METS RHEINGOLD COASTER
If you’re any sort of collector/curator/hoarder, you’ve no doubt come across an item in your possession that left you scratching your head.
Well, I have one for your consideration today.
This is a disposable coaster made of thin pressed cork. The disc seems like it would go to pieces after four or five meetings with a mug of frosty cold Rheingold. And really, who among us wouldn’t?
Given that Rheingold went under in 1976, I’m assuming that this coaster was produced in the early ’70s.
But the prevailing mystery for me is how it came to be sitting in a bag in my closet, along with a bunch of autographed Hall-of-Fame postcard plaques and a handful of off-condition Bowmans.
My parents owned a liquor store during that same era, and I suppose a supply of these could have come through the door as a premium from a distributor.
Or maybe I just secreted it from a concession counter at Shea, dodging sixth-inning drunks with their armfuls of overflowing cups in order to score my treasure.
Whatever the source of the disc in my collection, I think it’s greatest value might be as an excuse to link back to Brian’s Rheingold post from last year.
And if you watch only one video this spring, please let it be that Bob Murphy commercial for the “new cub-size can”…