California Vacation Digging II

[Cap-Sealed]

Took a week of vacation in Northern California to go digging with Dale & Bill. My first 2 trips of the year sucked, this one paid off well!

First strike - you got to put something in the box to get things going....

Our secret weapon - Pepe the Mule!

Lucky OIs & Rainier cones - always go back where you found cans last. I thought we hammered this place last year, but Dale wanted to go back and look for some Willows...

Special Brew OI by Grace

The Big D & Bill L

Old Friscos....

[Cap-Sealed]

Bill with an El Rey....

[Cap-Sealed]

We did well considering the Sierras had a record snow pack. We knew we couldnt get into the high country and had to stay low. We ran across 2 washed out roads which put the kabosh and hitting some areas we wanted to go, and we blocked by mud holes in other places (flooded fields) which also denied us. Almost got both trucks stuck at once too. We were on fire for the first day and averaged a case or 2 of cans every day after that. Not a bad start for 2019...

[DanielinAk]

Fantastic digging fellas. Every year I look forward to your week long adventure.


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[Cap-Sealed]

The Lake Tahoe show is our next adventure! That's in July... most of the snow should be gone by then.

Me and Dale....

Washed out road.... forest fires devastated the area and the water no longer soaks in the ground - it runs off right away causing flooding. Bill did find a surface Old German FT by Grace - one side burned.

1st OIs of the year for me... Lucky Lagers!

[keithker]

Great digging but I'm not sure a certain someone would approve of that steak cooking method.....

[Leon]

Looks like I seen a can in a can in a can. Triple Canner. What's the condition of that one? Congrats LEON.

[Conehead]

Outstanding trip guys.

Really looks like a great time!

Love the El Rey and Monterrey LP's.

Jim

[Rusty Jonesin]

Looks like your off to another excellent season ED.
Great digs guys, it appears the weather and the can Gods were in your favor.
Wish I could have been there, this work stuff sucks!

some great cans and condition, Dorf's in California?? that would be a fun can to dig.
Love the cones.
Rusty

[Longopener]

Are the ABCs good?

[Longopener]

Are the ABCs good?

[Cap-Sealed]

Are the ABCs good?

They were the first cans in the box for me.... nothing special but have good color. If they have Keglined on them, they could be paint overs of Albion Ale or Bo Bohemians!

[Cap-Sealed]

The Friday where we ended our digging trip, we had a half a day on that Saturday to burn so we went up to see RB Hall of Famer Herman Oswald for an afternoon. Herman tried really hard to get us in a good spot to dig but the snow prevented us from many of his sweet spots and the other good areas close to his house were heavily logged, destroying the camping areas. We found one campground to bleep around for a couple hours and dug these...nothing special but it was a bonus dig considering we figured we were done for the week. It was fun because you never know what will pop up in the pits.... If only those Becker's were Happy Hops!

[canman65]

Great work guy's. Always love the western photo's!

[Cap-Sealed]

Here's 10 cases of keepers me, Bill L and Dale dug last month in California. Not bad considering California is all dug out, plus we went too early and couldn't get into the high country because of the record snowpack, but we had a great time and cant wait for the next one! We have about a case that need serious de-denting too. Dale straighten about 40+ cans today before we did the shoot. We found 6 or 7 different Lucky Lagers including O/Is. 3 different silver Burgies: 1-sided, 2-sided gray ones by Kan-Kegs, and 2-sided silver ones that are Keg-lined. Also found some 1948 Rainier Ales with 6% alcohol on the lid and an arrow on the side panel pointed to the date on the lid. The El Rey cones are the 4% variation. The red GBs are different than the ones we found last year - these are by North Bay & non-IRTP. Last year's were by IRTP and by Grace. We found 90% of the cans in the same area/camps we dug last year and at 2 places I thought we dug out. So the golden rule of dumping applied: "Always go back where you found good cans before!" I'll get a story written up... I'm still one behind yet.

[DanielinAk]

Jeez Louise that’s a sight of beauty right there


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[idigrust]

Holy Smokes !

[Cap-Sealed]

Thanks! It took 3 weeks to do all the cans. I went to Dale's yesterday to scrub the dirt off (the last of the cans) before soaking them. We had 6 buckets going last night. Came by this morning to pull them out of the acid, start the pyramid, then shoot the photos, then separate by brand, then do the split, and box everything up again... I thought maybe 3 or 4 hours today but it was ALL-day! We also went over our plans for the South Lake Tahoe Dump Trip & "Gem of the Sierras" Show... only 6 weeks away!! Yeah Buddy!

[Conehead]

Wow! That's a great stack of cans.

Good times!

[CMD]

Hard to beat finding cans with the Gold Bug Detector !!!

[Cap-Sealed]

We had a lot of fun searching and finding cans. Maybe a lot of guys would have left some of the stuff we dug, but we live in the dumper's hell of New Mexico & Texas where the next town over could be hours away, and where dumps are few and far between (not like back east where you can throw a rock and hit another dump!) and when we do find one, it is either burnt or sun-fried. Add to that very little population back in the day to throw out any trash at all. We really enjoy digging up color! We found pits where someone else had started digging, hit some Lucky Lagers, stopped digging and left it open. That's just being beer can snobs and jerks for not covering up their pits. All in all, it's not only what we find but the great experience and putting all the research together and hoping we have a little luck. Driving home with 10+ cases of dumpers in the truck is a lot better than finding nothing at all (like digging in the Southwest.)

Now only if the Bohemians were Bo-Bohemians!

[BLindstrom]

Yes, I admit I box the Luckys and the Burgies. There are a lot of variations and I often upgrade with each trip. I love digging 30s cans but I am plenty happy with stuff from the 50s as well. When we found the Finer Flaver Ales they were under a layer of Pabsts so you never know what might pop out if you keep digging.

[canhawk]

Awesome digs. In the pic "10 cases of keepers" it's interesting to note the solo singles, like one Gold Medal, one Olympia, one silver Brown Derby OI, one Regal Select beer

[Cap-Sealed]

Awesome digs. In the pic "10 cases of keepers" it's interesting to note the solo singles, like one Gold Medal, one Olympia, one silver Brown Derby OI, one Regal Select beer

Only 1 OLY allowed in a photo.... if it was up to Scott Field, he would NOT allow any Olys to be taken home and certainly not in the photo! Same goes from Brown Derbys. I always hid one (Oly) in Scott's truck under the seat when he is not looking. There were more silver Brown Derbys but that was the only one that made it home. Just 2 Gold Medals but the other one was thrashed. We found 50 Monterey cones but they were all surface cans that were wasted. Just one buried in a food can pit. There has to be another pit full of them somewhere and will return next time to find the rest. Also one ABC cone but we find one every time we go.... 4 solos!

We also have about 2 cases of cans that didnt make the cut and thrown away at home. Plus another case of cans for Bill that I didnt want to clean or needed serious de-denting. Bill likes to clean cans and repair them.

Out of all the Lucky Lagers, of course I like the OIs the best, but we found 5-6 Lucky "Bug" flat tops from SF with brewery also at Azusa. I find the zips all the time but rarely the flats. These were dated ~ August 1962.

[canhawk]

The diversity of labels out there is amazing. Interesting about the Lucky bug zips and flats.

[Cap-Sealed]

Funny thing is that we hardly found any Acmes this time, and our last trip we found hundreds! I was hoping we could find some Happy Hops but the closest we came to that was the red GBs with the little Happy Hops dude on them....

GB.PNG (222.71 KiB) Viewed 3129 times

Now those red GBs we found come several ways:

by Grace Bros IRTP "Great Beer"
by North Bay non-IRTP "Great Beer"
by Grace Bros non-IRTP "Good Beer"

There could be more variations of these too....

[MI-Cans]

@Cap-Sealed Two questions.

Do you ever offer your excess inventory in the Advertise section of the RB website?

What would you ask for the R/W/B ABC can in pic?

Thanks.

(MI-Cans)

Click to enlarge.

[Cap-Sealed]

@Cap-Sealed Two questions.

Do you ever offer your excess inventory in the Advertise section of the RB website?

What would you ask for the R/W/B ABC can in pic?

Thanks.

(MI-Cans)

Click to enlarge.

z_glory.jpg

I don't think I have ever had much luck in the Advertise section but I have done well when I posted stuff for a RB online show - even days afterwards.

We only found 2 ABCs and Bill didn't even get one - sorry.

I must have 1500+ dumpers at my house - I plan on bringing them to the ABQ CANvention and hopefully blowing them out ($2,$3,$5/can.) I have boxes from over 12 years ago when I lived in Boise and haven't been thru them! What doesn't sell will go into the RB CANvention dump.... I know when I tossed a bunch of cans in the RB dump at Denver - guys where letting me know the cans they picked and put on ebay, some of them were selling for $50! Not sure I'll do that again.... but the stuff needs to go. I have no more room. Dale has 2000+ dumpers to bring. UPS will be on the CANvention floor on Saturday so you can ship all your goodies home!