What the Archaeology of Pull-Tabs Says About Humankind | Show and Tell | Atlas Obscura

[@KateLove21]

I love the internet so much.. I love how we're connected with these fascinating people and can see so many interesting things. And of course thank you Atlas Obscura for compliling them and bringing them to us through this medium!

[@kymberlyp4056]

As a child of the 60’s and 70’s this brought back so many memories. We used to make costume jewelry with them as little girls.☺️

[@larahaggerty9049]

He is very friendly and full of information. I contacted him with photos of a pull tab I found while rustic camping in Northern lower Michigan. He identified it as a type 1 (the kind that completely came off the can) juice can pull tab from the 70's.

[@s1lv3rw0lf]

My dad was born in 1936. I was born in 1980. He has been collecting these since before I was born. I have always collected for him, and my kids all save and give to him as well. He has giant balls of pulltabs linked together. He probably has well over 150 thousand total. Jars and Jars and vases full of tabs. We always thought he was the only one that ever did this.

[@oheyethere]

It's so interesting to see the perspective. Nowadays they are not considered important, but what about in 100/200/300 years ? That collection will make a future archeologist very happy. If you think about it, I'm pretty sure no one in Ancient Greece thought much of their pottery but now, they're priceless. Which begs the question: at what point does something begin having architectural significance? How far in time does something have to be in order to be acceptable to dig for/remove/collect?

[@wadeparker8695]

Thank you! This is one of my favorite things to do. I will drive up to the mountains and sometimes just pull over at a look at area and walk around and inevitably I find pulltabs. I started collecting them and I’m so glad I found this video. I call it Canning… Because I will also look for old cans and I have found a few beauties that were stuck in between a couple of rocks like someone left them there hoping that someone would find them 50 years later. It’s a very neat way to be an amateur archaeologists and imagine what this person was doing and what was going on in the world at the time they drink this soda/beer… Thanks again

[@28704joe]

10 minute video on pull tabs, my day is complete.

[@talanigreywolf7110]

I remember when they changed the pull tabs to the "safety" ones but, I kind of miss those old pull off ones.

[@adamshinbrot]

We're going to be finding pull tabs long after we've completely forgotten what they were for.

[@ambassadorcartwright7720]

Pull tab collector here! found my way to this video. Nice job

[@jmejnovotney8942]

Dude! I found a bunch of old beer cans with different tabs on them. Some with no tab and you just stab a hole in the top! Someone threw them out. Another man's trash is my treasure!

[@eliseluttrell]

this is so interesting, i never thought about the archeology behind these things

[@atlasobscura]

Always wonder everywhere, even in the mundane :)

[@kathythomas7371]

Great “learning” experience for methodology.

[@Mountlougallops]

I’m a boomer. I remember pulling off the tab with the tear-off type. And putting it into the can when I was done with my drink as a habit. I guess people were doing this and accidentally swallowing them. Then they started staying attached to the can when opened.

[@robotjack2193]

When I was a kid, in the early 80's, my brother showed me something about those. You separate the tab and the ring. On the kind we had where I grew up, there was a little short slot cut out of the tab where it connected to the ring. So you could put the edge of the ring into the little slot. Then you would pull the ring back a bit and use the tab like a spring to fling the ring at your friends.

[@Elsbeth10]

I want to know about the pull tab sculpture/ book end behind him

[@Eshanas]

I see it as an early start. A lot of the older stuff was once rubbish to the ancients.

[@atlasobscura]

So true!

[@dragonflybtchbauer7655]

I did this in the late 80's/ early 90's. Are you kidding me? I had invaluable, priceless artifacts? I even had some from the 70's!

[@IndianaTones]

Awesome I hope to be apart of this channel one day!

[@sicilianeye]

Impressive in a nerdy sorta way.

[@markbullock3741]

No mention of pull tab chains?

[@brendakrieger7000]

Cool!

[@brokeindio5072]

When you want to hop in a collection hobby but you broke.

[@MeAuntieNora]

So cool!

[@user-vn7ce5ig1z]

I wish you'd asked about the codes (eg. S-VIII); did he make that up himself? What's the pattern? 🤔

[@AftertheCalmtravel]

What an odd hobby! We live for the odd! ☺️

[@glibbis]

Anyone else think of "Pull Tabs through the Ages" from "The Detectorists"?

[@linden5165]

11 year old recently got a metal detector....and has started a collection of rusty old bits of metal 🤣

[@ChairmanHehe]

detectorist

[@thomashughes_teh]

He had better concentrate on getting specimens from Egypt, China, and the middle east before their antiquities police clamp down on this.

[@sneadh1]

Useless unless he has data on when produced, when and where found, type of product and where produced, etc.

[@sorsorscience0787]

He does collect that data. He has two “Pull Tab Archaeology 101” videos where he describes recording this information into a database.