Sunday, October 28, 2012

Another Day, Another Flea Market

My wife and I spent another day at another flea market and a dozen antique shops yesterday.  The first soda can find was an old cone top Pepsi can.  They were asking $75 for it but I'm not ready to take that big of a step for my collection yet.  I'll stick to the tabbed cans for now.

It can be frustrating searching for soda cans because I don't see very many at these places.  But there are TONS of bottles and beer cans. 

I did find a couple of Coke cans but they were sports-related and I'm just not into sports (despite yesterday's post about RC baseball cans.)  Plus they were wanting $5 a piece for them and they just aren't worth that to me.

But in the end, I did manage to find an aluminum bottle I didn't have yet.


I also found a kitschy statue of a Japanese person (I set it next to my new aluminum bottle to demonstrate its size.)

 
I'm not sure which my wife is more displeased with; another can in the house or the "hideous" treasure I found.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

RC Baseball

Last weekend my mother-in-law called from a flea market where she found a guy selling RC cans with baseball players on them.  I told her there were two sets; one was from 1977 and had the players' stats/info in a square text box and the other set was from 1978 and had the stats/info printed on a picture of a baseball.

I pulled up my can collection website and had her start reading off the names of the cans he had.  In the end, he had ten cans that I didn't.

 
But I have them now.

I am in no hurry to complete these two sets.  I now have 15 of the 70 cans from 1977 and I have 54 of the 100 cans from the 1978 set.  It's a slow process, but hopefully someday I'll have complete collections from both years.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Gold Yoda and Storm

While on a recent flea market and antique mall road trip, my wife and I checked out a shop in Washington, Indiana.  I was drooling over the vast selection of boarded Star Wars figures when she found me and said there were a lot of soda cans near the back of the store.  So I made my way there and found this:


It was a selection of cans from the 1999 Pepsi Star Wars Episode One 24-can set.  Since I already have the set, most of the cans didn't interest me.  Except for two.  Buried among the bright blue and white cans was a gold can.  I picked it up and realized I was holding the rare 25th can... the Gold Yoda!  I've seen these go for $20 and more on eBay and just wasn't willing to spend that much.  I knew I would eventually come across it in my travels.  The next question was "how much?"  I turned the unopened can over and saw a tag for $5.  It was mine!!!

Also in the pile was a Jar Jar Binks can I had never seen.  It was a Pepsi Storm can!  What the what?  So I bought it for $1.  I researched it when we got home and found out Storm was Pepsi's 1998-1999 attempt at a lightly carbonated, caffeinated lemon-lime drink.  Since this was being tested during their Star Wars campaign, they released a Storm and Light Storm Star Wars can (those two cans were not numbered since they weren't part of the main 24-can set).  Storm never made it out of the test market.  It was dropped in favor of Pepsi's caffeine-free Slice, which was reformulated and renamed Sierra Mist in 2000.


Yoda is famous for saying, "Do or do not, there is not try."  Well I didn't just "try" to get the gold Yoda, I went out and "did"!!! 


Saturday, October 20, 2012

Mountain Dew Green Label

In 2007 Mountain Dew released a small line of limited edition aluminum bottles featuring artwork from a range of artists (including tattoo artists) called Green Label.  From the information I have found, they continued the aluminum bottles for just a couple of years.  If they still produce them, please leave a comment and let me know.

I was aware Mountain Dew had cool-looking aluminum bottles, but it wasn't until last weekend that I finally saw one in person at a flea market in Evansville, Indiana.  The booth had two of the same design, but one had a dent in the side.  They both had $1 price tags, so I grabbed the nicer of the two and started my Mountain Dew Green Label collection.

This bottle is called "Reflections of Dew" from 2008
I am staying away from glass bottles because I do NOT need another "wing" of my collection, but I have grandfathered these in because they are made of aluminum.  I will not go to eBay and start buying all the Green Labels I can find (not yet, at least), but I will continue to look for them to pop up in antique malls and flea markets.


Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Burnt Prairie Trashed Cans

The first antique shop my wife and I visited on our recent vacation was called Burnt Prairie Antique Mall.  As we walked in the door, I noticed a large cardboard container that said "Please recycle" and it was full of cans!  A quick glance inside revealed a couple of cans I didn't have...

Later, while paying for the things we bought, I mentioned to the cashier lady I had a can collection.  I said we weren't from the area and I noticed a couple of cans in the recycle box that I didn't have.  She handed me a plastic bag and cheerfully said, "Take what you want."

I really wanted to dig in deep, but I was already getting stares from a few other shoppers, so I just casually perused the selection at the top of the heap.  I found a Diet Pepsi can and a Mtn Dew can both with an ad/coupon for Holiday World.  I also found two more Dr Pepper tuition winner cans, bringing the total in my collection to three now.


My vacation was off to a good start!!!

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Home from Vacation

My wife and I got home from a short vacation today.  We took a road trip around southern Indiana and southern Illinois going to various flea markets and antique shops.  This was my two-day take.


Among the "treasures" I found was a gold Yoda can, a cool Mountain Dew aluminum bottle, a couple more Dr Pepper tuition cans and many more! 

I hope to highlight some of these finds in detail in the next week or two.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Another Birthday in the Can

I recently had another birthday.  One of the presents my wife gave me was this Monster Energy can (I drank it today at work.)

 

What's so special about it?  Well, it's a can that I didn't have.  AND the fact that my wife, who would rather cash in my collection at a recycler for a trip to Bath & Body Works, gave it to me!  It was a happy birthday.

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Fright Fest

2010
My favorite month of the year is here.  October is when all the ghosts come out and things get spook and creepy.  And if I could only go to Six Flags one time each year it would be during their Fright Fest.  And so I've begun a sub-collection of Coca-Cola discount cans for Fright Fest. 

2011
Halloween 2011 was the first Halloween since I started my can collection so it was easy to get the 2011 can.  And I lucked out and found a 2010 can at work in April of last year.  And now the 2012 can has been released, so I snatched it up when I saw one at work last week.

The 2010 and 2011 ads were printed on a black background which I prefer over 2012's silver background.  The black background takes better pictures. 

2012
It'll be easy to collect a can each year from now on, but it will be a challenge to find the cans from 2009 and earlier.  I'm not in full-search mode but if I stumble upon them I'll certainly add them to my collection.