What beer can collecting involves

Most sessions are an hour at a table: emptying and rinsing new cans, working out when each was made, wiping it down and finding its place on the shelf. The rest is the hunt. Current cans come from stores and taprooms, older ones from estate sales, flea markets, club shows and trades by mail, and the oldest from the ground. Collectors trade far more than they buy, so duplicates are worth keeping: a can that is common where you live is often unknown three states away.

Close-up of a row of vintage steel beer cans standing side by side on a dark shelf — Vintage cans on a shelf

Pick a direction

Current craft cansNew releases from small breweries, many produced once and never again. Everything is bought at shelf price and the supply never stops.

Start here

Next time you buy beer, choose four cans you have never seen instead of a familiar six-pack, open each from the bottom, and shelve them in the order you bought them.

Hometown and state cansEvery brewery that has canned beer where you live. A finite list with a local story behind each name, and the most common way people start.

Start here

List every brewery that has ever canned beer in your state or city, then look for one can from each, starting with the ones still open.

Rusty Cans: collecting basics

Vintage steel cansFlat tops and cone tops from 1935 to the early 1960s. The historic core of the hobby, bought at shows and from other collectors, with prices from a few dollars to four figures.

Start here

Find the nearest club chapter show on the calendar and go with $20. Buy one flat top and one cone top in average condition so you can handle the real thing before spending more.

Brewery Collectibles Club of America

DumpingDigging decades-old cans out of forgotten trash sites in woods and on old farms. The cans are free and rusty, and cleaning them is a skill of its own.

Start here

Ask an older relative or a landowner you know where the family or the farm used to throw its trash, get permission in writing, and spend an hour raking the top few inches.

Rusty Cans: dumping

Sets and themesSports teams, holiday designs, commemoratives, or one brand's label through every redesign. A checklist you can finish.

Start here

Pick one finite set, such as every can a single sports team has appeared on, write the checklist, and tick off the cheapest can on it first.

Open a direction to see its first step. Dumping adds gloves, a hand rake and rust-removal supplies to the kit. The other four directions use the base kit as it is.

A grid of craft beer cans with illustrated labels, stacked three rows deep

Your first two weeks

Tick these off as you go

How to date a can

Flat top

A plain flat lid with no opening device, punched open with a pointed opener. Sold from 1935, when the first canned beer went on sale in Richmond, Virginia, until pull tabs took over in the early 1960s.

Cone top

A funnel-shaped top sealed with a bottle cap, made from 1935 to about 1960 so small breweries could fill cans on their bottling lines.

Pull tab

A ring or tab that tears completely off the lid. Introduced in 1962 and common until the mid-1970s.

Stay tab

The lever that pushes in and stays attached, first used in 1975 and standard ever since.

Tax statement

The words "Internal Revenue Tax Paid" appear on cans filled between 1935 and March 1950.

Barcode and warning

A printed barcode means the mid-1970s or later, and the government health warning means late 1989 or later.

Metal

A magnet sticks to a steel can and not to aluminum. Aluminum cans first appeared in the late 1950s, and steel was mostly gone by the mid-1980s.

Condition, grading and what cans are worth

Collectors grade from 1+ (as it left the brewery) down to 5 (mostly rust). Grades 1+ to 2 are called indoor cans, and grade 3 and below are outdoor cans, meaning they spent years in the weather.
Each grade step roughly halves the price. The same can might be $100 in grade 1 and $10 in grade 3.
Bottom-opened cans are worth more than top-opened ones, and a can with its lid cut off is worth least.
Dents, scratches through the paint, fading on one side and humidity spotting each lower the grade, even on a can that was never outdoors.
Most cans from the 1970s and 1980s are worth under a dollar, because millions were saved during the collecting boom of those years.
Check recent sold prices, not asking prices, before paying more than $20 for any can.

Rows of vintage beer cans in a glass-fronted wooden cabinet mounted on a brick wall — A cabinet of older cans

Cleaning and storing cans

Empty every can. A full can corrodes from the inside and eventually leaks onto everything below it.
Clean indoor cans with a dry or barely damp microfiber cloth only. Abrasive pads and metal polish cut through the lacquer and the ink under it.
Never repaint, sand or touch up a can. Collectors treat altered cans as damaged, and an altered can sold without saying so is a fraud.
Keep steel cans below about 50% relative humidity. A damp basement puts rust spots on them within a year or two.
Shelve cans away from windows, since sunlight fades reds and yellows first.
Standard 12-ounce cans are about 4.8 inches tall, so shelves spaced 5.5 inches apart waste no wall.

A rusted-through steel can sitting on a pale rock among dry grass under a blue sky

Dumping: permission, safety and rust removal

Read this before you dig

Get the landowner's permission before you dig, in writing if you can. Taking cans from private land without it is trespassing and theft.
Do not dig on federal or state park land. Removing historic objects there is illegal, and a 60-year-old can may count as one.
Old dumps are full of broken glass and jagged steel. Wear cut-resistant gloves and sturdy boots, rake instead of reaching in by hand, and keep your tetanus shot current.
Rust is removed by soaking the can in a solution of oxalic acid crystals and water for a few hours to a few days. The acid is poisonous if swallowed and irritates skin and eyes, so mix it outdoors wearing chemical-resistant gloves and goggles, in a plastic tub you will never use for food.
Test the soak on a worthless can first. It can dull metallic inks and lift weak paint, and no can goes back to how it was.
Rinse soaked cans thoroughly, dry them the same day, and ask your local waste authority how to dispose of the used solution.

A deeper guide to dumping

Rusty Cans: dumping Free in-depth guide to finding old dump sites and cleaning what comes out of them

What trips beginners up

Expect antique mall and flea market prices to run well above what the same can trades for at a club show.
Expect space to run out before money does. A thousand cans fills a wall, which is why a narrow theme matters.
Expect to pass up most dug cans. Many are too far gone to clean, and learning which to leave in the ground takes a season.
Stop scrubbing when a mark will not come off. More cans are ruined by cleaning than by dirt.
Stop buying a can because the seller calls it old. Age alone means little: a common 1950s flat top in poor shape is a $2 can.
Stop collecting everything. Collectors who take every can they see end up with boxes in the garage and no collection on the wall.

A wall of vintage beer cans standing in rows on red shelves from floor to ceiling

Where to learn and trade

Clubs, shows, reference sites

Local club chapters are where the hobby actually happens: most hold a few trade shows a year where admission is a few dollars, tables are covered in cans priced from 25 cents up, and experienced collectors will grade and date anything you bring. The national club also runs one large annual convention that moves to a different city each summer. Online, collector-run reference sites and club forums will identify a can from a photo, usually within a day.

Clubs and free collector references

Why the kit is this short

The cans are the collection, and a beginner's cans are free or close to it, so the kit is only what handles and houses them. The one essential is an opener with a piercing point, because bottom-opening is a habit worth having from the first can. Shelving and cloths are what most collectors add within a month. The Dumping gear is switched off unless you plan to dig, and the optional lines solve specific problems (cans knocked off shelves, a damp room, bare steel after cleaning, identifying older cans) that you may never have.

Craft beer cans lined up label forward on four store shelves — Current cans on store shelves

Stock the shelf

Compare the options on each line, then set your tiers and check out from the shelf. Clicking a card selects it there. The opener, the wall shelves and the cloths start in the kit. The five Dumping lines join when you switch on Dumping. The museum putty, hygrometer, paste wax and reference book are optional and start out of the kit.

Can-piercing opener (church key)

essential · Core equipment

The pointed end punches two neat holes in the base of a can so you can empty it and leave the top sealed, which is how collectors want every can opened.

budget

HANCELANT Can Punch Bottle Opener, Manual Stainless Steel Can Opener 1 Pack

4.5(4K)

$4.99

Beer Can Collecting

What beer can collecting involves

Pick a direction

Your first two weeks

How to date a can

Condition, grading and what cans are worth

Cleaning and storing cans

Dumping: permission, safety and rust removal

What trips beginners up

Where to learn and trade

Why the kit is this short

Stock the shelf

Can-piercing opener (church key)

Wall display shelves for cans

Microfiber cleaning cloths

Cut-resistant work gloves

Hand cultivator rake

Oxalic acid crystals

Chemical-resistant gloves

Splash-proof safety goggles

Museum putty

Digital hygrometer

Clear paste wax

Beer can reference book