Dating Your Schlitz Cones (Temporally, Not Physically)

[Wheaton]

I've had conversations recently with a few different folks about the rubber stamped codes on the bottoms of pre-war Jos. Schlitz cones. I noticed an interesting pattern on these early last year when I got a bunch of variations on the shelf, then made a point of confirming it further at several can shows throughout 2008. I'm curious what other guys find on theirs since my collection is restricted only to bulb tops (late 1938 - early 1941); for all I know, what I'm about to discuss may even apply to pre-war Old Milwaukee flattops which were also by Schlitz.

First: my pictures are the best I could do given the smudgy rubber stamps and the presence of tarnish on the bottoms of some of my cans. Depending on the quality of your computer monitor, you might just have to take some of this on faith. I used the best examples I could find of Schlitz and Milwaukee Club bulbs for photo evidence. Since the tops and seams aren't pictured, here's what they are (from left to right):

(1) Early HP razor-top, straight seam.
(2) True straight-seamed bulb.
(3) Bulb, five-toothed seam. * These teeth are very shallow and not easily seen unless you look "along" the seam from the bottom or top of the can. I wrote a bulb top article for Rustlings earlier last year and put pretty good pictures in it for comparison purposes.
(4) Bulb, seven-toothed seam.
(5) Bulb, seven-toothed seam.

I'll call attention to the last character in each of the rubber stamped codes. They are as follows, in case they aren't too obvious in the pics:

(1) 8 (2) 8 (3) 9 (4) 0 (5) 1

I've been focusing only on bulbs for awhile and had a good pre-existing handle on their production timeframe, although I'll admit that discovering this pattern made me feel somewhat vindicated. Cans 1 and 2 both have an 8 at the end of the codes, assumedly to designate 1938. Can 3 has a 9 (1939), can 4 has a zero (1940), can 5 has a 1 (1941) - they follow the bulb top evolution lineage perfectly. I have 13 different Schlitz bulbs at the moment, am able to read 11 of these codes, and the pattern holds across the board.

The same is true of the Milwaukee Club bulbs pictured below. From left to right, the last characters in the codes are 8, 8, 9, and zero - the first and last of these are smudged and spotted, respectively, but if you see them in the right light they're pretty obvious. I have 9 different Milwaukee Clubs in my collection and there is one with a "1" in the stamp, but it was nearly impossible to photograph through the tarnish so I left it out. These can designs and assumed production years are, from left to right:

(1) Early straight-seamed HP razor...1938
(2) True straight-seamed bulb...1938
(3) Five toothed bulb...1939
(4) Seven toothed bulb...1940

Chris Taylor wrote to me recently and mentioned the codes on his LP copper-colored Vitamin D's ending in 7, which also fit the pattern. The design copyright on this label is indeed 1937, and the LPs are the first inception of it. I don't have any LPs to inspect right now, but I'm curious if anybody else would care to. Are there perhaps some FBIRs with a last character of either 5 or 6? Some brown Vitamin Ds with either 6 or 7? Any copper Vitamin Ds with an 8? Standard HP Schlitz and Mil Clubs would assumedly have 1s and 2s (1941 and 1942), though it would be neat to get some input back from the rest of you guys on what you see in your collections. The war-era Schlitz cans would also be cool to hear about as I don't currently have any. Standard HP Mil Clubs are uncommon as it appears that the brand was falling from favor in the early 1940s, but if anybody has examples with readable codes, I'd love to hear about them.

Anyhow...another bit of beer can minutiae I thought I'd share with the group, just for fun.

[Leon]

Dave, The bcca mag did a interesting article on how to date Schlitz cans. The examples are mostly flat tops in article but may have some valuable info to help you if you have not allready read it. If you did read, then just disregard my comments here. LEON.

[Leon]

My Schlitz Lager cone bottom ink codes. Might be hard to tell but this is the concaved bottom & not the usual flat bottom. Dave, did'nt have one of these in your collection last year. Being a concave gotta be from early to mid 1936 with production overlapping with the Vitamin D. As you suspected last # a 6. Not sure what the other #'s mean. Could the 4 be for April? LEON.

P.S. Click to supersize

[Wheaton]

Cool Leon - thanks. I had a spot-ongrade concave bottom Schlitz Lager that I sold right before we moved, but I never thought to write down any of the details. So, yes, that 6 does make perfect sense.

What issue was that Schlitz article in? I wonder if it was one of the years I wasn't in the BCCA or if I just missed it. I would like to read that. It appears that they carried a similar code format for a long time since that flattop is a '51 can...though it does make me wonder why letters sometimes appear on the bulbs instead of just numbers. There's a couple in my pics with "F" in their codes, never tried to dissect these any further than just the year.

[renokenn]

It appears that they used ordianal dates (the actual day of the year), ie 024 = Jan 24 and 236 = Aug 24.

Kenn

[Wheaton]

It appears that they used ordianal dates (the actual day of the year), ie 024 = Jan 24 and 236 = Aug 24.

Kenn

I hope it is that precise as I could really zero in on when can construction and label variations happened, with little error. Does make me wonder about the one in my first pic, though, that just says "3F69" - all the others do appear to have three numbers preceding the year code. Hmm...the plot thickens.

[Leon]

Alot of company's used what is know as a Julian date code to date there parts.. That goes by the day of the year. Like 223 would be how many days in that year. This method popular on the old mopar muscle car parts & others. LEON.

[renokenn]

OK, another WAG. 3F69 - F = 6th letter of the alphabet so F6 would be June 6.

Kenn

[Beamer]

What issue was that Schlitz article in?

Dave,
Didn't know if you had found the article or not. I figured I would post it here. Maybe others will be interested. It was in the Jan/Feb 1983 issue, hope this helps.

[Wheaton]

* Doc Brown slaps hand to forehead, eyes bugging * 1.21 JIGAWATTS! 1.21 JIGAWATTS!

Thanks, Mike - that was too cool. I was talking to Leon about that article, too, and still can't recall if I was a BCCA member in '83 or if I was out that year...I know '82 for sure, the rest is foggy. I'll have to see if I can apply some of that information to these older pre-war rubber stamps and make sense out of them. That example I laid out of the can with the "3F69" code is actually a rare Schlitz variation (DNCMT 3.2%), and I was hoping the bit in the article about 3.2% beer being carried in the code would apply here; unfortunately not, unless they used a "3" instead of a "2" back in the dark ages. It looks like the one thing that did not change through the years was their coding for the production year in the last digit. Those are all obvious and applicable, though I now have this hankering to figure out the rest.

I had also considered the letter codes as representing months - that would make perfect sense - but in every can I pictured, the letter characters are all "F." I have a hard time imagining that all these random cans were magically produced in June of three or four different years...

This is not good for my obsessive tendencies. I'm gonna go take my medication now.

[sando63]

Another Low Profile Example

[Rand]

Sure....put this in the Reference section.....I'll delete the chit-chat and leave the hard data!

Dan?

Rand :-)