For years
Crown Cork
& Seal has
been strictly
a bottle cap manufacturer.
However, on 18 February,
with revenue from the sale
of a gasket manufacturing
plant, CCS President
Charles E. McManus
secures a downpayment
for a Philadelphia plant
belonging to Acme Can.
Though it's a
baby-step, CCS
is now canning
beer in tall, nar-
row cone tops
with attached
paper labels.
AMERICAN HUNTS
BIG GAME...
...with their gorgeous Test Can (designed in late '35 or early '36, I believe) to tout its product, and with it will reel in most of the nation's major brewers.
The beer can is one year old, and bottlers are getting desperate. For starters, they start passing out these little business cards:
Also, they're pushing their newest product, the disposable bottle.
But Stubby, Steinie & Nu-Glas bottles will never do a lot to damage the beer can's success.
December '36
NCC now has its own "Punch."
If your beer can's lid looks like the lid in the image
above, it probably
fell victim to this
abomination.
C.E. McManus:
CCS President, inventor of
15 December 1936
ACCO receives
its 2nd beer
can patent,
#2,064,537, for
their Groenke
beer can body.
7 & 8 April 1936
Kronquest
submits patent
applications de-
tailing new and
improved con-
cave bottom
and raised ribs
(and lining pro-
cess). CCC's
cans are now stronger than before.
17 August 1936
Budweiser is
now available in
Keglined cans.
"Keglined" is becoming synonymous with big business.
Fall '36
Disappointing sales prompt Krueger to temporarily stop canning Kent Ale. This beautiful work of art is set aside for a few months, but will again be circulated in 1938.
Nepro Cork, at least four cone top designs, and the Crowntainer.
Early Spring '36
National cans
Hillman's Export
for Peter Fox.
For years this can
only existed in
photographs.
However, thanks to
beer can archae-
ologists the world
saw its first actual
Hillman's in decades in 2002.
The first surviving example of the second Hillman's design had been unearthed just a year earlier, also by beer can archaeologists.
J. E. Selliken invents a "rippable"
tab top.
But, as with the Richeson
invention, the technology just doesn't exist at this time to make tab top
function as advertised.
Spring '36
The Paris Can
Trying to solve
(a) the problem
of opening flat
tops, and (b)
the problem of
stacking cone
tops in grocery
store displays,
Robert Paris
introduces his
universally stackable design to
the brewing community.
However, the Paris Can will never make it past the drawing board.
Kent: not exactly selling like hot cakes.
CONTINENTAL CAN
MOVES WEST...
...and runs an aggressive, genuinely continental ad campaign; finds plenty of business with smaller brewers nation-wide.
Pittsburgh Brewing Company signs with National.
Iron City Beer cans are dubbed "Double- Lined
Canteens."
December '36
Crown Can introduces their Piercing and Serving Device for flat tops.
6 October 1936
Samuel E.
Richeson
invents a
tab top for
beer cans.
But the technology required to economically mass-produce this toggling opener is years away.
A May 1936 grocery ad. Note the hand-drawn letters for the word "DELUXE."
What Richeson's Can Closure might have looked like
February and March 1936
Stroudsburg and Commonwealth become National's fifth and sixth business partners.
November 1936 grocer's ad:
Acme's response? "Fat chance!" The California brewer will continue to use the dietetic claim for years.
The Federal Trade Commission determines Acme's beer is not, as Acme claims, "non-fattening," and tells the brewer to knock it off.
14 August 1936
CROWN CORK & SEAL's FIRST BEER CANS
17 March 1936
Miller chooses St. Patrick's Day to start selling their Select Beer in Keglined cans.
"Beer is
packed in this
container for
your benefit.
It is protected
from the harm-
ful effects of
light on its
delicate pro-
tein content,
and by this
modern up-to-
date method of
packing beer,
you can now be
sure of drinking a brew which has the same clear amber color and delicious taste as the ice-cold beer which flows from the ageing vats."
1 March 1936
Hoover Dam
is completed.
A Portsmouth, Ohio advetiser who didn't have an image of a Fox DeLuxe got creative with this K-Man can.
"HI POWER" FOX DE LUXE A BIG SELLER
Early flat top beer cans contained instruction panels on opening procedures; six examples are pictured to the right.
Coors, first canned in December 1935, may have been the lone exception to this rule. Their beer cans -- flat tops -- never contained opening instructions.
From the flat top's earliest days people strove to create a built-in opening device. At least one lucky collector owns
actual protoype "self-
opening" cans from
these earliest days.
Click the image on
the right for more -->
Arizona Brewing begins canning with Continental Can Co.
8 or 9 March 1936
Rainier begins packaging in
Cap-Sealed cans.
8 October 1936
Crown Cork & Seal has finalized last payment for the Acme Can Company. Crown Can is officially born.
For the next several months rumors circulate that CCS is going to merge with Continental Can.
Seen below, a Middleton, NY ad from Dec '36 touted Ballantine's, Ebling's, and Hoffman's beer in cans. Was this ad's language sloppy? Or did Peter Fox actually can Hoffman's? And if so, did the can look something like the digital recreation here?
Summer '36: FTC accuses ACCO, CCC of monopolizing tin industry
19 June 1936
Max Schmeling
KOs previously
undefeated
Joe Louis
in the 12th.
After a dozen or so variations of their original design, Heileman Brewing introduces their revamped Cap-Sealed can. This may have been the first cone top to undergo a major label change.
17 July 1936
Civil War
begins in
Spain.
In addition to new operations at the Acme Can Company plant, CCS builds new plants in St.Louis
and Madison, Wisconsin.
The goal is to lay the groundwork for a huge operation, then make a cheaper can.
May - June '36
Crown Cork & Seal, along with others, accuse American and Continental of conspiring with steel mills to keep new canning businesses from growing.
The smaller canners, like Crown, claim American and Continental are overpaying steel mills to prevent them from selling to smaller companies... like Crown Cork & Seal.
The Federal Trade Commission agrees.
November '36 ad depicting Old Tap as the perfect Xmas gift
Typo, Oversight, or Clue?
Click the image above to scan the newspaper that carried this ad in 1936.
Click the logo
for Heileman's
trademark
registration
reflecting the date
the brewery changed their label design.
Beer cans disappeared altogether from Iron City ads in November of 1936.
But McKeesport's National Can
is still having problems with their "double lined" cans.
Iron City ads (like the one above) appear in various periodicals until late November 1936, then sudden-
ly vanish. Apparently Pittsburgh Brewing didn't mess around too long with NCC's unreliable cans.
Lining and seam problems continue to plague National. Reports indicate drinkers are encountering "spoiled" beer and leaks, and most potential canners shop elsewhere.
Continental pours money into expanding their facilities, increasing their overall production capacity.
abc_1936_ad.jpg 160 600 97 363
Feb/Mar '36
Schlitz cans its Sunshine Vitamin D Beer.
Blatz, first canned in December '35, runs an aggressive advertising cam-paign in 1936.
The similarity between Selliken's invention and the Juice Tab -- which won't appear for another 30 years -- is amazing.
Typically, American Can Company's ads weren't as frequent or ubiquitous as Continental's, but were much larger and more elaborate.
The K-Man Gets a Makeover
K-Man sprouts a hat in early '36, and the contents of his tray change.
NATIONAL HAS
TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES
CROWN CORK & SEAL IS UP & COMING
Some Cap-Sealed can ads claimed "like a keg - it's lined." No doubt this raised some eyebrows at American.
Mulehead ad from May of '36
