At the age of 11, in october 1998, I made one of my most serious decisions. It was the year of birth of a hobby, which induced my passion for more than 25 years – with almost no appreciable pauses.
But how did it all began? Back then my stepfather stored the crown caps of all drunken beers in a small box to have an overview about his beer consumption. One day in october 98 he gave up on that idea and wanted to throw away the box together with all the caps. But in the end I took the box and bewared it from ending up in the trash. I went to my room and looked calmly at all the caps. During that I noticed for the first time the diversity and the phantastic subjects which were printed on a narrow space. At the beginning there were exactly 32 different crown caps and I was glad that my stepdad liked to try that many new beer types. The number 32 together with the date I immortalized on my children’s room wallpaper. Starting my collection I stored the caps in flat boxes, which were on a big table in dad’s photo studio.
Since we had our first internet connection in 2001 I was – so-to-say – totally unaware of further kindred spirits. But then the firework really started. Davide’s collector list, Tino’s trade partners, Dagmar’s („Die Scheffin“) forum. My first trade partners were Thomas Schütze from Bad Köstritz and Gerhard Glück from Bethenhausen. The collector friendship with Gerhard lasts till today.
In january / february we deliberated in Dagmar’s Forum, how and where we all could meet each other. I didn’t hesitate and organised the first KKFT-meeting in Bad Köstritz. My mum drove me to Hermsdorf, a small town, where I met Dagmar and Flöz in a big beverage shop. In a threesome we drove to Bad Köstritz, where „the party“ started long ago. Unfortunately I didn’t prepared the owner enough of the situation – she needed a sedative injection. LOL From that year on I attended all KKFT until 2010 together with Gerhard.
3rd KKFT meeting (2005) in Bregenz with my room neighbours Flöz, Gerhard and Bernd (from left to right)
At the end of 2003 I specialized my collection on only beer. The removed Soda-caps I traded perfectly with Tino for beer caps. At christmas 2003 I got my first CD cabinet and from that day on I stored my caps in CD covers. During my highschool and apprenticeship time my hobby barely fell behind.
My caps wall in the living room consisting of Thuringia, Ukraine and the best picture caps.
Best of Kenya Beer
Best of Thuringia
Miniature cap collection
Concluding some more stations of collecting history. 2012 I achieved to have at least one bottle cap from each country. This I made possible by most unconventional deals, carefully deliberated inquiries at bottle collectors or trading countries out of other’s collections. Until 2015 I reduced my collection on only new zealand and east germany and had the biggest new zealand beer collection. At the moment I have the biggest collection of Thuringia (my German federal state) and miniature caps. Furthermore I collect Kenya and its neighboring countries.
Summer-Meeting 2018 in my garden with Pätti, mum, Micha (R.I.P.) and Günter (from left to right)
My wife Velma is my greatest support in this hobby. Many collectors can only dream of a partner who fully supports them with bottle caps.
Further hobbies / interests: botany + garden, languages, music (songwriting, guitar, bass, ukulele, mandoline), geography
Last but not least I give a big thank you to my family for the unconditional support in every part of life, my friends accompanying me up to now, my worldwide trade fellows for the nice trades, the generosity, friendship and support, several crown cap factories for access to awesome rarities and the webmaster Dmitry, who made this project possible.