Empty cans can bring big money

Dave Lucchesi shows off some of the prized “cone tops” and a few “flat tops” in his collection of about 300 beer cans. He owns a few beer cans with values in the hundreds of dollars. The world's most valuable beer can, a Gibbons Bock Beer cone top, was sold at auction earlier this year for $36,000. Photo by John Kubal/Register

• Brookings BCCA man into brewery collectibles

BROOKINGS – In the world of collecting, many times the collectible is at its most valuable when it's in mint condition or uncirculated. That doesn't apply in the beer-can collecting world of Dave Lucchesi of Brookings.

Beer doesn't get better aging in the can; so if a collectible can has brew, it's drained from the can, usually by punching a small hole in it.

Smiling, Lucchesi said, "We actually have taken a sip out of some of the cans from the 1960s. And we even cracked one from the '30s. The '30s one wasn't very good. It's not like a fine wine. They get a little bitter or taste kind of 'yeck.'"



For the complete article see the 11-19-2012 issue.

Click here to purchase an electronic version of the 11-19-2012 paper.