National Bohemian "Colt" (circa 1960)
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This month's can is a 7 oz flat top aluminum can from Baltimore. I thought it'd be appropriate for football season. It's a "Colt" from National Bohemian celebrating the Baltimore Colts. I especially like the 'colt' with a football on the front.
National Bohemian and the Baltimore Colts
National Brewing, like breweries all across the US, sponsored local sports teams as a form of advertising. Washington DC rival Christian Heurich sponsored the Senators through 1955. They closed in early 1956. Local rivals Gunther sponsored the Orioles until they were bought out by Hamms in 1960. But National was not shut out, they advertised with the Colts, the local football franchise, and the Bullets, then Baltimore’s basketball team. They began their relationship with the Colts in 1953, selling tickets to games. In 1955 they signed a five-year deal as the team’s sponsor on radio and TV. They also produced a team film to promote the Colts in 1956, “Corralin’ the Colts.” They released another film in 1960.
In 1959 they signed another five year deal to sponsor the Colts on TV and radio and in October of that year they introduced “the Colt”, a 7 oz bottle of their beer. I think this is probably the same time they introduced the 7 oz flat top aluminum can. Coors had developed the 7 oz aluminum can and Gunther was using one as well. The Colt can not only allowed National to compete with Gunther (Coors wasn’t sold anywhere near Baltimore in 1959!) but it helped the brewery show local pride in their team.
I was told this by a buddy who worked for the ATF in the Baltimore area,
Old timers have told me that the 7 oz. Gunther's aluminum cans were popular
in bars because they were cheaper by the ounce than 12 oz cans (imagine
$0.50 for a 12oz and $0.25 for a 7 oz). I don't know if this was also the
case with the Colt cans.
Interesting! Thanks Charlie....
The Baltimore Colts
The history of the Colts is long and complicated for a website dedicated to beer cans so let's cut to the chase: the Colts team sponsored by National Brewing started in Baltimore in 1953. In 1958 and 1959 they won back-to-back NFL championships beating the New York Giants both times. From 1960-1963 they were basically a .500 team due to injuries and aging players. They were contenders again in 1964-1965 reaching post-season play both years. During the late 1950s and into the 1960s they starred Hall of Fame QB Johnny Unitas. In other words the team was good enough that a local brewer would be happy to link themselves to the team.
The Colts' Record, 1955-1965 W-L-T 1955: 5-6-1 |
Team logo.
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The Cans
National Bohemian was sold widely through the mid-Atlantic region and into the South. In 1954 they bought Altes Brewing in Detroit and spread into the industrial midwest. In 1956 they bought the old Marlin Brewery in Orlando. In 1961 they bought a brewery in Miami and closed the Orlando plant. Despite all this expansion, the Colt cans seem to have been limited to sales in the Mid-Atlantic area, where you'd find fans of the Baltimore team. They're very common in Virginia and Maryland both.
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The flat top can seems to have been used through 1963. There is also a straight steel flat to go with the aluminum one. The steel one is much less common. (photo on left) In the Spring of 1963 National went to the zip top can for their normal 12 and 16 oz sizes. I have not yet found when they switched to a zip top on their 7 oz can, except for an advertisement from December 1964 (seen below) which indicates they had switched by then. The zip top must not have been used very long as it is a tough can. The one I have is pretty rough. I found maybe a case of them in a single dump west of DC, but only a small handful were in good enough condition to keep. The dump contained mostly very common Black Label and National Bohemian cans. |
Color Variation
The flat top has a few color variations. There is the taupe (shown above) and a more yellow version. I do not know if one is harder to find than the other but I seem to find the taupe version more often.
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Taupe version |
Yellow version. |
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| 1964 Colt ad, click to see larger. |
In 1965 National introduced Colt 45 Malt Liquor and the Colt 7 oz can seems to have disappeared. I haven’t yet confirmed this but look at the ad below. It appeared in September 1965. It promotes National Brewing's sponsoring the Baltimore Colts, but the 7 oz can is gone.
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| 1965 Colt ad, click to see larger. |
There are several variations of the Colt can. The flat top aluminum is pretty common. They don’t rust so you can find them in dumps in great shape when everything else has rusted away. They do fade, however, and were so easily crushed and dented that you sometimes find a dump full of them but they’re all faded and flattened. This last year I found a small pile of nice ones under a board that had sheltered them.
The flat top straight steel is much tougher than the aluminum (as I noted above).
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The straight steel zip top can, one-sided |
The straight steel zip top can, two-sided |
There are also two zip tops and a tab top. The zip pictured above is one sided. There is another that is two-sided and its blue “colt” logo at top is football shaped instead of round. The tab top looks like the 2-sided zip top.
Both 2-sided cans list three brewery locations on them, so they could not date after December 1966 when National bought its fourth brewery, the Carling plant in Arizona. I have not yet found the 2-sided version and I suspect it’s at least as hard to find as the one-sided zip in not harder.
Here is a list of the variations.
Flat top / Aluminum / One-sided
Flat Top / Straight steel / Two-sided
Zip top / Straight Steel / One-sided
Zip top / Straight Steel / Two-sided
Tab top / Straight Steel / Two-sided
This raises some interesting questions about the order in which these cans appeared since both flat tops and zips reflect both designs. The one-sided cans seem to be more common than the 2-sided so I suggest the following as a possible order that the cans were issued.
1st: 1959-1964?: 1-sided aluminum flat top (the most common)
2d: (1963-1964?): 1 sided straight steel zip
Last: (1965?): 2 sided flat and zip (rarest cans)
There were still some flat tops being issued in the mid 1960s although most breweries had gone to zips by then. There are white Naty Boh 12 oz flat tops and that design came out in 1965. So it's not impossible that the 2-sided flat was issued as both a zip and as a flat. And since the 2-sided can is much more scarce than the one-sided it'd make sense that it was issued for only a short time at the end of the can's run. Still, it's just a theory.
Still Have to Learn
There is still a lot I need to find out about this can. For example,
Did they first come out in 1959 along with the bottles?
When were they discontinued, 1964 or 1965?
Were they sold at Memorial Stadium?
Were they sold year-round?
How many highlight films about the Colts did the brewery make?
Were the cans pictured in Colts' programs sold at the stadium? If so, that might answer the question as to when the cans were sold.
Have answers? Email me please!
Sources Used
Thanks Matt for the info and pics!
The Library of Congress
Brewery research on Rustycans.com has been aided by Carlson's Brewery Research.
