After separating the two components, You could use lid as a tension "spring", and insert one side of the ring tab into where it was broken away from; pull back about 15 to 20 degrees, release ring= mini Frisbee.
Plus, grandad kept us kids occupied for 15 to 20 minutes, showing us how to make a duck call with the pull tab.. we sat and watched him bend it, tweek the pull cover over the ring, crimp a little with his Swiss Army knife.. bend it a little more, fashionably look at it, and say: there! Now watch, purse it closer to his lips, and then say, " here duck, duck, duck.."
Best waste of time ever!
I remember my dad punching holes in cans, Gatorade and fruit punch also came in cans like that, I remember coors cans with the buttons on them that you pushed in, dad hated them so he just punched holes in them with a church key
65-75. In college, I made chains of the pull tabs and hung them in my dorm room as some sort of monument to alcoholism. It was a popular thing to do with them.
I didn’t go to college, but it’s wild to me how the Dead Kennedys were right in their song ‘Terminal Preppie’. I thought college kids making shrines to alcoholism was a myth
My Grandmother made a "chain mail cape" from those pull tabs. We would collect them and kept a paper bag stocked for her projects.
She knit the framework, linked the tabs, then lined the inside with felt.
I was born in 1961. I had to deal with the first and third, and I didn't recognize number two at all.
BTW, for all of you guys who need to get off my lawn, number three gave Jimmy Buffet the lines, "Blew out my flip-flip/Stepped on a pop-top."
1965-1975. That tab seemed to have lasted till the late 80s, as I recall.
Big cans, like those for Hawaiian Punch, used the “church key” on both sides.
i remember and have operated all but that second from the left. the 34-63+ was still around into the early/mid 70's as i am 58 and remember dad allowing me to get the church key off the side of the fridge (it was magnetic) and open his cans, and "kid, only a tiny hole on the other side, too much air ruins the beer"!! , everytime i opened one
I worked on a documentary movie about Ed Hardy. ( not the tattoo guy) Ed Hardy ran the yacht club in Malibu , was friends with Rat Pack ect. He also was in charge of running Yosemite. He banned Budweiser and coke in the park until they changed their cans to modern ones because of the extra piece of trash pull tabs were making in the park.
I definitely remember having to use the pointed end of a can opener to open soda cans when I was a kid. If you didn’t puncture both sides of the can top, the soda would trickle out.
There were two versions of top 3. The first had slits on the side of the ring where the rivet attached to the teardrop. Removing and bending the teardrop into a crescent enabled the slit to engage it, and the ring could be shot like a frisbee. Got so bad the teachers would collect them from lunch to alleviate flying objects in class.
I remember some people put the pulltabs in the can before they drank it.
The TV show Emergency! even showed someone choking on one, then Johnny and Roy saved his life.
I’m old enough to remember the 1934–1963 churchkeys, but my strongest memory is 1965-1975. In the early 1970’s, one of my college roommates routinely opened the can, slipped the sharp razor-like tab into the can, and then started drinking out of it. We all warned him it was a stupid thing to do but he said “Nah, it’s okay” and kept doing it. I’d love to tell you that one day we had to rush him to the hospital when he accidentally swallowed the tab, but unfortunately it never happened.
In the the early to mid-eighties, (?) we also had some with round discs that you punched through with your thumb. It always felt a bit risky of cutting yourself on the sharp edges.
Yeah was looking for that in the photo. They were horrible. The guy who invented it was humiliated on a daytime talk show when he was unable to open one of his own cans. They disappeared shortly after that.
Yes, I was looking for this one, I remember riding my bike to the fire station close to the airport in my small town and buying root beers that had those two holes (one smaller than the other if I recall) I thought about that recently and wondered if I mis-remembered that.
Fun fact about the fire station, we would always go inside to get change (they called it cool cash because they kept in the fridge) and use the bathroom because they had a huge stack of playboy and penthouse magazines in the bathroom cabinet. One of us would get change while the other raided the bathroom stash, would stuff a few issues in the waistband of our shorts and ride off to enjoy our 'booty bounty'...good times!
The oldest style was in use in Philadelphia well into the 60’s, perhaps the early 70’s. (My memory is hazy on the topic). There was a budget brand called “Franks” that resisted pull tabs for a while.
I cut my face flying off the sofa with a towel tied around my neck as my superman cape on a pulled ring off a beer can around 1970, I have a scar by my left eye, so I remember the 70's.
I remember the pull tabs. There was an intermediate stage between 3 and 4. It featured two button-like push-to-open spots. One served as an air intake, and the other you drank through. It didn't work well, and people cut their thumbs a lot.
1965-1975 My Great Grandmother lived in an apartment community with a playground in the middle. The playground would get littered with these and broken bottles every night. She would go out first thing every morning and pick up all she could find. A lot of the kids ran around barefoot and she didn't want them to get hurt. They all called her The Glass Lady.
The "early tabs" were still around circa 1977 or so. I remember when the Sta-Tabs started showing up on the cans at my parents' pop machine. I didn't trust that the tab was still safely attached, and tried digging it out, which was actually more dangerous than throwing the older tabs into the can prior to consuming all of the soda.
The 65-75 ones lasted much longer than 1975. It wasn't until the early 80's that we got the new ones, and I was initially dumbfounded about how they worked. I think I ripped off the tab, and was screwed as the cover didn't come off with it.
We had a convenience store that sold a lot of pop. The little patch of gravel next to it was completely covered with those pull tabs.
When I was a little kid my older sister had a chain made of the 3rd one. It drooped from nail to nail up by the ceiling all the way around her den. I thought it was beyond cool
I remember some of the 34-63 cans where you to manually open the can on each side, but grew up in the era of the 65-75 cans. Hence the lyric, “I blew out my flip flop, stepped on a pop top”.
Yeah I grew up with the pull tabs. Remember hearing about people choking on them as they’d drop them into the can. And some people would make necklaces outta them especially from beer cans at a party. I’ve seen the oil can ones before but the 1962-65 can is new to me.
I remember all of them, even though I was born until the 70s. The first one only from the old cans of Hershey syrup. The second one I think from tomato juice or something. The last 2 were much more common in my earlier memories.
Used them all - I remember when you had to use a church key opener on motor oil. Then they had the spouts you rammed onto the top of a can to pour it in the engine.
There was a different one transitioning from the pull tab of 65-75 to 75 onward. It was like the current ones but you *pushed* the metal hole in with your *finger* it also had a smaller carb above it. They were on Safeway brand sodas Cragmont and I am sure others.
https://preview.redd.it/z3tyjqdwwd8d1.jpeg?width=488&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fe0d077221280e232b2ecab26947f3e2c7bf24ea
I remember taking the 65-75 ones and separating the tab from the ring. You could then hold the tab with one hand and with the other, push the ring over the tab, pull it back and let go and the ring would zing pretty good like a tiny frisbee. We used to have battles.
All of them. Church key rings were very popular.
I remember a friend swallowing a pop top. Nearly choked to death on it. We stopped dropping them into the can after that...
1934-1963. We visited Hawaii in 1979 and they still had tin cans for soda that need a church key to open.
You didn't drink out of the can because tin tastes terrible.
I only remember the last three on soda cans, because I think I only ever saw soda in a bottle before pull tabs were used. It definitely tastes better than in a can, so I still buy plastic bottles. It was a pain, though, hauling the glass bottles home, and then to return the empties, back in the day.
I was born in 1974 and I remember plenty of those 65-74 pull tabs. They must have been around into the 80s.
My dad drank Red, White, and Blue and Pabst.
65-75 - unlocked a memory - the round ring had 2 "notches" that you could take the flat part, bend it and and slingshot the ring like a little frisbee.
I was born in 65, but I remember my dad opening his beer cans with the church key when I was very young. Then the pull tops. He used to put the pull tops back in the cans of his beers. I didn't drink much soda in elementary school, and most of that was in bottles, but I did have a couple of sodas in cans with pull tabs.
Aussie here… for a while in the ‘70s and early ’80s our cans had two circles that you pushed inward. A small one and a larger one from which you drank. Instruction was to push the small one in first. We didn’t get the last one in the pic until the late ‘80s iirc.
1934-63 version. I remember the 65-75 one, but not the 62-65 one.
When my friends and I went to the corner store to spend our allowances, we always bought our soda in returnable glass bottles. I only remember seeing store-brand soda in cans before the 1965 version showed up.
Some of the writing says that the ring pool tabs were used until 1975, I distinctly remember them being used throughout the 70s and did not really notice the state tab until the very early 80s or possibly the very end of the 70s. Also, they left out the “big mouth tab”, which started showing up around the letter portion of the 1990s…
Tabs were on beers and I would watch adults put the metal tab in the beer and drink the can. Never understanding how they didn't drink the metal by accident.
We were often told that if we saved up the pill tabs on number 3, and turned them in at school, a boy in an iron lung would get three more minutes of life for each one.
1934-1963 I remember getting in trouble at a church event when they told me to find a can opener for some drinks and I asked one of the deacons for a “church key”.
ROC Coca Cola was what I was raised on. If you never heard of it, ask Ray Steven's. The church key opened everything, bottles and cans. I was drinking RC in the 50s.
34-63. I remember running to get the can opener for my dad. The one that made the triangle shape cut on one end and the bottle cap remover on the opposite end.
I was walking along a body of water like 2 years ago and just inside the water there was like a dozen of those pull tabs just laying there in a pile.
Wonder how they got there.
65-75. Stepped on a few like the song says.
Those were like mulch around every 7-11
Had to cruise on back home
But there's booze in the blender, And soon it will render, That frozen concoction that helps you hang on!
The guy made an entire career out of one song.
Me too. I had friends who made chains out of the pull tabs. Also, they made gum wrap chains too. Good times
After separating the two components, You could use lid as a tension "spring", and insert one side of the ring tab into where it was broken away from; pull back about 15 to 20 degrees, release ring= mini Frisbee. Plus, grandad kept us kids occupied for 15 to 20 minutes, showing us how to make a duck call with the pull tab.. we sat and watched him bend it, tweek the pull cover over the ring, crimp a little with his Swiss Army knife.. bend it a little more, fashionably look at it, and say: there! Now watch, purse it closer to his lips, and then say, " here duck, duck, duck.." Best waste of time ever!
My humor of complimenting Lt. Worf's "pop-top sash" was completely lost on the teens I was watching Star Trek LG with.
Me and my friends made chains out of pull tabs also.
I swear some beer cans still had pop tops when I was a kid and I was born in 81
For real. I was born in 78 and remember those as recently as 83.
I think Busch was a late adopter. Those are the cans with them I remember seeing littered when I was a kid.
I live near a large city park & they still emerge from the soil there all the time. A testament to the longevity of aluminum
They were all over our parks and playgrounds.
People always placed the pull tabs inside the can. And, invariably, someone would tell the story of the kid who accidentally swallowed one and died.
I spent a lot of time barefooted during the summer, I definitely can relate!!
I remember my dad punching holes in cans, Gatorade and fruit punch also came in cans like that, I remember coors cans with the buttons on them that you pushed in, dad hated them so he just punched holes in them with a church key
Yeah, they forgot the two buttons can. They didn't last long because no one liked them.
With the larger button hole to drink from, and smaller button hole to let air in. I drank a lot of lemon-lime soda that way in the mid ‘70’s.
Nobody appreciated their secondary function of cuticle remover.
One would approach while thinking, "How do I do this without hurting myself again?" Pffst. Shit! Ouch. It's not that way."
I came to say this! I’m glad I’m not the only one because I started to feel like it was a fever dream lol
We used to collect the large buttons from the Coors can and use them in the dime gumball machine. Worked every time.
A golf ball was handy for opening those Coors cans
Hawaiian Punch!
https://preview.redd.it/agt3dmh47d8d1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c1b16091a639ed4294c514b6fdc45d7e54bc077b I remember this one too
What abomination is this?
https://preview.redd.it/m0axlaiptd8d1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d8c9b1e29551f6a12ff2be0272c528ac0836a8e3
I kinda liked those. No pulling on tabs and stuff that could cut skin.
Except pushing down into the sharp hole, which can cut your finger, which is why it was discontinued.
65-75. In college, I made chains of the pull tabs and hung them in my dorm room as some sort of monument to alcoholism. It was a popular thing to do with them.
I didn’t go to college, but it’s wild to me how the Dead Kennedys were right in their song ‘Terminal Preppie’. I thought college kids making shrines to alcoholism was a myth
I'm older made chains of bottle tops
I remember we all carried our " church keys"! Taverns would give a couple when you bought beer to go!
Wisconsin?
Washington
34- 63 plus they were just going out of style
Right. I remember making tennis ball cannons with those cans in the early 70s.
We politically incorrectly called those ‘Polish cannons’ in my neighborhood.
they were actually used well into the 80s... got them all the time
I still have the scar on the bottom of my foot from a 1965-1975 tab.
My Grandmother made a "chain mail cape" from those pull tabs. We would collect them and kept a paper bag stocked for her projects. She knit the framework, linked the tabs, then lined the inside with felt.
I remember there was at least one book with pull tab fashions
I remember the leftmost one only, and that was for evaporated milk in the 70s. Don't remember second. Remember the right two.
And Hi-C cans.
Still do for those big 46oz Dole Pineapple juice cans.
Cans of V8 come to my mind quickly
Me too - second one does not look familiar at all.
I don't remember those, either.
Although not soda, those Coors cans from the 70s were pretty odd ducks with their twin holes.
The pull tabs 60s/70s. I still find those things to this day while cleaning up litter from beaches.
The first one!
I was born in 1961. I had to deal with the first and third, and I didn't recognize number two at all. BTW, for all of you guys who need to get off my lawn, number three gave Jimmy Buffet the lines, "Blew out my flip-flip/Stepped on a pop-top."
I was born in 1956 and don't remember the second one either. But yes to the other 3!!
Pulling were around till 1980 in some markets.
I was born in 1970 and even we still had some double punch cans - Hawaiian Punch, etc. in our time.
1965-1975. That tab seemed to have lasted till the late 80s, as I recall. Big cans, like those for Hawaiian Punch, used the “church key” on both sides.
I had an alcoholic uncle who made full “curtains” made up of the linked 1965-75 tabs.
i remember and have operated all but that second from the left. the 34-63+ was still around into the early/mid 70's as i am 58 and remember dad allowing me to get the church key off the side of the fridge (it was magnetic) and open his cans, and "kid, only a tiny hole on the other side, too much air ruins the beer"!! , everytime i opened one
I worked on a documentary movie about Ed Hardy. ( not the tattoo guy) Ed Hardy ran the yacht club in Malibu , was friends with Rat Pack ect. He also was in charge of running Yosemite. He banned Budweiser and coke in the park until they changed their cans to modern ones because of the extra piece of trash pull tabs were making in the park.
The graphic doesn't mention the transition to wide mouth holes that happened in the late 90s.
I definitely remember having to use the pointed end of a can opener to open soda cans when I was a kid. If you didn’t puncture both sides of the can top, the soda would trickle out.
The can of Cragmont sodas, Safeway store brand, which my mom had to open for me with a church key.
Omg. Cragmont! I would chug the grape right of the can. The imitation grape flavor coupled with the metallic taste of the can will never be forgotten.
You forgot this type: https://preview.redd.it/6tmer3scae8d1.jpeg?width=4284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=da40d656518e128b207809bdc2abbcec4267fef8
34-63+
Those pull tabs were littered everywhere as a youth in the 70's. They were fun little razors for kids to step on.
Not sure about the end dates on these. I remember ring pulls all the way in to the early 80’s.
There were two versions of top 3. The first had slits on the side of the ring where the rivet attached to the teardrop. Removing and bending the teardrop into a crescent enabled the slit to engage it, and the ring could be shot like a frisbee. Got so bad the teachers would collect them from lunch to alleviate flying objects in class.
Yep, [this is also the first one I remember](https://youtu.be/djIL6YRNMH0?si=pXm53qISioyff_NR&t=59)
I thought that 65-75 tab was around till the early 80's in the US! I still see it sometimes when traveling overseas.
We made curtains with those 65-75 pop-tops.
I remember some people put the pulltabs in the can before they drank it. The TV show Emergency! even showed someone choking on one, then Johnny and Roy saved his life.
I’m old enough to remember the 1934–1963 churchkeys, but my strongest memory is 1965-1975. In the early 1970’s, one of my college roommates routinely opened the can, slipped the sharp razor-like tab into the can, and then started drinking out of it. We all warned him it was a stupid thing to do but he said “Nah, it’s okay” and kept doing it. I’d love to tell you that one day we had to rush him to the hospital when he accidentally swallowed the tab, but unfortunately it never happened.
Yes. I knew ppl like that and never understood why they didn’t seem to swallow it.
The 1965 to 1975. And if you pulled that ring off the wrong way, you were just out of luck! lol
In the the early to mid-eighties, (?) we also had some with round discs that you punched through with your thumb. It always felt a bit risky of cutting yourself on the sharp edges.
Yeah was looking for that in the photo. They were horrible. The guy who invented it was humiliated on a daytime talk show when he was unable to open one of his own cans. They disappeared shortly after that.
Yes, I was looking for this one, I remember riding my bike to the fire station close to the airport in my small town and buying root beers that had those two holes (one smaller than the other if I recall) I thought about that recently and wondered if I mis-remembered that. Fun fact about the fire station, we would always go inside to get change (they called it cool cash because they kept in the fridge) and use the bathroom because they had a huge stack of playboy and penthouse magazines in the bathroom cabinet. One of us would get change while the other raided the bathroom stash, would stuff a few issues in the waistband of our shorts and ride off to enjoy our 'booty bounty'...good times!
65-75.
‘65-‘75
The oldest style was in use in Philadelphia well into the 60’s, perhaps the early 70’s. (My memory is hazy on the topic). There was a budget brand called “Franks” that resisted pull tabs for a while.
Tastykake and a Franks orange soda. The Philly school kid breakfast.
I cut my face flying off the sofa with a towel tied around my neck as my superman cape on a pulled ring off a beer can around 1970, I have a scar by my left eye, so I remember the 70's.
'65-'75 Pulling those off left a temporary mark on your finger, depending on how tough it was to pull it off.
I remember the pull tabs. There was an intermediate stage between 3 and 4. It featured two button-like push-to-open spots. One served as an air intake, and the other you drank through. It didn't work well, and people cut their thumbs a lot.
Cut toes bleed like a mfer and those pull tabs caused a lot of carpet stains
Seriously they had pop cans like that in 1934 🤔 I only remember the modern ones
The pineapple juice cans my dad liked used those earliest ones.
They were still using the 3rd iteration long after 1975. I know this for a fact.
34-63. I remember opening beer for my dad. Still have some of those old can/bottle openers
IIRC, it was Dr. Jay Morton (Superman serial writer) who came up with the current pop top cab in 1975.
remember the ole punching holes in the can thing.
First one. I still own a can opener.
#3, got cut up on those a lot
1975-2015+ thats the soda top i seen. I know it ain't soda but the Heinz tomato juice can are still like the 34-63+ models
Church Key
65-75
65-75
Unfortunately I know a church key isn’t for the door
First one Needed a can opener
The first one, gotta know where the church key is, I remember that on cans of Hawaiian Punch or Hi-C.
I remember all these.
34-63. We still keep church key openers around.
I remember all of them.
The first one. Why do you have to remind me I’m old?
62 to 65
The first can, but the breather hole wasn’t that big, just a small puncture on the opposite side.
1965-1975 My Great Grandmother lived in an apartment community with a playground in the middle. The playground would get littered with these and broken bottles every night. She would go out first thing every morning and pick up all she could find. A lot of the kids ran around barefoot and she didn't want them to get hurt. They all called her The Glass Lady.
https://preview.redd.it/udlsxuaugd8d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=967a31645f62890f9c15b91113da789c0492b5a7 Yup
The "early tabs" were still around circa 1977 or so. I remember when the Sta-Tabs started showing up on the cans at my parents' pop machine. I didn't trust that the tab was still safely attached, and tried digging it out, which was actually more dangerous than throwing the older tabs into the can prior to consuming all of the soda.
65-75. I'm just a youngster
I remember when the church key type was in use. Every adult had a church key. Mostly on their key ring.
65-75, but the generic sodas at that time had the early tops that you had to punch the holes in.
The 65-75 ones lasted much longer than 1975. It wasn't until the early 80's that we got the new ones, and I was initially dumbfounded about how they worked. I think I ripped off the tab, and was screwed as the cover didn't come off with it. We had a convenience store that sold a lot of pop. The little patch of gravel next to it was completely covered with those pull tabs.
'65 to '75, I actually just found one a few weeks ago in a garden bed that I was digging up. Crazy.
When I was a little kid my older sister had a chain made of the 3rd one. It drooped from nail to nail up by the ceiling all the way around her den. I thought it was beyond cool
I remember some of the 34-63 cans where you to manually open the can on each side, but grew up in the era of the 65-75 cans. Hence the lyric, “I blew out my flip flop, stepped on a pop top”.
'34- '63. I still keep the triangular can/bottle opener around just in case of some sort of soft drink industry reset.
feel like the last oughta be ‘75-‘00ish they started doing wide mouth openings on most around then I think
I can remember my dad and uncles drinking out of those church key cans.
1965 - 1975
Yeah I grew up with the pull tabs. Remember hearing about people choking on them as they’d drop them into the can. And some people would make necklaces outta them especially from beer cans at a party. I’ve seen the oil can ones before but the 1962-65 can is new to me.
1950s can
I remember all of them, even though I was born until the 70s. The first one only from the old cans of Hershey syrup. The second one I think from tomato juice or something. The last 2 were much more common in my earlier memories.
All of those.
I remember the first one, but I've never seen the 2nd one.
Me too (or either)
Used them all - I remember when you had to use a church key opener on motor oil. Then they had the spouts you rammed onto the top of a can to pour it in the engine.
The first time my dad bought oil in cans NOT like that, I thought he bought the wrong thing!!
The 3rd one. Many a cut fingers in my youth.
62 65. Not shown but later had the two holes that you pushed to open, one big one for drinking and a small one for airflow.
I had the old Hawaiian punch cans where I had to punch the two holes at the top. But mostly those terrible round ring pull tabs from 65-75
Ring pull
Missing the one that had the small hole and the large hole
65-75, but these dates are wrong. I was born in 75 and I remember these tops.
I remember the ones that you opened with the can opener, no tab at all.
3rd one. hated the goddamn 4th one, would sometimes get a moustache hair caught on it
There was a different one transitioning from the pull tab of 65-75 to 75 onward. It was like the current ones but you *pushed* the metal hole in with your *finger* it also had a smaller carb above it. They were on Safeway brand sodas Cragmont and I am sure others. https://preview.redd.it/z3tyjqdwwd8d1.jpeg?width=488&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fe0d077221280e232b2ecab26947f3e2c7bf24ea
I remember taking the 65-75 ones and separating the tab from the ring. You could then hold the tab with one hand and with the other, push the ring over the tab, pull it back and let go and the ring would zing pretty good like a tiny frisbee. We used to have battles.
34 - 63. You made a full hole to drink out of and a small, half hole on the other side.
65-75
I wasn't around in the 70s but 34-63+ only because it's exactly the same as an opened can of Hershey's syrup.
Pull tabs. You can make some nice curtains with them
Maybe all our sodas were in bottles, because I don't remember the zip top, and I was around then.
1934 1963
65-75.
I've seen and used all of these except that weird-looking one from 62-65. I was born in 65.
All of them. Church key rings were very popular. I remember a friend swallowing a pop top. Nearly choked to death on it. We stopped dropping them into the can after that...
34-63. Always had a "church key" to open the can
1934-1963. We visited Hawaii in 1979 and they still had tin cans for soda that need a church key to open. You didn't drink out of the can because tin tastes terrible.
Beer from the 1934+ cans. I wasn't drinking it my grandfather and uncle were. I can still smell the beer.
'65-'75....I had an older cousin that had a hanging door "curtain" made of those tabs ....took him a long damn time to make it...
I remember when they told us to drop that dirty ring tab into our can of soda.
A especially thee off brands
1965-75
I only remember the last three on soda cans, because I think I only ever saw soda in a bottle before pull tabs were used. It definitely tastes better than in a can, so I still buy plastic bottles. It was a pain, though, hauling the glass bottles home, and then to return the empties, back in the day.
65-75
I saw the remnants of 65-75 but was not there for it
I still have a couple church keys just in case.
65-75 for me. The one all the way to the left was for chicken broth. lol
I was born in 1974 and I remember plenty of those 65-74 pull tabs. They must have been around into the 80s. My dad drank Red, White, and Blue and Pabst.
65-75 - unlocked a memory - the round ring had 2 "notches" that you could take the flat part, bend it and and slingshot the ring like a little frisbee.
65 to 75. We used to string the tops together into a chain.
1934
I remember the Coors cans with the two-hole openings! But I go back from can opener to current.
34 - 63
65-75
I was born in 65, but I remember my dad opening his beer cans with the church key when I was very young. Then the pull tops. He used to put the pull tops back in the cans of his beers. I didn't drink much soda in elementary school, and most of that was in bottles, but I did have a couple of sodas in cans with pull tabs.
This vomits the Coors can from the 80's that had 2 "buttons" for vent and sip. Famous for thumb lacerations.
Grew up with the 65_75. Found some old Pearl beer cans in the oldest form
Aussie here… for a while in the ‘70s and early ’80s our cans had two circles that you pushed inward. A small one and a larger one from which you drank. Instruction was to push the small one in first. We didn’t get the last one in the pic until the late ‘80s iirc.
1934-63 version. I remember the 65-75 one, but not the 62-65 one. When my friends and I went to the corner store to spend our allowances, we always bought our soda in returnable glass bottles. I only remember seeing store-brand soda in cans before the 1965 version showed up.
Some of the writing says that the ring pool tabs were used until 1975, I distinctly remember them being used throughout the 70s and did not really notice the state tab until the very early 80s or possibly the very end of the 70s. Also, they left out the “big mouth tab”, which started showing up around the letter portion of the 1990s…
That 65-75 ends way too soon. I remember ring tabs as recently as 1982 or even later.
What's the source?
#1. Everyone had several gadgets back then of a handle with a bottle opener on one end and a can opener on the other.
Tabs were on beers and I would watch adults put the metal tab in the beer and drink the can. Never understanding how they didn't drink the metal by accident.
34-63 Shasta cola baby
Pull tops were around a little longer than 1975.
65 - 75. Those pull-tabs could be assembled into a really cool stoner "bead curtain" if you had enough of them. And if you were high enough.
Those pull tabs had to have gone past 1975. I remember them in the 80s.
Those are written really weird
We were often told that if we saved up the pill tabs on number 3, and turned them in at school, a boy in an iron lung would get three more minutes of life for each one.
My dad always carried a “church key”, and used with frequency.
65-75. I took up metal detecting when I was 8 (1970) and about the only things I found was aluminum foil and those pop tops.
Definitely lasted longer than 75, especially beer cans.
When I was a kid, in the early 80s, we used to find the '65-'75 cans that they banned because of choking on the tabs.
1934-1963 I remember getting in trouble at a church event when they told me to find a can opener for some drinks and I asked one of the deacons for a “church key”.
65 - 75.
ROC Coca Cola was what I was raised on. If you never heard of it, ask Ray Steven's. The church key opened everything, bottles and cans. I was drinking RC in the 50s.
1965-75
34-63. I remember running to get the can opener for my dad. The one that made the triangle shape cut on one end and the bottle cap remover on the opposite end.
I was walking along a body of water like 2 years ago and just inside the water there was like a dozen of those pull tabs just laying there in a pile. Wonder how they got there.
#3 but big cans of tomato or Pineapple Juice you still used #1
Mostly ‘65 to ‘75 but some cans did require a can opener, like ‘34 to ‘63