Strange Burgie Crimped Steel

[Rockbob]

I got around 100 cases of tab tops from our friend @conesplus , which was a blast to go through I might add. This can pops out. I though it was a bit unusual. Your thoughts? Common or strange?

[pinnacle-project]

Since I no longer collect tabs, I might be overlooking something obvious but the only thing that looks different to me is somebody stuck a bottom on the top. I assume it is an air can. Is there a top on the bottom? If so, Steve would probably love to take this can off your hands. The label itself looks normal to me but again, I could be overlooking something.

@Upsidedown

[Rockbob]

Sorry, I should've mentioned its a flat top can. No tab on the bottom.

[Ziphippie]

Hey, Rockbob! Found another on theBay- Ziphippie https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre ... 2690521373

[Cap-Sealed]

It could have been made for Oregon for their anti-litter laws back in the day...

[DaddyDewrop]

It could have been made for Oregon for their anti-litter laws back in the day...

My thought exactly.

[pinnacle-project]

Sorry, I should've mentioned its a flat top can. No tab on the bottom.

Is it an air can? If so, I think it is just a can somebody purposely made with two bottoms. When I collected tabs in the 70's and early 80's, I found cans all the time that normally would have been a tab but instead had two bottoms, two tops, or one of each but upside down. All were air cans.

[jinsequa]

It could have been made for Oregon for their anti-litter laws back in the day...

Nope...not an Oregon "Bottle Bill" can ...the fail safe way to tell an Oregon flat top is two ways.
1. All were soft top aluminum lids.....almost all, if not all, were aluminum cans as well. (I can't think of any that weren't aluminum and certainly not crimped steel)
2. All had an Oregon 5 cents refund statement on the lid. (couldn't return them for the deposit money without the printed, stamped or embossed statement on the lid.

Eric Palmer

[Rockbob]

Sorry, I should've mentioned its a flat top can. No tab on the bottom.

Is it an air can? If so, I think it is just a can somebody purposely made with two bottoms. When I collected tabs in the 70's and early 80's, I found cans all the time that normally would have been a tab but instead had two bottoms, two tops, or one of each but upside down. All were air cans.

Yes, its air sealed. So you could be right.

[Dixie Dave]

It could have been made for Oregon for their anti-litter laws back in the day...

Nope...not an Oregon "Bottle Bill" can ...the fail safe way to tell an Oregon flat top is two ways.
1. All were soft top aluminum lids.....almost all, if not all, were aluminum cans as well. (I can't think of any that weren't aluminum and certainly not crimped steel)
2. All had an Oregon 5 cents refund statement on the lid. (couldn't return them for the deposit money without the printed, stamped or embossed statement on the lid.

Eric Palmer

Could you do us a solid and post some pictures of some Oregon "Bottle Bill" cans? I was wondering the same thing with that unusual Falstaff can I acquired in April, if the can was an Oregon can. I would love to see some pictures of what these cans look like so I know what it is if I run across some at Canvention.

This would be an interesting topic for an article in either the BCCA magazine or in the Rustlings, if you or another Oregon collector would want to write it. It's an interesting part of the history of the beer can that many of us don't know much about.

[Dixie Dave]

RockBob: Is there any chance you could have a test design? I have an early 70's Falstaff flat top can which appears to be a test can (I'm bringing this can with me to Albuquerque to verify this), and yours could be a similar thing.

[jinsequa]

In general, it was not uncommon to find tabs with a bottom lid on both ends. They generally are nothing special and were made that way at the factory by an employee (a common way to make money in the 1970's during the Beer Can fad for can company/brewery employees), were basically a mistake can (uncut bank top, tab unstamped mistake), or someone added a bottom lid for no good reason to a lidless tab. Some cans like Pabst did make air sealed flat tops for display purposes but it is noted on the can lid. If it was a "test can" with a bottom lid on both ends, it generally is a rolled can and that can usually be found out by looking to see if the seam is truly factory welded. Aluminum and Crimped steel can't be rolled as far as I know. There was a lot of "interesting" home lidding done in the early days of the hobby and it still happens today. I have seen zip top cans that were made from flat tops and vice versa. Too me it is a very dubious practice that if some people can't locate a rare zip top, those same people have taken flats with a similar label, relidded them with a Zip top and called it an "original rare zip top". (same with unrolled flat sheets) I seriously doubt either the Falstaff or the Burgie are test cans and they fit into one of the aforementioned scenarios. It is a common thing to find and I have several aluminum and steel tabs that have a bottom lid on the top as well as several with a pull tab on the top and bottom.

As for the Oregon "bottle bill" soft tops, I actually thought about writing an article on the Oregon Bottle Bill softops for the BCCA .....just haven't found the time to do so.
Here is a small selection of Oregon "Bottle Bill" softtops...
The first pic: All are aluminum. The Hamm's (Theo. Hamm, SF) and the 2 Lucky cans (Vancouver, WA) are engraved with the Oregon Refund Statement, and the rest are all printed on the top. It was not just Pacific Northwest brands, but national and regional brands that produced the soft tops as well. (Pabst, Burgie, Miller, Hamm's). (The Burgie by the way shows what the Oregon "Bottle Bill" soft top Burgie looks like and it is not the crimped yellow can shown above)

Overall, I think the soft tops were unevenly used. Multiple canning companies used them. They also went across label changes like the Lucky cans. They were used over a time period of a few years...sporadically and not regularly.
There are a couple of possibilities:
(1) (most likely) I think they may have been used when the limited supply of 2 hole punch tops ran out or something along those lines. I have never seen an Anheuser-Busch one or a Schlitz one though I have a lot of 2-hole punch tops of both. There were no Coors either because Coors was banned in the State of Oregon at that time. 1972 was when pull tabs were banned in Oregon. 1975 is when the stay tab was first used on a Falls City beer can. (by Reynolds Aluminum - which produced some of the Oregon Soft tops as well at the same time?) So there is probably a 4-5 year period prior to the usage of the stay tab and 1-2 years after the introduction of the stay tab when the soft tops were used in Oregon. They utilized the 2 hole punch top for most brands in that time period in Oregon. Everyone of these the labels in this picture were also produced with pull tabs prior to the bottle bill and with 2 hole punch tops mainly afterwards. In December of 1971, in Oregon, 35% of all beer was sold in cans. By March 1972 (3 months after the Oregon "Bottle Bill" went into effect) .5% of beer was sold in cans because returnable bottles were 30 cents cheaper per 6 pack due to the can deposit. So not many of the soft tops out there and not many sales of the ones that were. The lack of Oregon can sales also meant the largest supplier to Oregon of cans, National Can had to shut down their Yakima plant and further shut down sections of other West Coast National canneries. https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyNET.exe/910 ... e=x&ZyPURL

(2) I heard someone say it was the canning companies revenge initially on the voters of the State of Oregon in 1972 for banning pull tabs and they were initially utilized in the first months after the passage of the Oregon Bottle Bill. But the Lucky Bicentennial can was produced in 1976 and that was about 5 years after the bottle bill passage so I think that story can be discounted.

I am open to suggestions as to why they were used over successive label versions of the same brand, not used by some brands, and were sporadically used over a +/- 5 year period? I guess I need to put my college degree in History to use and start doing some research through some newspapers of the time and find out the story behind them. Unfortunately, most of the people who would know are no longer alive.

The second pic: This one shows a Pabst and a Heidelberg with similar "soft top" aluminum lids that aren't Oregon "Bottle Bill" soft tops (No refund statement) and are simply lids that the pull tab or stay tab wasn't stamped on prior to lidding but was used anyways. (both still contain beer still so they are production cans that got through the quality control)

Eric Palmer

[HiNeighbor]

Never knew that about Oregon cans. Thanks for sharing!

[burgiedave]

Appearance as this may occur from promotional display. Without coin slot on top they possibly were hand outs after completing tour of the brewery.
In either case (no pun) the can would not have been filled. During the 15 years I actively collected the brand examples as these occasionally showed up at antique shops, flea markets, seasonal street collectible events and the like.

Even brewery workers could have adjusted the line to allow a soft top to be placed on a limited amount of cans. No documented answer but many possibilities.

[jinsequa]

One last note......back in the day, if you paid for postage, the breweries would send you air sealed examples of their cans. I have a case sent by Olympia to someone of air sealed cans.....1 of each that Olympia produced at the time....so they weren't only factory tour give aways....
Eric Palmer