Scotland is a very conservative country, but we are more open-minded. It's the same brand, but the cans are smaller.

Why do you collect cans? For what?

I think you need foraging genes. Difficult to calculate. I myself thought: why do I collect? Answer: because I enjoy it.

What exactly makes you happy?

Just look at them. Plus I like looking for them. For example, this one. When I found out that there were 19 pieces in the set, I had to run around and look for the missing ones.

John Dunn

VICE: John, if your house burned down and you had to choose between saving your wife or your...

John: I would take out my wife. She would be furious if I didn't do this.

Did you have to remodel your home to accommodate your collection?

We just installed an elevator. It cost 40 thousand dollars (1.9 million rubles).

What would you tell someone who wants to start collecting?

Welcome to the club, because we are dying out. Every year the club has fewer and fewer members. Some young people will never take it up. But my grandson is 11 and he is interested.

Is he interested in drinking beer from cans?

No no. Only with tap handles. He helps me to his father's displeasure. I'll leave them all to him.

Why are you collecting all this, John?

Why not?

I remember in the late 80s and early 90s it was very fashionable to collect beer cans. Well, they didn’t exist before in the USSR, they simply didn’t exist. And then beer appeared in various colorful cans, how can you not start collecting them! :)

Some managed to collect quite large collections. However, few of our compatriots have collected as large a selection of beer cans as Nick West, a 51-year-old banker from Britain who has been collecting them for 35 years in a row. His huge collection includes 6,788 beer cans.

Nick began collecting cans at the age of 16, when his future wife Dorothy gave him a book about collecting. The poor thing could not even imagine what this innocent gift would lead to.

According to Dorothy, she is unhappy with her husband's hobby for many reasons, starting with the fact that this pile of cans takes up the largest room in their house, ending with the fact (and I will tell you that this is the most powerful argument) that Nick spends quite a significant amount of money for rare vintage beer cans, which hits hard family budget. For example, one of the first beer cans produced in Britain was purchased for 2,000 bucks.

Having acquired new jar beer for his collection, Nick usually drinks beer, but does it in an unusual way. He does not rip off the lid, but makes two holes in the bottom of the jar, carefully pours the contents into a glass and then drinks. And all this in order to damage the jar as little as possible.

As Wikipedia tells us, this is an occupation that involves compiling a set of objects, often similar and of some significance to the person or group of people involved in this. Simply put, collect several objects that have the same origin or are related to a single item and you will get a collection.

These items may have different shapes, size, properties and generally differ from each other, like an iron teapot of the early 20th century from a plastic one of the 21st century. However, if you put them together, it becomes a collection.
And one of the objects can become the most ordinary object. This object could be a simple aluminum can. Many of you will say that there is nothing new to say about it. But look around. Take a close look. And you will notice how many familiar things are created and used in ways unknown to us. We throw them away as soon as we no longer need them. And only a few find new ways to use it.

For example, it starts collect aluminum cans. Collecting aluminum cans initially a rewarding activity. Cans are cheap, light, environmentally friendly and there are many of them. The world produces 200 billion cans every year. Available in a wide variety of colors, shapes and applications. Wide field for collector activity.
The aluminum beer can was produced in 1958. Its bottom and walls were made as one whole, without a seam. Only the cover was attached (folded). And in 1963, for the first time, a lid with an aluminum ring appeared, for which it did not require can opener. In 1962, a standard metal beer can was produced. Even then, in the USA and Western European countries, metal cans for beer, mostly in the form in which we buy them today (with a pull-off tab).

Nowadays there are many types of aluminum cans. I will give examples of several of them.
- there are ordinary, so to speak, aluminum bottles. They have a thread and a screw cap. These jars are especially popular in Japan, where they are made with various patterns, disguised as porcelain, etc.
- there are jars between the walls of which endothermic and exothermic reactions can take place. That is, cooling the drink or warming it up. All you have to do is press.
-regular, two-layer aluminum cans.

As you can see, to become a collector, you don’t have to spend a lot of effort and money. It's enough not to throw away a can of juice or beer.
You can start the same way

The history of cans goes back less than one century. In the EX-USSR space it is even less. The first copy of the Golden Ring was released jointly by almost all Moscow breweries for the 1980 Olympics. Then they forgot about this type of packaging. But we have had can collectors for quite a long time. Many began in childhood by searching through garbage dumps for hotels where foreigners were staying. They also took soft drinks, then specialization began.

By the way, due to the riskiness of this type of activity, the first to come to the jarring soil were commodity-money relations, which are still poorly distributed among label makers and cork makers. But this is a separate topic. In fact, the cans are easy to assemble. I bought it, drank it, washed it, and put it on the shelf. bought can be replaced with picked up, since the rule of throwing garbage in trash bins has never caught on here. Going to the reception is also pointless. The desired product is accepted only in wrinkled form. There are virtuosos who can restore an object literally from nothing, but you still need to look for them. In connection with the emergence of Russian canned products, the whole world is gradually losing its position. Among modern collectors, country restrictions are more popular. The classification of beer cans differs little from that described above, but has certain features. First of all, the can almost always bears the mark of the can manufacturer's plant. This gives rise to a lot of variations in the presence of one known type, i.e. drawing on the can. As you know, any large brewery does not put its eggs in one basket. In the sense that orders for components (labels, caps, jars, etc.) are placed with several manufacturers. Cans come in aluminum and steel. Fortunately, collectors do not pay attention to this, because there are no pure aluminum or tinsmiths. Another thing is that few people collect the mentioned variations. From my own experience, I will say that this approach is more suitable for one-trippers. Banks have various capacities, from 0.25 to 5 liters. What to collect from it, each jar maker decides for himself. As a specific small form, a mini-KEG with a volume of 5 liters can be a separate collectible item, or be part of a general can collection.

Storage of cans is similar to bottles. Full cans It is impossible to store for a long time, although the liquid can retain its properties even after the expiration date. Among Russian collectors, fortunately, the method of opening cans from the bottom, by piercing a couple of holes, is not very common. Appearance with this method it may be more presentable, but let’s not forget that the lid is put on the jar separately. That's why unsealed jars don't have it. There were also no Orthodox people observed in this segment of collecting. Perhaps contacts with can factories can also benefit collectors in a similar way to visiting printing houses. This is especially true for series or limited edition cans.