Authentic Brewing Co. Collections

When I started accumulating breweriana in the 1970s, I liked it because the stuff I was saving was originally "Not for Sale" - stuff manufactured to be given away as promotional items (primarily openers* ), given to bars (signs, lights, coasters, etc) or that came "with" beer (empty bottles, cans, crowns, labels, six pack baskets.).

I had been a comic book collector when I was young, and had seen the insanity of price rises. I mean, they'd gone from 10¢ > 12¢ > 15¢ and then a quarter! (I still remember the shudder at the bill that first week when all my regular purchases said "25¢" on the cover. ).

So, at some point, I decided that if an item was commonly sold at retail, that wasn't "collecting" that was just "buying". Thus, the vast majority of my breweriana collection were promo items given away, or bought on the used/secondary market (antique markets, garage sales, breweriana shows, a little eBaying circa 2000 before pricing went nuts). Not uncommon - lots of can or bottle collectors only save those they've actually consumed (or, at least, start out that way until the "collector's bug" hits them hard). These days, I will occasionally buy a glass or a cheap "tchotchke" item like an opener at a brewery/brewpub but I'm much more likely to just take an un-used coaster or flyer (I guess the free book of matches in quickly becoming a thing of the past with smoking bans) and call it good enough.

* below, part of collection - circa 1980. I've probably picked up a few more since then

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take a guess...

my faves...

 

Nice collection of Big Foot caps! One of my favs too. How far back do you go? It looks like at least 25 caps. Did they date them back to 1990?

 

Wow! How are those caps placed on there?

 

Velcro! I went into a little more detail in another thread recently (Beer cap collectors...how do you display/organize your caps?). Lots of beer stuff in a compact space and, very important here in California, non-breakable!

 

Mine goes back to 1988, but the first Bigfoot with a Bigfoot cap was 1987. It eludes me! They didn't put out a cap for 1996-they used the blue cap they normally used for the porter and a red-on-gold "FLORIDA" cap as well (I hid that outcast out of view in that picture).