Factory logos on cans

Archaeology of Pull Tabs

Which company made your can? This can be recognized by looking at the tiny logos and brand-names on the can body. Look close near the zipcode. Oh, and beware, can bodies and can-end do not necessarily have the same producer! Beverage industries buy their stock from more than one supplier, and the can may have a different origin than the end.

Dating logos is not a clear cut excersize, yet. Companies were taken over every so many years to form bigger companies. This does not necessarily mean that a certain logo becomes obsolete right away. Our project has recorded TD logos from 70s cans, even though TD company was already taken over by Continental Can, etc.


American Can Company

One of the big companies from the USA. Tiny A-logo can be found on their (later?) cans. As the corporations changed their name to Primerica in 1987 we think the logo is now obsolete.

Ardagh Group

The current Ardagh Group logo (2020).


Ball Company

The current Ball Corporation logo (2020).


CanPack

The current Can Pack logo (2020). Can Pack S.A. is a relatively new producer founded in 1994 in Poland, Europe. Therefore cans showing the CP logo have to be dated 1994 or younger.


Continental Can Company

The now obsolete Continental Can logo, once one of the biggest can producers in the world.

Logo ca also take the shape of the three C’s only.


Crown beverage Packaging

Crown Packaging current logo (2020). Not to be confused with the Budweiser logo!


Heekin Can Company

Heekin Can Company was a can manufacturer in the USA founded in 1901. There (later?) logo consists of a small H in a circle (Martells, 1977). Is was taken over by Ball in 1992.


National Can Company

Although National Can Company was an important can manufacturer in the USA, it doesn’t even have a wikipedia page today, pretty weird (last checked May 2020)…. This image to the left was their logo – the outline of the United States – from the 1950s onward. In 1974 they changed to the ‘flying N’ logo below (says Martells, 1977). It can be found on their beverage cans since that year. In 1985-1986 National was taken over by Triangle (Encyclopedia.com 2020).

This is the Rexam, still to be found on historic cans. Rexam was taken over by Ball corporation in February 2015. Although most factories have switched to the Ball logo, we think Rexam logo can still be encountered occasionally on new cans. We saw one, but lost track of where we left the can…oops.


Schmallbach-Lubeca

Yet to be confirmed (May 2020), but we think this ‘S’ on a 3-piece can (left) is the logo of Schmallbach-Lubeca. It might also be Sobemi, the ‘Société belge d’Emballages métalliques industriels‘ located in Bruxelles, a Belgian can manufacturer, but the S looks more like the S in the image below. Schmallbach was a large German packaging manufacturer, which was bought by Continental Can in 1969. The brand-name on cans likely disappeared the latest after the takeover by Ball in 2002.

Thomassen & Drijver (Later Thomassen & Drijver Verblifa) was a Dutch can manufacturer founded in 1919 with several factories. It was taken over by Continental Can in 1970. At this time it is unsure how long the TD-logo remained on the cans and when this changed. The logo to the left was observed on cans from the 70s and we are guessing (!) it became obsolete at the end of the 1980s. The logo below is an older TD logo.

Thomassen en Drijver logo

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