history of 14 oz cans??

#1

Does anybody know why 14 oz cans were sold?

#2

Mainly for military use.

#3

I thought it had to do with state law restrictions

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#4

If you guys were trying to get Wheaton to post you picked the perfect subject for it. It has to do with State restrictions but Wheaton can tell you the names of the state legislators, their habits and what slush fund caused the creation of the two extra ounces.

Dave?

#5

Yes. He's the expert on 14oz. Eric Claussen might be able to provide some knowledge. I'll see if I can reach him

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#6

Senator Seebs wrote:If you guys were trying to get Wheaton to post you picked the perfect subject for it.

Lol..... I thought the same thing.

I think there were tax laws that dealt with 12oz and under that could be circumvented by doing 14oz.

#7

The first 14oz can came in the early 60's. I guess we can start the History of the 14oz can at that date

I think Jos Schlitz and Anhuser Busch were the most prolific users of the size

It's a great niche to collect. I have to dig my 14's out of the attic. Too lazy. Lol

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#8

I have a 14oz pictorial composite finished that has a little bit of history on it, just need to get it on a memory stick and off to Danny to host here on the site. Yet another thing that I'm miles behind on.

But as for the existence of 14oz cans...

...it was discovered by the Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co that - specifically in the state of South Carolina - beer taxes were graded in 7oz intervals. So the first 7 ounces were taxed at one rate, 8 to 14 at the next, etc. And it dawned on Schlitz that offering their product(s) in 14oz cans, at prices commensurate with the competition's 12oz offerings, would boost sales when consumers realized they would be getting a "free" 12oz per sixer. What the brewer stood to lose in per-unit profit could potentially be made up in sales volume; plus, the tax per container was the same as for 12oz cans. So, in 1964*, out came the first 14oz cans: Old Milwaukee and Schlitz. Both were flattops.

*1964 was the reported year of the 14oz can's entry into the market, although what is believed to be the first Old Milwaukee label was copyrighted 1963. Allowing time for preliminary Federal approval of the label and whatnot, early 1964 is a pretty solid bookmark for the appearance of 14oz cans.

The ploy worked. Schlitz's sales raged in SC to the point that in 1968, a cabal of brewers lobbied the SC legislature to amend the beer tax structure in the interest of keeping the marketplace fair. (Many of the aggrieved were smaller brewers who couldn't afford the inherent loss associated with marketing 14oz cans of their own.) But in the interim, a few other brewers had also jumped on the 14oz bandwagon and were marketing their cans in SC. By 1967, Falstaff, Carling, Burger, and National had all taken a swing at it. SC did cave to the pressure and amended their beer tax structure, and the progression can be seen on some 14oz cans from the period - it got steep in a hurry, and SC already had the highest beer taxes in the nation. The amended structure effectively pushed 14oz cans off the market in SC. But...

The efficacy of 14oz cans for beating up the competition had already proven itself and spread rapidly throughout the southern US. Prior to 1970, 14 oz cans were being marketed in DC, Delaware, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Most were regions where per capita beer consumption was relatively slim, and the biggest market players were the national brands. 14oz cans became the big brewers' weapons of war. Although there were not necessarily any 14oz-specific tax benefits in those states (most taxed beer by volume on a linear scale), the cutthroat marketing power of the 14oz can was it's own reward.

Some were still being marketed into the 80s and 90s, and the last known 14s appeared in coastal Mississippi within the last decade.

On a side note, what's the other oddball can size that gets dumped almost exclusively in SC? Hint: it had something to do with the bottom tier of that tax structure...

#9

7oz

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#10

Give that man a cigar. Or a 7oz Bulldog flat - his choice.

(Personally, I'd go with the Bulldog!)

#11

The 14 ounce can was also very popular in the great state of Maine with Old Milwaukee available well into the 1990s.

There is a thread about 14s with pictures somewhere on the site from a couple of years ago.

#12

Dave - that is interesting and great info! You are by all means more knowing on this than me but I was under impression that they started a little earlier - based on softop, zip top and flat tops in early 14s. But I guess all of those may have gone into 1964.

Others know pull type dates better than me.

The super soft top lids I suspected were earler than 1964?

The Burger is an early pull - but it has the SC tax bottom - Burger Ad lid - what a great flat top lid if they used it? It's 14 oz eye candy tho! The Back Label and the Slot Tab Old Milw also SC bottoms. I got that BL 14 from you I think?

#13

Dave, I can't believe that entire description of 14 oz. cans did not mention good old Black Label one time. As many BL cans I we've seen in GA & SC dumps, they must have been a big player in that market too.

Come see us at the Augusta show in March.

Ken

#14

Eric! What a gorgeous lineup! That Schlitz Super Soft is one of two known 14s missing from my photo composite (the other being the Draft by National as there's only one known example, and I don't know its whereabouts). I almost used the Schlitz flat sheet photos from eBay as a placeholder, but decided to wait until a round one turned up. Perhaps someday you'd allow me to photograph that bad boy for the composite?

There are a few dating clues on 14oz cans that sort of have to be evaluated en masse before the details and dates really start to precipitate out; namely, pressure beading styles and seam styles. The following is a quick lineup of the first few years of 14s by construction details:

1964

Flattop with half-round pressure beads top and bottom, two dimpled seam (Continental)
Softtop with half-round pressure beads on bottom lid, two dimpled seam (Continental)
Classic ziptab with half-round pressure beads on bottom lid, two dimpled seam (Continental)

1965

Flattop with two half-round pressure beads, nine dimpled seam (Continental)
Classic ziptab with half-round pressure bead on bottom lid, nine dimpled seam (Continental)
Slot-top style zip (Lift Tab and Pull) with half round pressure bead on bottom lid, nine dimpled seam (Continental)
Slot-top style ring pull (Lift Ring and Pull) with half round pressure bead on bottom lid, nine dimpled seam (Continental)

1966

"1966" Continental ring pull, nine dimpled seam (Continental)
Later 60s flattop with either one or both lids bearing a sawtooth-profile pressure bead
Juice tab, seven toothed seam (American)

It's a bit convoluted, but there was a simple reason for it: cost. 14s were low-profit margin packaging and geared toward a limited audience, meaning that anything the brewers (even the big ones) could do to cut container costs, they did. You can see it on the early flats, even though we know that zips were already in common use on many other cans. 14oz "classic design" zips like the Black Label in your photo are actually quite rare and short lived, having been lidded that way only at the very tail end of that lid design era when other options were coming to market and the price for the obsolete lids had ostensibly dropped. 14s in general are far more commonly seen as slot-top style zips. Also, in 1966, there was a big move back to 14oz flattops for a short time and it even crossed breweries - it can be seen on multiple label designs from both Schlitz and Carling - probably because self-opening lids were hitting high demand levels and pricing them out of the 14oz market. Schlitz's 1966 flats were both preceded and succeeded by Continental ring pulls, whereas Carling went from 1966 Continental rings to flats, and then to American juice tabs for a few years. That was the first appearance of 14oz cans by American, and would seem to have represented a cost-driven shift. Carling didn't return to Continental's self-opening cans until almost 1970, and even for the few years that followed there was interplay between Continental and Crown 14s...jockeying for the cheapest cans at any given moment in time.

I could make almost no sense out of 14oz can/lid designs until I had fleshed out my collection with what I believed to be the vast majority of early variations produced. Only then did it become apparent what had happened, and when. And you're absolutely right: it wasn't a very intuitive progression of events, and some of them seem almost shifted in time. But in actuality, they were just lagging behind the cutting-edge developments in lid design.

That said, there were some flattops used into the early 1970s, even on 12 and 16oz cans. When I get the composite hosted, you'll be able to look through all the cans and lid designs and see what I'm talking about using photos instead of just a bunch of words on a message board. Stay tuned!

#15

Ken - ironic! I was writing a post that included Black Labels, even as you were scolding me for not doing so.

Hoping to hit ATL again soon. Could really use a good can show and a day with the guys...

#16

That would be a Malt Lager if you are in SC. Lol

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#17

Malt Lager was North Carolina

#18

I thought Malt Lager was used in VA. Were there other states that required it?

#19

Just North Carolina and Virginia I think Joe.

#20

Not aware of 14 ounce cans in Louisiana before 1970. Do you have any examples? The 14's I've seen in LA date back to the early '70s to my knowledge, and were sold at least until the late '80s, because I remember stocking OM 14's at Winn-Dixie .

I look forward to seeing the composite of 14's one day soon.

#21

Dave - that's perfect info and explains my question on all those cans I showed being 64 or later. Love to learn stuff

Happy to send pics of the Schlitz
FYI it is the Texas Liquor Board approval sheet - that came from ebay
I did not win the bid - the buyer had it rolled by Art L - and then listed on Art's site.
He sent the wrong donor softop lid - with the red writing on top
I got the right lid and had Art change it out when I bought

I know it's rolled but a sweet can that hard to pass up opportunity to own

It's Old Milwaukee brethren I was pleased to get from Pat Taylor's collection when Joe Older got Pat's FL cans. Pat had it on an Old
Milwaukee cardboard display but not sure it was right can or not for that piece - but I liked seeing it when I went to see him on occasion.

#22

Dave - meant to show you this one - maybe an addition to your list?

This can is obscure if not rare - but a sleeper and not a big audience.

The USBC II can is 1971 - Memphis

This is 1969 - Longview

#23

Hey Eric: good eye, and you'll see that very example on the composite. It's my old can!

Let me start by saying that I adore both of my USBCs as general reference guides, so I don't say this to be disparaging but more as a point of inconvenient fact: the 14oz information in the books is error-addled and badly jumbled. I made a lot of notes in the composite, trying to bring clarity to what is pictured and not pictured in the books, and some corrections to the accompanying notes. On the specific Old Mil you show there, yes, there is a photo in the USBCII...but the information supplied is incorrect. I don't have the composite in front of me right now, but there were several different 1969 copyrighted can designs produced. One each from (specifically) Tampa and Longview, then at least three others that had the "ring of breweries" at the bottom like yours. The touchy thing about that label and a couple other '69 - '71 variations I can think of is that they were not yet using the black dots to delineate the brewery of origin. You started to see that on the Old Mil and Schlitz 14s copyrighted 1973, after which point the dots remained in use for a few years. But on "ring of brewery" 14s copyrighted 1969 or 1971, it was ambiguous as to which brewery had actually filled the can. The "1971 Memphis" variation referenced in the USBC2, to the best of my knowledge, does not exist. The two breweries that were known to be filling the Old Mil 14s in 1969 and 1970 were (as stated) Tampa and Longview - but if you read through the breweries on that can, the Memphis location hadn't even been opened yet.

I'd have to fact check myself to be sure, but I don't believe Memphis opened until late 1970 - early 1971 or thereabouts. Somebody correct me if I'm remembering that wrong. It seems like a pretty good bet that specific can was filled at either Tampa or Longview; however, Winston-Salem had also been recently opened and does appear in the list. It wasn't until 1973 that the brewery-of-origin dots began to call out the cans that were specifically filled at Winston-Salem, but I suppose that location needs to at least be considered as a possibility. Given the rarity of the variation (I've seen a total of four, and that's counting the one you pictured plus the example in the book), I suppose it could have been a one-off filled at just about any of the brewery locations that were active circa 1970. For purposes of clarity, it appears on the composite under the general heading of Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co, Location Unknown.

Great info on the Schlitz softtop, too! That was one of few eBay auctions in the past 5 years that really had me sitting up in the buggy...and, yes, I bid. I can't remember exactly where I petered out but it was probably around $400 or thereabouts. I had only seen one other example of that can, in a photograph, and I'm not sure if it was rolled or original. I would love to add it to the composite, so when I get it hosted here, you can see how I handled the other photos and maybe shoot something that's roughly in keeping with the existing format. Please, and thank you!

Hey Dave - how's life? I saw your post. The history of 14s in Louisiana is sketchier than in some other states because there were no tax seals to verify distribution. All I know for sure is that they've been dumped there on occasion, and that the first 1969 Longview variation I owned was reportedly found there. I know it wasn't brought from Mississippi as I have personally dumped that same Longview variation in MS, complete with tax lid. The can in question didn't have one. So I include LA in my pre-1970 list based mainly on that observation coupled with what I was told about the provenance of that specific dumper. One other state that is known to have sold some 14s is Oklahoma, but the OK distribution lids don't appear on any of them (that I've seen, anyway) until the mid 70s, so I purposely left that state off the list.

#24

oldindiapaleale wrote: ↑Tue Feb 21, 2017 7:52 pm The 14 ounce can was also very popular in the great state of Maine with Old Milwaukee available well into the 1990s.

There is a thread about 14s with pictures somewhere on the site from a couple of years ago.

True. I didn't include it on the pre-1970 list because I really didn't know when the 14s first appeared in Maine, but yes, they are found there and I even noticed an auction once for some full Old Mil 14s - the seller was in Maine.

There was a discussion awhile back about the "Proudly Brewed In Pennsylvania" Old Mil 14s, with questions as to whether that proclamation was enough to assume there might have been some distribution in PA. One member came back with a vague recollection of having seen them for sale there, but no real specifics were available. I put it in the composite sort of as a "maybe," but regardless, their presence outside of the southern US was so limited as to be practically insignificant. Maine was the lone northern-tier exception.

#25

Kevin the Ex-Editor wrote: ↑Wed Feb 22, 2017 2:57 pm Just North Carolina and Virginia I think Joe.

I have one with a SC stamp, but it's air-filled. Anyone else have a Malt Lager w/ SC stamp?

edit: the one I have is 12oz, not 14oz. There aren't any known Malt Lager 14oz.

#26

I don't believe I've ever dumped a malt lager can in SC. NC and Va for sure.

Paul