The Crowntainer - short, squat, and unique beer cans



Oertel's 92 with white enamal paint

 When beer cans were first marketed in the mid-1930s, three-piece (bottom lid, body, and top lid) cans --both flat tops and cone tops were the norm.  The biggest can makers - National, American, and Continental either issued three piece cone tops or flats, and tweaked the designs slightly over the years.  Crown Cork and Seal was the small guy and the late comer to the party, so they went for a totally different design--the Crowntainer.
The Crowntainer was different in several ways --but the two most obvious as can be observed in the photo are the short and squat shape of the can and the two piece construction.  Crowntainers had a heavy extruded body with a sturdy concave bottom.  Less noticeable was the fact that the early cans were coated with silvery aluminum paint to protect the metal body.  Later, Crown developed heavy enamel paint - usually white, but for a while during WWII -gray that covered the entire body and neck of the Crowntainer.

Like cone tops, the Crowntainer was filled on a bottling line and capped with bottle caps.  The Crowntainer was marketed from about 1940 to the mid-1950s.  Like the conetop, it was popular among smaller local and regional brewers, particularly in the midwest and northeast.  And like the cone top, its popularity faded as the small brewers disappeared and the remaining brewers realized that flat top cans were cheaper to ship, faster to fill and package, and easier to display and store. However, because of the durability of the can (thanks to the aluminum coating on heavy gauge steel and heavy enamel paint), crowntainers have survived by the thousands in trash dumps and outdoor environments. 

Southern Select with aluminum coating tin