Online Reference for the American Beer Cans 1975-1988 Book

[jimw630]

There was some discussion if the American Beer Cans 1975-1988 (ABC) Book that was published by the BCCA would be reproduced online. It was my understanding that this was not planned due to the other Online Supplements already in place. I have noticed that there are still cans missing from the Supplements and New Cans Database that are listed in the ABC Book.

Attached is a Spreadsheet listing of the 12oz cans listed in the ABC book (I'm still working on the 16oz portion). I have identified the cans currently documented and their catalogue numbers and are listed in columns with USBC-2 numbers as well as those from the New Cans Database (NCDB).

Cans yet to be added to the online databases are marked with red or orange boxes. Red boxes indicate the major version, and orange boxes indicate a minor version or revision. Any questions on these variations should refer to the BCCA News Reports (BNR) listed. As more cans get added I will update the Spreadsheet.

As a note, we have been adding the ABC Reference Number in the "Comments" section of the DCDB to indicate the ABC#, making it searchable.

ABC Book vs Online v.1 - 12oz.xlsx

(126.64 KiB) Downloaded 109 times

[Uncle Jackson]

As currently defined, the USBC Volume II Supplement is supposed to include the following:
- all steel self opening cans. This includes zips-tops, ring tops and sta-tabs.
- all aluminum cans that are zip-tops or ring tops.
- all cans that were included in the printed book. This covers some aluminum sta-tabs many of which also exist as ring tops.

That leaves a gap between the two data bases. While the team has been working diligently to get all the cans fully imaged and new cans added that fit the above criteria, there will come a time we have that covered (hopefully, it will be mostly complete in a year). There are still many variations of common brands we do not have covered and are looking for help to find those remaining cans.

I have started a discussion amongst the team that we should expand the data set to include all self opening cans that do not have a government warning. This would provide a clear line for what is included and what is not. Note that there are a few steel cans that have a government warning and those would be retained. If we were to do this we would remove all these cans from the New Cans Database. Note there has never been a substantial effort to capture those cans in the NCDB.

What are your thoughts on expanding the USBC2 to include all of those additional cans? We welcome the input.

Thanx.

[jimw630]

From my standpoint, as long as they've been documented and accessible online, it doesn't matter to me where they reside. I did this mainly as a way to identify missing cans that where originally included in the book.

[MI-Cans]

My apologies for being so late to answer your question. My default opening page is the Active Topics link. Other topics have to be manually searched for and that’s what I was doing today..

@Uncle Jackson

What are your thoughts on expanding the USBC2 to include all of those additional cans? We welcome the input. Thanx.

This is a topic dear to my heart and this is my thinking on the matter.

VOLUME I – All cans, any size, that are flat tops, cone tops, crowntainers.

VOLUME II – All cans, any size, that have self-opening lids (zips, ring, pull, juice, etc), regardless of material (steel, aluminum) and do NOT have a Government Warning (established November 18, 1988). In essence, cans that are self-opening from the 1963 era to 1988 belong in Volume II. This includes the entire content of the American Beer Cans 1975-1988 book published by the BCCA. (No content in that book contains a Government Warning.)

NEW CANS DATABASE (NCD) – All cans, any size and any material, produced essentially after 1988 with a Government Warning belong in the NCD. A quick check of the 43,415 entries in the NCD shows that 42,756 have the Government Warning. There is some content that may not be alcoholic and doesn’t require the warning. Additionally, there are 251 cans from the ABC book already misplaced into the NCD.

FOREIGN CANS DATABASE (FCD) – All cans from outside the United States regardless of size, material or type of opening.

I think the Government Warning is the perfect single issue to establish which database a can should reside in. It doesn’t care is it’s steel or aluminum. It doesn’t care if the opening is a Zip tab or a 360º Opening tab.

The Volume I and II Supplements can have an INFINITE number of cans added for EVERY can in the original books. They can certainly accommodate all new additions/versions of pre-Government Warning cans. My opinion and I can back it up.

I would ask that there be some consideration given established sets of cans. If the majority of a set was produced by 1988 and earlier, please keep it together in the Volume II Supplement. I provide the following example. The first 12 cans were produced prior to the GW cutoff and have no GW. The remaining 3 cans of the set were produced after the publication of the ABC book. For the sake of set collectors, it would be a great convenience to label every can in any set with identical style CAN ID’s rather than three different sets of CAN ID's.

Click to enlarge.

(MI-Cans)

[Ted Wolfe]

I would be in favor of the non-government warning cans to be included in the Volume II supplement. There could be some question as to where the near beer/malt beverage, etc. cut off would be, but no criteria is going to be perfect.