Many years ago in Atlanta, Georgia I walked into the home of the beer memorabilia collector. This was the first time I realized there was a collecting niche I knew nothing about, and it's centered on collecting everything and anything beer. On his shelves were neon beer signs, old beer cans, coasters, trade magazines, bottle tops, posters and more. This man was a true lover of beer.
The last time I'd seen this much beer memorabilia, I was a college student pledging a fraternity, and those frat boys didn't have collecting in mind.
Looking at eBay as I write this article, I see current auctions for Billy beer (Jimmy Carter's brother), beer posters, beer coasters, Moola hats from the Shriners, plastic beer cups (this is one I do not understand), Budweiser mugs, Heineken keg tapping system, and much more.
It's hard to believe there's an entire industry built around beer collectibles, or beer memorabilia, but it's a fact and is substantiated by the Associated Press, who ran a story on this very subject.
As I recall, the story was about an older man who lived in the Philadelphia area, and was one of more than 800 people attending the 36th annual convention of the Brewery Collectibles Club of America. The man was 63 years old and had been collecting beer cans since he was a student in college.
When he graduated, he only had about 250 cans, but he continued collecting through the years, till his collection grew to over 30,000 beer cans. Hard to believe? Simply check the Guinness Book of World Records and you'll find John Ahrens, listed there.
What I didn't know until I read the article was a wide variety of people are beer memorabilia collectors. According to the AP in attendance were professionals that included doctors, lawyers and pharmacists. You wouldn't have known from looking at them, they wore T-shirts touting their local breweries or favorite brand. They were simply a group of guys having fun and enjoying their hobbies and collections.
And here's another thing that surprised me, collecting beer memorabilia isn't limited to the United States, people attended this convention from Japan, Germany, South America and New Zealand. This wasn't the local beer joint, this was the Hyatt Regency Crown Center in Kansas City, collecting beer memorabilia is a worldwide phenomena.
The Brewery Collectibles Club of America was formed in St. Louis in 1970, at the time there were only about six people who enjoyed each other's company and talking about their collections. Over time the membership grew to over 10,000 people spanning the globe.
People come to these beer memorabilia conventions, to fill missing gaps in their collections, find a specific (hard to find) beer can, or collect a can from each country in the world. Others specialized in beer memorabilia from breweries in specific cities or eras in history.
Any time you have a group of people collecting, you also have the same group selling their wares. eBay reported one particular beer can selling for $23,000. While few have that amount of disposable income, that particular piece of beer memorabilia was made in the 1940s by Anheuser-Busch and featured a cone-shaped top. It's doubtful the beer tasted any different, but that's certainly an unusual beer can and not one you'll find on the side of the road.
There were people at this convention whose love of beer memorabilia defied description, some with collections dated to the early days of the beer industry. One man focused on repairing old, dented and rusty cans, there was a line forming at his table when I left. Beer memorabilia also includes the book "Beer Can Collecting, which is reported to us have sold over 80,000 copies.
If you're interested in beer memorabilia, you can begin your collection by simply walking down an old country road and seeing what you might find. If it happens to be a cone-shaped Anheuser-Busch can, please get in touch.
To find out more about Beer Memorabilia [http://www.beertips4u.com] and the people who have turned beer cans into a collectibles industry, please pay us a visit.
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