Well,if you've clicked this far,you must want to know who I am. My name is Barry, and this all started as a fourth grader, walking the ditches of southern Minnesota, picking up aluminum cans for spending money with my buddies. After one productive afternoon, we dumped our booty onto the grass and started sorting the cans. I was building my Schmidt scenic collection, but that day I'd found a brand I'd never heard of-Alpine from Wisconsin.

After that, I started to keep any brand that was different, and stacked them in a pyramid in my room. After a fewloud tin avalanches,my Dad and I built wooden shelves. I went to the Marigold Days flea market in Mantorville that fall, and two teenagers were SELLING their cans. It was then that I learned I was not alone. My Dad started keeping his eyes open for me, and got a kick out of bottom opening the full cans and samplingthem. (all in the name of helping his son,of course) He found a full six pack of Gluek silver growlers that made me the star of my first trade session in Rochester.My collection really took off after that- after all, a cone top can got your 40 CURRENT CANS in those days.

 

I stored the cans in boxes during my lean college years. Until the ultimatum came over the phone "Either you get these *@#*! cans outta' the garage, or we're throwing them out!" It brought back a lot of memories going through those boxes again. (I probably recycled 90% of them!) But the few good cans I had started me back collecting again.With a family and limited space to display,I concentrate on the OLD and unique now. I specialize in items made before 1960-signs made of metal and glass,cans that took an opener to drink from and stuff that wasn't made by the millions. I'm just a caretaker of this stuff for the decades I'll have it. Its a harmless and fun hobby filled with interesting people and stories.Thats why I started this website...to meet more of them!

 

Barry the beerguy