Charlie Bacon

[MarkB]

Hi all. I just received a phone call from Ann Bacon. Charlie passed away yesterday from a massive heart attack. He was in the Maine woods dumping with Matt Menke at the time. There was an emergency crew nearby on an exercise but it was too late. There's no information about a funeral service yet. But prayers for Ann and their family, and for Matt and his. Matt and Charlie have been close friends and dumping partners for years and this must have been horribly traumatic for Matt as well.

Charlie was truly one of the nicest guys I ever met, in the hobby and outside of it. He'll be missed by everyone who knew him.

MarkB

[idigrust]

No way. speechless.

[kb]

I am saddened and so sorry for his friend with him Matt Menke as well


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[e61096]

Terrible news, Terrible, What a Great Guy was Charlie
Thoughts & prayers with his family. This news sucks,
my Pop passed away last week...85 played golf every Monday

Bob Reid
585

[worcesterbeer]

terrible news .great guy

[Jim Romine]

WOW
Charlie was a great fellow and I feel terrible for Ann. He will truly be missed by the community.
Matt, I'm so sorry.
Jim

[Longopener]

Charlie was always reserved, thoughtful and a wealth of information; many great conversations about variations and his retelling his great canoe dumping exploits. Charlie generously gave me leads to dumps he'd found in NY when I first got back in the hobby in the late 90s. Cheers Charlie.

[keithker]

SO SAD. Prayers out to their family....

[Beverlx]

What sad and awful news. Walking over from the Ramada to the Italian sandwich place with Ann and Charlie was my first-day-at-Blue-Gray routine for years. Charlie was a fount of information about cans, the hobby, and brewing, and he was a first-rate guy. Still numb over this news.

[Woody]

Just unreal. I don't know what else to say.

[Baxter]

Terrible news. I have known Charlie and Matt since the late 1970's/early 1980's.

At Spring Thaw 2015, I saw them together and took this pic.

Charlie Bacon-Matt Menke.JPG (58.62 KiB) Viewed 19325 times

RIP Charlie

Baxter

BCCA877 RB282 IGU31

[Summitcan]

Just unreal. I don't know what else to say.

think you speak for many

[fjones]

Very Sad Charlie was always so nice to talk to at all the shows. He will be missed

[Pbama]

Awful news. Charlie was a first rate guy who I enjoyed talking with at the few events where we crossed paths. Sorry for your loss to Ann and Matt! Another one who went out doing what they loved to do and doing it with his best buddy, no less. God Bless Charlie!

[Copperhead]

Totally shocked and saddened!
Copperhead

[Kevin the Ex-Editor]

This is horrible. So sad to hear that. I don't know what to say.

[Can Dr.]

Sorry to read this. I have known Charlie for a good while now, shared many beers, dumped with him, and just enjoyed talking with him, especially about the beer industry on the Federal level. I know we have not been seeing Charlie around as much as we used to, but I did not think this is what I would hear about his where abouts. My prayers for Ann, two big losses in a short time. Also, a shoulder for Matt, to loose a friend, probably his closest in the hobby. Tonight my beers are with you Charlie and your friends and family. Sorry Charlie, I love you, but I'm not drinking Quarts.

[oldindiapaleale]

The last time that I saw and talked with Charlie was at the celebration of life for Dave Reid exactly one year ago.

This news saddens me and my prayers go out to Charlie and Matt's family and friends. -Billy Devine

[Candog]

Wow, just wow! I’ve known him since 1989.

[Sea Monkey]

I knew him by reputation and talking on the phone and finally met him in person at Dave Reid’s funeral. So sad. Super nice guy and a huge Quart collector. He put together the Quart Composite. Too many passing way too early….

[Conehead]

This is very bad news. So sad to hear this.

RIP Charlie.

[BostonBob]

Damn! He will be missed! He was always friendly and loved to talk about his quarts and the Ballantine variations! I was hoping to see his collection in person someday. Bummer! This is me and Charlie checking out the Lebo Collection and drooling over the quarts during Spring Thaw 2022!

[CMD]

Charlie was a class act and a great guy.....His canoe story in Rustlings was an instant classic ( up there with Midnight Raid)
..... so sad.....RIP Rusty Brother

[DURTBAGG]

My heart is very heavy in hearing this news! I’ve known Charlie well over half of my 56 yrs on this earth, dating all the way back to my college years. He was one of the most down to earth guys in the hobby and always willing to share his vast knowledge of the hobby with anyone. I talked to him for quite a while at the most recent Spring Thaw, just catching up and BS’ing! As always, I enjoyed that time immensely. Charlie was the type that was always willing to trade cans with you, even if he didn’t necessarily need anything you had available. These 3 cans on my shelf came from him over a couple of different Blue/Gray shows, “back in the day” at the Ramada cesspool! I know he personally dug all of them as he recounted the stories to me on how/when/where they were found. I have always been happy to have them on the shelf, and they just became a little more special this evening.

[menke]

Thanks everyone for your posts here. I refuse to do this on FB so this will either be a short article or a really long post. My apologies for not calling many of you privately- Ann asked me to contact just a few folks in particular and I only got home on Monday night.

I’m still shocked so I’m not exactly sure what to say here. I’ll throw out some key things and a few stories for now. Anyone is welcome to get in touch and I’ll do my best to share whatever I can.

We had 3 days in the Maine woods to check out some remote sporting camps, topos showed several clusters of old buildings and we’d occasionally had great luck exploring these spots over the years. Charlie’s hip was bothering him so we were taking frequent rests. Upon getting up from one, I turned when I didn’t hear his footsteps following mine. He was swaying on his feet and I was able to set him on the trail. That was it. I don’t know if it was a stroke or heart attack and I guess it doesn’t really matter. Incredibly the camps hosted a wilderness survival school and a former Navy man with medic training had started CPR within a minute or two of the event.

Charlie’s life went well beyond just beer cans. He was a career ATF/TTB Fed, literally a program manager for Beer. All the brewers knew him, through that and his consulting retirement. He knew all the what, why, and how of beer labeling and an entire universe of knowledge on all things alcohol. That informed many of his collecting decisions, and he quietly and easily educated many a collector about it.

He was very active in his church. He leaves a devoted following of friends everywhere he’s gone, always a gentle, jovial presence that charmed.

An amateur historian, Charlie knew tons of interesting things about anything one might talk about. The quintessential detail man in a 140 character world. On his last day he chatted up the owner of our camps and impressed the guy with his knowledge of the old Maine woods.

He grew up in northern Jersey and got to see all the cool bands. He met the love of his life in freshman year of college if I remember rightly. They raised two beautiful children.

They moved from Maryland in 1999 for work, making a project of a 1739 house north of Boston (in that neighborhood it doesn’t even rate as historic) that will go on. They rescued it and turned it into a work of art. Lining the walls of an upstairs bedroom was his quart collection- for years essentially the largest quart cone collection in the world. Dumping in VA when he lived down here, and all over the Adirondacks and Maine, and his dedication to all things Ballantine made quarts a synchronicity.

He told me how good the beers were out of NYC, some of the best brewing water there was until property values pushed the brewers out. When I found a full 1935 bottle of Ballantine Burton Ale, we had an official tasting. When craft brewing turned Beer around, he was there and ready to certify all the upstarts. But I don’t think anything quite matched the Ballantine IPA of his youth.

So this is the Rusty Bunch, and the younger guys and the older guys don’t always know each other. I’ll never know his whole dumping resume, but when he would dig Ballantine they would be quarts. He has all but one, unless you start counting seam teeth (which he did), thanks to Durtbagg discovering a tiny product list variation. Charlie missed that I think 19th quart on ebay only about a month ago.

When Charlie dug Dingle Bays in MA, they were in a poison ivy-laced dump in a town park where they put up a sign pointing out how horrible this mid-century dump was rather than cleaning it up.

When he dug Waldorfs in the Adirondacks, they were patent pending. Except for the previous time he dug Waldorfs and landed ¾ of a Golden Bock. Why did he take home an unrecognizable can? Can you imagine pulling THAT out of the acid?

When he dug Krueger pints in Maine, they were zips when they should have been flats.

Speaking of which, when he dug a ratty Iron City can in Virginia, no one but him noticed the lid was wrong. It was the first zip, test marketed there, in a time when everyone thought the “#1” can was first.

When he got a phone call about a local collection, of course there was an ongrade Hornung Cream Ale in it. It had to be ale.

When he got to work, of course his fellow collector and ATF’er Jerry was off that day and they gave Charlie the mint Natty Boh quart they spotted in the Indian Queen Tavern, one of those ‘George Washington slept here’ places.

When he was called to the Treasury building downtown, of course he went to the attic and discovered the lumps under the rolled insulation were mint Valley Forge flats.

When he drove to the end of the road in Beltsville, of course there was a dump full of Gunther Dancing Goats.

I could probably go on for a few pages like this, and that’s just the stories he told me.

In the wider hobby, he ran the finances for the decades-long run of Blue/Gray as the premier show for collectors. He was a key fixture everywhere he went.

Don’t know what else to say. Please go spend some time with your loved ones.

[Lovegun]

Saddened to hear about this. Always enjoyed our conversations at Blue and Gray and Spring. Prayers to his family and to Matt for losing a dear friend.

[Liquid Boy]

Echo all that has been posted here. Charlie was such a knowledgeable & humble guy. I always enjoyed chatting about the industry / sharing dumping stories with him @ Blue / Grey yr in / out. My initial DIngle Bay, several Rheingold's, Ballantine's came from several of his trips like Steve. Dan S is spot on about that early Plumbey's (sp?) Point canoe Rustlings story. Maybe someone can dig it out & post here. Rest in Peace Charlie

Liquid Boy

[MI-Cans]

As requested... click to enlarge.

[Farmer]

RIP Mr. Ballantine

[MarkB]

Hi all. Here is Charlie's Obit. Services will be held on November 12 in Beverly, Mass. MarkB

https://obituaries.salemnews.com/obitua ... O-_Uiv4sdU