Drewrys"Battleship Gray" Can: 1941

This month let's look at a neat can variation from right before World War II. It's a Drewrys OI in "battleship gray."

In 1940-1942 as the US began rearming for war, restrictions on material needed for building arms led to increasing restrictions on civilian production. One early restriction led to a change in silver paint used on beer can labels. The result was a series of cans painted not silver, but "battleship gray."

There are numerous cans with this type of paint, mostly flat tops and some quart conetops. The Rusty Bunch is working on a composite list. (link opens new window)

I've talked about later Drewry's cans earlier on this site, especially their various 1950s color set cans. I also have a page about their changing Mountie logo.

Dumping a Drewrys OI

One of the first OIs I ever dumped was a Drewrys OI I found during the 1977-1978 school year at Hanover College. I was a freshman and used to go out into the woods or ride my bike along the country roads looking for beer cans.

Hanover College is built on a bluff overlooking the Ohio River roughly halfway between Cincinnati and Louisville."The Point" was the south-eastern edge of the campus along the top of the bluff. It provides a great view of the Ohio River Valley, especially at night when the stars are out. Very romantic (smile).

The Point as it looks now. Photo from the Hanover College site.

There was an old set of wooden steps leading down the hill and I found two Drewrys OIs tucked under one of the steps. (The top steps are just barely visible in the photo about at the very, very bottom of the photo under the white blooming tree) I imagine some couple on a date had a couple of beers while out for an evening stroll. Drinking was forbidden on campus so they hid the cans under the steps. The cans were opened both top and bottom with a churchkey so they were "shotgunning" their beer! (While writing this story I began to wonder if I kept walking down the hill to see what cans might have been thrown down the hillside! Oh well.) Here's one of the cans I found.