There seems to be a surge of micro brews going into cans. Now I collected beer cans years ago and would dream of finding a set of 007 or some rare cone tops cans hidden somewhere. So with the amount of new cans being released, do you think that can collecting will pick up again and if it did, what are the chances of cans (like the 007) becoming uber rare or valuable?
Beer can collecting will always be popular, imho. I'd guess, that if The Alchemist ever went under, Heady Topper cans could fetch a dollar or 2.
007 cans will always command top $. It has 3 things going for it. 1. Great looking can / Women/ London Scenery 2. Cross over is 007 Collectors and Beer can Collectors 3. Short run of cans test marketed in 1967 in a few cities.
The surge in cans from craft breweries a good thing for the hobby - both for current collectors and for new collectors who may become interested in the hobby because of the cans. That said, with the current release of so many cans from craft brewers, I don't believe the chance will exist for any particular can becoming valuable simple because of the huge number being launched right now; so many that a collection of all of them is not possible. While rare cans will exist, there will not be a necessity to "collect all of them." I can't keep up with New England cans or even Massachusetts cans so the lack of one or more can never be a concern. But I could be wrong.
I think you are right. The value of any collectible depends on the supply, demand, and your competing collectors (and how deep their pockets area). You can't control any of those factors, so you need to guess ahead which cans may have value and focus on them. If you hear of a brewery that cans their beers and is about to cease production for whatever reason, then those cans may have some value. If you get wind of a can that was produced with some glaring error, and a new, corrected version of that can is then released by the brewery, the erroneous can may have some value. But you have a huge task to know this stuff on a current basis to be able to take advantage of it. Then, you have to hope that other collectors did not get ahold of one of them. It's these other collectors that will be the hardest for you to know where they stand in this endeavor. I'd say that it's not worth it.
