Rather good of The New York Times to take on the question of "what New York City beer can is considered the most valuable as a collectible?" in today's paper. Results included:

Liebmann’s Beer, a flat-top can from the 1930s from Liebmann Breweries in Brooklyn, the brewer of Rheingold Beer. A recent asking price was $7,000.

Pilsers’s Bock Beer, a flat-top can from 1950 (Metropolis Brewery, New York). A recent asking price was $12,000. “Bock beer was a seasonal brew that was sold only during the spring,” Mr. Arnold wrote, adding: “Most brewers only sold this type of beer in bottles or on draft.”

Asking price, eh? I suppose any group can frame value by making exchanges but this does seem to speak to quelles que choses des end times. Yet... $12,000?!?! I guess there is materialism and waste materialism.

But it does beg the question of what it is that we value about in particular in our beer nerdism. In the '90s when "clone brewing" was a thing, I found it a bit odd that people were spending hundreds of dollars on technically advanced home brewing equipment to make a beer that otherwise cost hundreds of pennies. Isn't this is up there? Or... is there an integrity in the nature of these sorts of artifacts that make you see the point of these valuations?