Bartels Beer Cone Top Can

Bartels Beer Cone Top Can

The Bartels Beer cone top can represents the mid-20th-century canning era, produced during the 1940s Internal Revenue Tax Paid (IRTP) period. Fabricated as a 12-ounce high-profile cone top, the container bears the mandatory "INTERNAL REVENUE TAX PAID" statement curved along the upper left perimeter of the central oval frame. The front panel highlights the brand's classic advertising emblems, including a circular medallion featuring "The Professor" paired with the slogan "The Professor Says" positioned directly above the diagonal "Bartels" script and the prominent banner declaring "There Is None Better".

The Brand

The Bartels name originated in northeastern Pennsylvania in the late nineteenth century and built a dedicated regional following. The brand distinguished its marketing through its professorial mascot and the long-running tagline, "There Is None Better". This visual motif and slogan remained central to the brand's identity through multiple decades and label redesigns, allowing the name to retain immediate consumer recognition as it expanded through various metropolitan distribution channels and production partnerships in the mid-1900s.

The Brewery

This can was packaged by The Greater New York Brewery, Inc., operating out of Ridgewood in the New York metropolitan area. Established in the wake of Prohibition, the company became an active brewing concern during the 1940s by acquiring and producing a varied portfolio of regional labels, including Bartels, Horton, and City Club. Operating during the resource-constrained years of World War II and the immediate postwar period, the brewery navigated supply quotas and intense regional competition before shifting corporate identities and eventually ceasing brewing operations around 1950.

Collecting Context

For breweriana collectors, high-profile cone tops from the IRTP era remain a core collecting focus, illustrating a transitional packaging technology prior to the complete dominance of flat top and tab-opening designs. Cans produced under The Greater New York Brewery name hold particular appeal for collectors focused on New York metropolitan brewing history, wartime-era can manufacturing, and vintage mascot-driven advertising art.