Went to Dale's yesterday....

[Cap-Sealed]

Went to Dale's house yesterday just for a visit and admired his collection and took a few photos of some of my favorite cans he dug:

The best White Horse he found with Dave Rusk (cheteaubebris) along with Old Golds by Manhattan in Idaho. I couldn't go on that outing as I had company in town.

Not in any Book: Acme Englishtown BRAND Ale. We dug these at Dan & Brad's Black Eagle dump. This can comes from San Francisco and Los Angeles, with the LA version even more rare as we only found 2-3.

Dale dug this Eagle cone back int he 80s and he gave the 2nd best to his buddy Larry. Then Dale had a lapse in judgement and sold his entire collection to (evil) John Kotto. Dale started back up again and Larry gave him the Eagle back. The Silver State he dug in Wyoming. He left New Mexico at 6am and at 6pm he called me and said he was in a pit of Silver States! The Sheridan we dug together on a separate Wyoming trip.

Green Lucky Ale OI dug by Dave Rusk. Dale dug about a dozen of the silver Lucky Sparkling Ales dated 1940.

3rd time we found Columbias but we never found them in large quanities and they don't last long. This is one of the best. Havent found any since 2005.

[SoCal]

Wow! Incredible stuff to pull out of the ground! Which of the Lucky Ales is rarer, the green or silver and red? In grade 1 or better or as a dumper?

[Cap-Sealed]

I've never seen an indoor Lucky Sparkling Ale. I have seen a few indoor instructionals (Ales). The Sparkling Ales were out for a year or less.

[Beercanpete]

Are there any other Acme Englishtown BRAND Ales known other than the ones you guys found? What's the total known on these? Always interested in the stories about the super tough!

[Cap-Sealed]

Are there any other Acme Englishtown BRAND Ales known other than the ones you guys found? What's the total known on these? Always interested in the stories about the super tough!

As far as I know, this is the first time these have been found although CMD may be able to chime in with more details. I do have an extra San Francisco version somewhere. Maybe we brought home a dozen of the SFs and 3-4 of the LAs? I also have a double of the LA, but it looks more olive drab than anything, but you can read it.

[CMD]

The Acme ale BRAND from Los Angeles is super tough. rOy got an indoor one from Ed years ago. When we dug them in Brad Flinder's dump in Taos , I believe we found around a dozen.........I'm sure there's more out there

It was one of my most wanted and I dug one myself....it doesn't get any better than that

Dan

[Kotto]

I didn't know I was evil.

[Cap-Sealed]

I didn't know I was evil.

You talked him (Dale) into selling his 1st beer can collection to you.....actually he was pretty isolated in Idaho and got bored since he had no one to dig with for years. He said about once a year you would bug him to sell one of his 2 indoor Old St Louis Steamboat cans, and you caught him at a weak moment where he said why not buy the whole collection. Six months later, I moved to Idaho, met Dale and we started digging together and he rebuilt his collection.

His first collection was built up just by dumping and was/is pretty spectacular! He had dug cans that no one had ever seen before and the big time can dealers like Ken White would follow him around at shows and offer mint, indoor cans for his dumpers! I never seen it (Dales' 1st collection) in person, just the photos.... some parts of it though at the Phoenix Canvention.

[Kotto]

Pretty accurate. All ever asked for was a chance at an Old St. Louis. My jaw hit the keyboard when he asked if I was interested in buying the entire collection. What actually then happened was me reselling most of the collection on his behalf over a two year period, as I didn't have the financial means to keep them all. Dale being such a good guy gave me two years to pay it off, as long as I met a certain monthly minimum. Otherwise, it would have never worked. In the end I was only able to keep about 100 cans, but they are dandies.

As I recall, the Scoglietti brothers benefited greatly, buying the Hollywood Ranch, Finer Flavor OI from Washington, and a couple of dozen other dynamite cans, and at bargain prices I have been told on many occasions. Hundreds of other collectors were able to get terrific cans that Dale had dug, and he was able to meet the financial goals that caused him to want to sell the collection in the first place. Also, imagine the fun he's had rebuilding a collection from scratch since 1999 with so many great dumping finds. Winners all around, so I'm not feeling particularly evil.

However, there is a word, "covet", or at least I have been told, that some might associate with evil. Some biblical thing, some sort of commandments or something. I don't know much about that though.

[Cap-Sealed]

And the sale of Dale's collection was a win-win for both of you. He was able to pay off his house and be free and clear. I was working in Boise in 1999 on field service trips. I had met a dumper guy (Ken D.) on ebay who dug Acme Ales OIs and had one on ebay. We would go digging every time I was in town, and many times we passed the road to Dale's house and he would mention "Crouch-Dude" lives down there, "but he doesn't have anything to trade" so we never stopped. My mistake is never visiting him before he sold!

I first met Dale at a 1986 Las Vegas Show - his room was always busy with collectors buying his dumpers. I did get a Wilshire Ale OI for my brother but we never connected. The next time I saw Dale was at the May 2000 Gem State Show in Eagle, ID. He had just dumped 3 cream and red Columbia Beer OIs. I was able to get one for my brother (he still has it.)

Then we planned a digging trip, and dug 3 big pits that day including a 30s pit with St Louis ABCs! And the rest is history.

BTW- "evil" was tongue-in-cheek, I didn't mean to get you all worked up...sorry.

[Kotto]

No worries Ed. Feels a bit like the good 'ol days, doesn't it?

[Cap-Sealed]

Here's a photo of the first time I went digging with Dale in Idaho.... I'll have to dig deeper in my computer to find a picture of the cans we found that day.

I remember back in the eighties when you (John) wrote up that pit-dumping story for Dale in RUSTlings, where he found about 200 Old Dutch Beer lo-pros from San Diego. He took Bill & I back there last summer - we found our Finer Flavor Ales not too far away from there. Glad he didn't find them back then!!!