OLD BEER CANS SOLD... FOR £1,300!
THREE historic beer cans produced in Llanelli have sold for a whopping £1,300.
Llanelli has a rich history of brewing, and the Felinfoel Brewery cans were among some of the earliest produced.
Two are red and black with silver livery and a dragon logo, while the third was for a pale ale with a yellow background, which features the inscription “Beer at its best from a can.”
“Canned beer is better because the goodness is sealed in and the flavour reserved,” the makers added.
Felinfoel Brewery was one of the first in the world to produce canned beer in the 1930s, with the practice now commonplace the world over.
“It revolutionised the distribution of beer,” one local historian said.
The three cans were sold by Carmarthen auctioneers Peter Francis on October 3, and the buyer was said to be the current and third generation of owners of Felinfoel Brewery,
The £1,300 figure included a 24% buyer’s premium.
“In the long history of beer, the can is a relative newcomer,” a Peter Francis spokeswoman said.
“The first canned beer came with the end of Prohibition in the US – the shiny new lightweight packaging used by Krueger’s in Richmond, Virginia, to market a pasteurised beverage from January 1935.
“British ales were more problematic. Reacting with tin in a cold climate, the result was a metallic taste, and it was not until the Felinfoel Brewery in Llanelli came up with the idea of coating the inside of the cans with an inert wax that the taste challenge was met.
“With conical necks and pull-off caps, the first European half-pint beer cans from the 1930s bear little resemblance to the modern equivalent that would not appear until the 1960s.
“And, as shown by a sale held by Peter Francis in Carmarthen they are valuable collectors’ items.”