Bob Kay's Beer Label Books

While they're not beer CANS, beer labels are a popular breweriana collectable.  The hobby's most renowned expert is longtime ABA, BCCA and NABA member Bob Kay.  He's put together a three volume set of reference books on American labels that will be published this year.   I lown all three books recently and they're great!  Bob has been very helpful to me in the past, sending me scans of images for my ABA articles and for my various can histories (see examples on my Jax page) so I volunteered to advertise his books on my site.

Each of the three volumes concentrate on a different region of the US. All three have all the major label changes for the entire period from pre-Prohibition into 1950.  They do not include small changes, such as alcohol statements. 

The books are in color and spiral bound.  Each book has about 130 pages and 3000 labels, each with city, state, brewery or supplier, date period and a value estimate.  Labels are sorted geographically by state, city and brewery (when known).

If you collect labels of any type this is a great resource!

The three volumes are..

	Volume 1: States west of the Mississippi, AK, AZ, CA, CO, HI, ID, KS, MT, ND, NE, NM, NV, OK, OR, SD, TX, UT, WA, WY Released: March 2008
	Volume 2: Eastern and Southern States, AL, CT, DC,DE, FL, GA, KY, LA, MA, ME, MD, MS, NC, NH, NJ, RI, SC, TN, VA, VT, WV Released: June 2008
	Volume 3: Central States, AR, IA, IN, MI, MN, MO Released: August 2008.

Future volumes will feature labels from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois and New York.  A new volume on Wisconsin is also now available.

How Much?

The books are $45 each, including shipping.  You can open an order form here (a small pdf), or email Bob at beerlabel@comcast.net.

Bob Kay's Beer Labels Website (opens new window)