Dumping Results

May 2013 is the 10th Anniversary of my Can of the Month, so I want to show off some cans I just dumped. I went on my annual northern dumping trip in late May and found some cool cans. Let's look at them as some examples of the types of cans you find while dumping.

The Very Common Indestructible Can

Some very common cans seem to be able to survive anything in the dump, like this Black Label. Every other can in the same spot may be nothing but rust shards, but this can comes out clean. That's probably one reason why they're so common. They're almost totally untradable even in grade 1, but it's hard to leave such good condition cans behind sometimes.

 

The Badly Damaged Can That You Can't Toss

Murphy's Law seems to apply here. For some reason, the rarest can you find often seem be the worst damaged. In this case these Haberle Congress cones are from the 1930s. They're somewhat rare and I found them buried near an area where someone had once enjoyed a campfire. Of course they were also smashed.

 

The "What is this doing here?" can

This is a nice example of a circa 1960 flat top Goebels. It was in a dump full of 1970s soda cans. We were about to leave the dump when my friend Pete pulled it out. We thought we'd hit an older section and kept digging, but just pulled out more 70s pop cans. Sometimes there's an oddball can that simply doesn't match the rest.

 

Great Color, Where's the Rest?

Half the can is gone, but the rest still has nice color! Argh!

 

The Disappointment

	This is the side I saw when I pulled it out of the ground.	This is how the other side cleaned up. Ugh.

I scatter-dumped this can and half had nice color straight out of the ground! After cleaning though, the other half of the can was still kind of crummy. Oh well. These cans get your hope up only to disappoint.

 

The it's Not a Beer Can

Mystery cans that turn into other cans, usually soda. This one had me wondering for a minute as I cleaned it. "What beer can had stripes like that? Oh wait, it's a Cott soda."

 

The "Meh" Cans

I scatter-dumped these three along a hillside. All were mystery cans. They cleaned up well so I don't want to toss them out, but they're common enough that I can't get excited about digging them.

 

The Non-Beer Cans

Sometimes it's cool just to clean and keep other cans. I have bunches of non-beer cans along a shelf in my work shed. The grated cheese and syrup cans came from a fishing cabin dump.

 

And finally, the grand finale!

The Dump Dance!

Yes! It's a difficult can to find, it's in good shape, and there's more than one of them! Last year we found two of these red POC flats from Cleveland but they didn't clean up. This year we returned to the same spot, found the other four, and they were all in nice shape. We were at an old, abandoned fishing camp and this beer probably wasn't sold in upstate eastern New York, so we guessed somebody brought a six pack from home for their fishing trip. Here are three of them. They have great color! Best find of the trip! YAHOO!! (or YIPPIE!)

 

Not Shown

 

The "Bored Drinker" Can

Full of churchkey holes on the lid, the bottom, and the sides. Whoever drank it sat there once it was empty and poked hole after hole in it. I found one of these, but it's in my partner's batch to clean.

 

Can-in-a-Can

We didn't find any of these this time, but the best condition cans are often those that were placed inside of a larger can (such as a soup or juice can) before being tossed away. In many cases, the outside can will protect the one inside from rust.