Easter Can Hunt

Trash by the parking lot

I was meeting some people yesterday in an old gravel parking lot.  As I backed my car into position to wait for them I noticed the edge of the lot was lined with trash.  And what do most people consider trash?  Aluminum cans.

So I got out of my car and started poking around among the old bags and bottles and cans.  It was as I figured, mostly beer cans.  And a lot of the cans had been there a while and their colors were faded.  Many of them had been crushed.

But I did manage to find two cans I didn't have!  One is a newer style Great Value (Walmart's house brand) Root Beer.  I had to check when I got home if I had it but I didn't yet.  The other was a can I'd never seen before... Mt Vess, obviously a Mt Dew clone.  Vess is one of my favorite brands to collect and out of the 77 Vess cans I had, none of them were a Mt Vess.  So this was a great find for me.

Who knew the Easter bunny would hide a couple cans I didn't have yet?  My first East can hunt had a hoppy ending.  I mean, happy ending.

A Decent Week

It was a decent week as far as cans finding their way to me.  Here are some of my finds.

Tuesday

The monthly beverage order at work came in and I found these two cans.  One is a Coca-Cola Final Four can.  That's basketball, right?  The other is another design from Diet Coke's "It's Mine" campaign.  You can read about that here.

Wednesday

I had heard about Mello Yello's redesign but a co-worker found one out in the wild before I did.  He brought this yellow and black can to me.  Overall, I really like the new can; simple yet gets the job done.  The other can is #2 of 5 in Dr Pepper's "Batman V Superman" collection.  This is the third can from the movie collection I have (if you count my un-numbered 16 oz Batman/Superman/Wonder Woman can.)

Mtn Dew Black Label

I was at work last week and got a text from someone I know.  It had this pictures and said, "Got a new can for ya."

Awesome.  I hadn't seen the Mtn Dew Black Label yet.  The label says it's with "crafted dark berry."  A glance at the ingredients shows it has grape juice and orange juice in it.  That sounds really good.

I just may have to pick up one of these to try the drink.

Batman v Superman

This landed in my office at work last week.  It's can #1 of 5 of the new series from Dr Pepper for the Batman v Superman movie.

Here's the other side of the can.

Now we'll see how many of the others find their way to me...

A New Howdy!

Wandering around an antique mall yesterday I found a cool old Vess soda can.  Vess is one of the brands I really like to collect, but at the $8.95 price tag I had to pass on it.

 A little while later I found a can more in my price range.  It was a Howdy! Cola can for $1.10.  I knew I already had a Howdy! can but could this be a variation I didn't have?

Variations in my collection

One of the benefits of having my can collection as a website is when I'm can hunting out in the field I can pull up my whole collection on my phone to see if I have a can or not.  When I checked my phone, I saw I had three Howdy! cans already, but none of them had the blue stripe this one did.

Before

So I bought the can and brought it home to be with a few of its relatives.  The can was in pretty rough shape.  It had some rust spots (which I can't do anything about) but I knew some warm water and a soft toothbrush could get rid of most of the dirt and grime.

A few minutes later I had a can clean enough to be added to my collection.

After

Are Those Cans Legal?

How's that for a click-bait title?

A coworker brought two cans to me one day last week that he found in a local store.  I was hesitant to take them at first, I wasn't exactly sure what he was handing me...

It was two cans of a Cannabis drink.  Did these come from Colorado?  I quickly read the label to look for hints on the legality of the beverage and found it's an energy drink from Austria.

With 80mg of caffeine per can and only 10 calories, it sounds like it might be just what the doctor ordered.  The big question now is how does it taste?  I'll try it out some day when I'm feeling a little run down or if my glaucoma acts up.

It's Mine

We got our shipment of beverages for the break room at work yesterday and I did my normal scan for new cans.  That's when I saw these colorful Diet Coke cans.

I looked it up online and found Diet Coke has a new promotion called "It's Mine."  It's a pretty lengthy article, but to sum it up Diet Coke created 36 base designs for their new 12 oz glass contour bottles.  Using some fancy HP software, the base designs were used to automatically create millions of new graphics.  A select number of designs will appear on their other items such as 12 oz cans, 16 oz cans, etc.

So if you're really into collecting, have fun.  Go out and see how many of those bottle graphics you can find.  I'll stick with collecting cans.

Kickstart Valentine's Day (year 2)

I knew the fourth round of Mtn Dew Kickstart energy drink flavors recently launched, so I've been patiently waiting to find them and buy them.  And then I got my chance yesterday while running around with the family.

The new cans are 12 oz slim cans, the same as the last batch of flavors.  These four are:

     1. Blueberry Pomegranate

     2. Blood Orange

     3. Watermelon

     4. Pineapple Orange Mango

I normally don't drink energy drinks, but I'll have these on standby in case of emergency.  I'm curious to try some of these flavors.

02/22/16 Update

I made a mistake.  In the above post I mentioned Pineapple Orange Mango was one of the four new flavors.  NOPE!  That was a flavor from the last round of flavors.  The 4th one is actually Midnight Grape.  Someone gave me the grape can over the weekend, so now I have all four new flavors.

But with answers come more questions.  The three new cans I bought were 12 oz slim cans.  The fourth flavor is in a 16 oz can.  Does that mean there are two sizes for each flavor?  The search continues...

Sprite Holiday Design

I found two new cans at work this week.

Pic taken on 1/27/16

One was a new Coca-Cola can featuring a shirt design.

The other is the Sprite holiday can which I'm a bit confused about.  My place of work just purchased these cans of Sprite last week, so I assumed this is the 2015 holiday design.  But looking at my collection website, this looks like the exact same design on a Sprite can I got during the 2014 holiday season.

2014 Sprite holiday can

I think it unlikely Sprite used the same design two years in a row, but I can't explain it otherwise.

Dr. Pepper's New Cherry

I'm not sure when it happened, but the cherry on Dr Pepper cans got a new look while I wasn't paying attention.  A man from my church brought a bag of cans to me this morning and I found these Cherry Dr Pepper cans inside.

Also in the bag I found yet another Diet Coke holiday can I didn't have.

And earlier this week, a coworker gave me a Monster can I hadn't seen before.  It's called Pipeline Punch.  Figures not included.

This Week's New Cans

No crazy stories this week.  No weird cans.  Nobody looking at me like I'm crazy.  Well, maybe.  But here are a few cans that found their way to me.

The holidays cans continue to trickle in.  I had a regular Coca-Cola version of the "Naughty or Nice" can and now I have the Diet Coke version too.

Speaking of Coca-Cola, this new football can showed up at work.  I like how the stitches are Coke bottles.

I can't mention Coke without mentioning Pepsi.  Also at work, I found this Diet Pepsi can with the information "Now Aspartame Free" written above the logo.  

At Walmart yesterday, I found this Mad Max Rockstar can.  It's a promotion for the Mad Max Fury Road video game, which I have yet to check out.  I've been too busy dealing with cans.  haha

Instant Snow in a Can

I like an occasional gimmicky can that's not a soda can.  And the kids gave me something for Christmas I've never seen before.  It's instant snow in a can.

I noticed right away it had English and French print.  Wow, an import :)  The directions say to put the contents of the can (which rattles around in the can like a sugar cube) into a container, add water, and you get something that looks and feels like real snow.

The can is about the size of an 8oz shorty here in the USA.  On the back of the can I saw it comes from Canada.  Yep, that explains the French.  But the weirdest thing about the whole can is the fact that there is a pull tab on the top which removes the entire lid (like a can of pudding), yet on the bottom there is another tab that looks like the top of a soda can.

The kids were excited to open it and try out the snow.  But I had to deny them that joy, this thing is going in my collection.  Unopened.

Merry Christmas

What I Got Out of Training (vol 2)

I had two days of training at work last week. There was plenty of coffee and energy drinks around me both mornings.  On the second day I noticed the guy next to me was drinking a Monster energy I didn't have yet.  It was called Ultra Black and had a cool red/black design on the textured can.  

I have no problem asking for cans any more, so I'm proud to say I now own a Monster Ultra Black can :)

You can read my first training story here.

Cranberry Sprite Zero

A couple at church had driven to Texas and back last week.  Their daughter, who lives here, had mentioned how she likes Sprite Zero Cranberry but she hasn't been able to find it in our area yet.  So the couple stopped at several Walmarts on their way back from Texas until they finally found it.  They bought several 12-packs, some for them and some for their daughter.

As they were finishing that story at church this morning, he looked at me and said he'd save one of the cans for me.  He came by this afternoon with this one.  It's a nice, clean design.

I asked how it tasted and he said the cranberry flavor was a bit milder than he expected.  He said he'll bring me a full one to church next week.  Awesome.  Taste-test inbound...

Two Cans Yes - Five Cans No

I was doing some Christmas shopping today and saw this Diet Coke aluminum bottle at Target.  It has a neat "digital"-looking design, so I picked one up.  

At Big Lots I found this V8 energy drink.  The problem is I don't care for V8 products.  My kids like them but they sure don't need the energy boost this provides.  Maybe we'll leave it out for Santa to drink :)

We also stumbled upon an antique store we hadn't been in before.  One of the booths had five colorful Coca-Cola cans from other countries, including Canada and Germany.  I took a minute to arrange them in such a way I could get a good picture of their colorful designs and realized I'd left my phone in the car.  It had died earlier and was recharging.  So you'll have to take my word for it that they were some pretty neat looking cans, but at $5-$10 each they weren't neat enough for me to buy.

Christmas Cans 2015

It has begun.  The Christmas cans are here.  This year, Coca-Cola continues its Santa Claus theme in addition to its nickname theme.  This equates to who-knows-how-many variations of the can.  Hopefully not too many.  I've also seen holiday-themed aluminum bottles of Coca-Cola with different nicknames/phrases on them.

Are any other collectors getting a headache yet?  :)

My dad found this can on the side of the road and brought it to me.  It's damaged, but it's my first Christmas can of 2015.

12/4/15 Update
We got our monthly supply of beverages at work and I scored this "Secret Santa" Diet Coke holiday can.  It features white and silver snowflakes in the background.

12/13/15 Update
I went out to eat with my parents yesterday and my dad handed me this Coca-Cola can he had found on the roadside (is that weird thing to say?  haha).

I love the fact that there are check boxes next to "naughty" and "nice" so you can select one.

It's a Small World

My can collection is not a secret at work.  Co-workers often bring cans to see if I have them or not.  Last week a co-worker sent an email to me with a link to Google Maps showing the immediate area surrounding our place of work.  And within a 12-minute walk (according to Google) is the Brewery Collectibles Club of America (BCCA) office.

I've been familiar with the BCCA for a few years now.  I've visited their website many times just looking around.  There's a lot of interesting info there.  Although I don't collect beer cans, I do have many of them that were included in some of the lots of soda cans I've bought.  I was so surprised to find out they are essentially "down the street" from where I work.

At the risk of looking like some weird kind of stalker, I drove past there this morning and snapped these pics just to verify that Google was correct.  And it is.  Now, is there an NPCC office in the neighborhood that I don't know about?

Dry Hiney

Today was a nice fall day in the Midwest and I spent it on the road visiting various shops and markets.  I saw a lot of beer cans as usual and not many soda cans.  But one can caught my eye and although it's not a soda can, I had to buy it.  

The can is from 1983 and celebrates the 175th anniversary of a local winery.  It's an aluminum can with a ring pull tab.  And it gives a short history of the Hiney Winery on the back of the can.  

So why did I "have" to buy this can?  First, I don't often see a wine can (in fact, this may be my first).  And second, where else can you get a dry hiney for $1.50?

Black Ops III

Yesterday we got our monthly beverage delivery at work.  I'm usually the first to check out the pallet of goodies looking for new cans.  This month I got the new Call of Duty Black Ops III Mtn Dew cans.

I was hoping for a spookier post for Halloween, but this will have to do.  I haven't got any Halloween cans yet.  I'll have to keep looking...

Always on the Lookout

The company I work for received a pallet of fifteen new laptops earlier this week.  Of course we're all excited about the new hardware, but my mind instantly went somewhere else.

After the boxes were emptied, I used a razor blade to cut off the top of each box, in essence creating fifteen "trays."

When I got home, I was able to get 24 cans in one of the trays.  Perfect!  Just what my mind's eye had seen.  I now have an organized way to store 360 more cans.  And since the shelves I built in the basement earlier this year still have some empty spaces, these will fit nicely.

As a collector, you're obviously always on the lookout for the thing you collect.  But when storage options and space become concerns, you also watch for other things that can benefit the collection.