Ring-Tab Beer Cans Are Officially Historic Artifacts

I fondly remember using the infamous "Church Key" to open my first beer in the 60's. A Carling Black Label.

 

Laoshan in China still uses the tab labelled as 1965-1975 in the OP. Personally I thought it was an improvement.

 

I still remember when I was a kid watching an episode of Emergency (the one starring Randolph Mantooth, who could forget that name) where someone accidentally swallowed one of those tabs and started choking after dropping it back in the can and then taking a swig. I must have been about 5 years old and it scared the bejesus out of me, enough that I remember it 40 years later. I also distinctly remember being terrified by that Darth Vader telekinetic choking scene in Star Wars, which I saw in the theater in 1977. I'll always associate the taste of Bit-O-Honey with that scene, as that's what I was eating when I saw it. Huh. Come to think of it, I must have a thing about choking.

 

The ring tabs were also good at cutting the side of your thumb, if the tab tore as they occasionally did. Drank a few bloody ones in my day.