My next-door neighbor found one of these in the grass...

[Archae]

How long has it been since anyone here has seen one of them?

For me, decades.
And I'm grateful for them being phased out, they were wasteful and dangerous.

[liberal N proud]

1. Everyone had a beer tab chain

I recall boating, the game warden would check to make sure you had a tab for every can you had.

They were dangerous in many ways.

[Liberal_in_LA]

7. Havent seen one of those in decades

[StarTrombone]

2. In college we used to make them into chains

And hang them on our Christmas trees

[Fumesucker]

3. Saw at least several hundred today, maybe several thousand..

Someone at the flea market had some old mayonnaise jars full of beer tabs. I didn't really pay any attention but I did notice them because I look at everything.

[Brickbat]

4. I find them pretty often in my woods. It was a different time.

[greatlaurel]

5. Those aluminum pull tabs were torture devices for cattle.

Grazing cows would easily ingest those little blades and then have their insides shredded. Vets can treat iron "hardware" with magnets. Since those were made of aluminum the magnets can't help. My folks lost a lot of cows to those things. People are still horrible about throwing their trash everywhere including cow pastures, parks and waterways.

The stay on tabs are a big improvement, but people still tear them off. People, especially children, still ingest those tabs. They also do not show up on x-rays.

I am very glad that did not end up in someone's foot!

[Liberal_in_LA]

6. Wow. Antique

[Hekate]

8. A kid I was babysitting slid down a hill in his bare feet. Jeez that was ugly.

I got him to the clinic, where the nurse handed me a basin of soapy/disinfectant water and told me to make him soak his filthy foot so she could actually treat it. He was in full-on owie-it-hurts-where's-my-mom mode, and didn't want to. Thank God his mom finally showed up.

I don't remember when pop-top cans were redesigned, but I'm so glad they were.

[missingthebigdog]

9. Blew out my flip flop,

Stepped on a pop top
Cut my heel, had to cruise on back home

But there's booze in the blender

And soon it will render

That frozen concoction that helps me hang on.

Sing it with me, now....

[left-of-center2012]

10. "Alan Jackson - Pop A Top"

[Major Nikon]

12. jim ed brown- pop a top

[roamer65]

11. They remind me of Blatz beer.

A neighbor drank the stuff when I was a kid and I remember those pull off tops.

[left-of-center2012]

13. Could it be from a Duff beer can?

[Jesus Malverde]

14. Around when were these phased out?...nt

[Archae]

15. Yes I was, between the 70's and 80's.

[silvershadow]

28. Yes it was. in about 1969 or 1970 I cut my knee open on one of those, while playing in my

Grandpa's truck. It truly needed stitches, but we were just poor country folk, so Grandma held me while I cried, then she took care of it. Had a half-moon shaped scar on that knee for years and years. Even as an adult, the remnants persist.

When the new tabs first came out we were teens, and already had jobs as the weekly (or more) clean up crew at our local racetrack. Made damn good money. 1970's we made a minimum of $20 each per race, plus if it was a heavy crowd or special race we made more. Sometimes the owners would tip us as well.

We cleaned up every last piece of scrap and trash there was on the entire grounds- under every bleacher, all around the grounds, the pits, the track itself, and the parking lots. Saw a LOT of those tabs. Picked up enough for 10 lifetimes. Cut myself on more than one.

Sometimes, a small modicum of progress is made. This I can say is one.

[BlueSpot]

16. I saw my first new-style one in the late summer/fall of 1978

I remember because I had to write an essay for English class explaining how to do something. I wrote my essay on how to open these new kinds of tabs.

[greendog]

17. Remember Pop Top Terp?

[eppur_se_muova]

18. Lesson: the first solution that anyone thinks of not only may not be the best, it probably isn't.

But the free market being what it is, by the time anyone realizes the problem, there will be billions of those suckers already out there.

[tblue37]

19. That just reminded me of when coffee cans could only be opened with a key, like this:

And for some reason that reminded me of S&H green stamps.

I am soooo old!

[Archae]

21. Canned hams still have that.

Gotta be careful opening those!

[Zorro]

25. And that brings to mind cone top soda cans

I still remember them from back in the day.

[Bucky]

32. Can you imagine drinking three of those in one day?

10, 2, and 4 to me now means I'll have one in October, one in February, and then 4go any other fake sugar drinks the rest of the year.

[tblue37]

35. I have never seen those! nt

[GulfCoast66]

20. Pulled a bunch about 2 months ago

Still use them in China. I am glad we do not have them...but there is no more satisfying way to open a beer!! Too bad the beer in China is not fit to drink!

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

22. "Marguaritaville" lyric has become historically irrelevant.

"Stepped on a pop top, Cut my heel, had to cruise on back home."

Grandpa, what was a pop top?

[Bucky]

33. Shut up, kid, and finish your margarita

That Xanex isn't going to wash itself down

[lumberjack_jeff]

37. heh. +1 n/t

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

39. Pop tops are new school. I still keep a church key handy.

just in case...

[trof]

23. Before pop tops, we had this:

The "Church Key"

[Freddie]

30. Yep I still have one

I'm old enough to remember when the pop-tab was a new thing, previously you had to use one of those. My grandpa owned a luncheonette and gave away "fancy" ones ("Compliments of Charlie M___'s Restaurant&quot and I still have mine. Use it every Thanksgiving to open the cranberry sauce.

[trof]

40. Used to get one free with a six pack of beer.

[parkia00]

24. I have hundreds of them from my metal detecting hobby.

The parks here are filled with them. Fill a pail and maybe I can get rid of them at the scrappers.

[grasswire]

26. oh god -- I thought it was going to be a snake picture. nt

[brewens]

27. Some people used to pull those and then stick them in the can they were drinking from.

So it would have been kind of hard to accidentally swallow one, but no freakin' way I ever did that! Usually at a beach, we'd be using our first empty for that and cigarette butts.

[braddy]

29. I have an unopened Coors can, push button top version.

http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=237735&d=1332398625

[Throd]

36. There were several odd attempts for replacing pull tabs in the late 70's

I have several of those Coors cans in my collection. It was not a good design as the can tended to get shook up during the opening process.

The weirdest design features a wire and lever system that opens the top. Pretty convoluted.

[Bucky]

31. When I was a kid, after little league games we'd pop our Mountain Dews and drop the tabs in the cans

Mom was convinced I was gonna choke on one of them eventually. But I never did and it saved how many other kids from cutting a toe on one of those.

[KatyMan]

41. There was an episode of the show Emergency! that had

that plot, a guy guzzling beer and dropping the tops into the can when he opened them, and one got stuck in his throat. It was my favorite show when I was a kid, and after watching that one I NEVER did that again

[Bluenorthwest]

34. First banned in Oregon in 1972....

nt

[Iggo]

38. Ancient alien technology.

[TipTok]

42. Saw these in Africa and Afghanistan...