Old find but a good story (three actually)

[Plusonegolfer]

I collected as kid a in the 70's - one day my buddy collector and I broke into an abandoned home that was only a couple blocks from my house. Weird house because it looked like someone simply left town without taking a single possession. All the furniture, dishes, clothes...everything was still there albeit untouched for what looked like 20-30 years. In the basement, unfinished and scary frankly, I found a case of Western Brew flat tops - all full still in the unopened Western Brew box. I opened the box, emptied and kept one can, traded another, and the remaining cans were sold to a guy from Minneapolis who bought my collection when I went to college. He wrote me a bad check, but I finally got the money - I heard the guy went to jail at one point but the remaining cans have never surfaced and I've never heard anything about them again. I doubt there are 24 of them in 1+ shape even known today.

A short time later that same buddy and I found about 500 Best flat tops from Chicago in an old cement factory down by the river in Fort Dodge where I lived. They were on the second story of an old factory that had an opening in the ceiling but no way to get there without a ladder. Kids aren't scared of much, but we did get a lot of funny looks trying to ride two stingray bikes across town while each holding onto a ten-foot ladder. I think we crashed nine times but damned if we didn't get there and find two old giant sacks full of perfect beer cans. Somebody must have cleaned up after the party, but then the stairwell fell in and until we got that ladder there I doubt anyone had ever been on the second level. I can tell you we were barely teenagers, but I traded hundreds of Best flat tops to anyone that would trade anything at the Canvention in Des Moines - fun days albeit many moons ago.

The last find was in Houston where I have lived since 1983. In 1995 after I started collecting for the second time, I saw a want-ad for some old beer cans and drove over to an old house in a bad part of town. I was a bit skeptical about getting out, but the alure of cans has a way of drawing people in. Turns out the old man (late '80s) had a box of old cans in the garage. There wasn't anything of real value because of condition, but he did have a few rusty black and red Jax cans that would have been cool on-grade. The guy said he had a couple or three more cans in the house but they were his sons and he couldn't sell them. I asked what they were and he couldn't remember. I asked to look and he took me inside - (keep in mind, this was probably a house worth less than $50K and was in horrific condition at best. Inside sitting on top of an old black and white TV were two full Kent Ale OI's. I had to bite my lip pretty hard, but I kept my composure and offered him $500 for the cans in the garage plus the two Kents. He said NO. We haggled for an hour and he refused to sell his sons two cans. Long story short, I went back about five weekends in a row and never left with any cans. I kept going back about once a month for 5-7 more trips - NO cans, he simply wouldn't sell them. About six months later I just randomly drove over to the house to take one last shot at the guy and when I arrived the house had burned to the ground and there was literally nothing left. A neighbor said the old many had died and the house burned and that was that. No cans, no Kent Ale's and no one has ever seen them since. The guy lived in a house that was worth less than two beer cans sitting on his TV set... Today I feel bad about that, but I doubt money would have changed his life much...strange stories but fun to share.

I collect rare cans now but only buy them - someday I may get the itch to crawl around in an old building but it won't be in Houston - too dangerous.

[Conehead]

Great stories! and thanks for sharing them.

Jim

[DaveNH]

Great stories. Very worthy of being in Rustlings. Thanks for sharing!

[Leon]

Cool Story, you can come join me here in Detroit to climb under some old Buildings & Houses, I do it all the time & not dead yet. LEON.

[Plusonegolfer]

Cool Story, you can come join me here in Detroit to climb under some old Buildings & Houses, I do it all the time & not dead yet. LEON.

I haven’t been out looking for cans outdoors or in buildings in 40 years. Not that I wouldn’t, just haven’t...bad golf habit eats up my time. Not much interest in outdoor looking, but an old building or basement wouldn’t scare me.

[Leon]

I've been in lots of old dark creepy Basements & Attics ect, ect. all alone, nobody wants to go with me. LEON