Schell s Border Batch Beginnings-Part 2
In the first installment of the Schell s Border Batch story, we left off with me discovering the BCCA and several
other collectors that were just as crazy as I was to collect empty beer cans. I had been introduced to Jay Smith
and Alfred Rabenhorst who s collections I marveled at and wished someday I would have a comparable
collection of my own. Now any of you know me, know that when I start a new hobby or venture I go in with
both feet and this beer can collecting hobby was no different. Every man, woman and child that entered in to
the Chrysler dealership were asked- Do you know where any old beer cans are ? This persistence resulted in
two rather large and impressive finds early on in my career. One being a literal pick-up truck load of Kato,
Hauenstein and Regal cone tops. The second find was a old chicken coop that was stacked to the ceiling with
straight steel Schmidt s scenic cans with the kicker being 90% of them were the scarce Draft Beer variety. All
of these cans were basically wash off
with soap and water condition. Since I
was already member of the BCCA I was
mostly swapping cans through the mail
with fellow members. There were
actually a couple times the Postmaster
of Winnebago mentioned us getting a
bigger mail box to handle the huge
influx of letters I was getting in
response to my ad in the newletter.
One day Jay mentioned that there was
a trade show being held in Albert Lea
at the armory. That sounds like a whole
bunch of fun so we packed up about
10 cases of trading stock and headed
over there. Wow, now there was a
whole room filled with like minded
people and they had their cans with
them! No more waiting for the mail.
With the trading stock that I had, I was Jay Smith, Bob Vierkant and Don Lammers
quite popular that day and gathered the
attention of a fellow named Bob Vierkant. I took me awhile to convince him I had only been collecting about
3 months but we struck an immediate friendship. He mentioned that he was toying with the idea of forming
a BCCA chapter i