03/20/2010 Please bookmark it as this site will no longer be udpated |
Welcome to Beer Coaster Mania, your internet source
on beer coaster collecting. This site contains information on where to find
coasters, the very rare and mysterious coasters, breweriana organizations,
free coaster guides, hints for eBAY sellers and buyers, pricing tips and
much more.
Coaster collecting has been a very popular hobby for years. While not as widespread as other breweriana such as beer cans, beer labels or beer trays, this hobby has shown a resurgence that came along with the popularity of microbreweries. More and more new collectors are joining this hobby every year. New micro coasters make it very easy for new enthusiasts to be on an equal trading level with the old time collectors.
While most of the breweries that produced coasters are out of business, microbreweries and a few of the large brewers still use coasters as a main source of advertising. This keeps the collectors constantly looking for new issues and 'pumps new blood' into the hobby.
Coasters are collected in a variety of ways. You can collect them by brewery, state, region, country or just collect everything. There are some people that specialize only in sports related coasters or those issued during a specific time period such as WWII or pre-prohibition. Coasters are not limited to breweries, there are those for restaurants, bars, sporting events, soda, whiskey, food and there is even one produced for someone's wedding. Not matter what you collect,there is a coaster that somehow fits your interest.
Many coasters have minor variations that make them slightly different. For example, there is a Rheingold coaster that has printed on the bottom edge the words 'Brewers for over 115 years'. Every year that this coaster was used, the years went up until it hit 121 years.Some collectors would ignore this small difference but most serious collectors would scramble to find all the different variations. Other common variations to look for are: the presence or lack of a union label or printers bug( an example is shown below, the only difference except for color brightness is the number at the bottom of the coaster), different color schemes, inverted (up side down) reverses and different brewery locations. Common micro variations include thickness of the coaster and minor size differences.
Antique Dealers and novice collectors can use this site for pricing items and determining the value of coasters. If you have any questions, contact me using the link on the left side of the screen. I will return most emails within hours.