Cans Of The Month Club Beer 12 Oz Tab Top Can

Cans of the Month Club Saluki Beer

This straight steel 12-ounce tab top was issued as an installment in a purebred dog series produced for the Cans of the Month Club, Inc., based in Centralia, Illinois. Highlighting the Saluki from the hound group, the front design pairs an illustration of the swift coursing hound bounding across the foreground with Egypt's Great Sphinx of Giza towering behind it. Beneath the artwork, an educational narrative details the breed's status as the ancient royal dog of Egypt, entombed alongside pharaohs and bred across Middle Eastern deserts to course gazelles. Mandatory side panel text confirms the container was brewed and packaged in Dubuque, Iowa, by Jos. S. Pickett & Sons, Inc., holding a proprietary blend selected expressly for club members.

The Cans of the Month Club emerged during the height of the breweriana collecting craze in the 1970s and early 1980s. Designed for hobbyists eager to expand their shelves, the organization operated a mail-order subscription service providing members with custom commemorative cans at regular intervals. Rather than selling retail stock into conventional distribution networks, the club partnered with regional independent breweries to package commemorative sets centered on popular collecting themes, including canine breeds, wildlife, and transport. As the late-twentieth-century beer can collecting boom cooled, mail-order subscription labels of this type faded from the market.

The can was produced at the historic riverside facility of Jos. S. Pickett & Sons in Dubuque, Iowa. Originally established in 1898 by Joseph Rhomberg as the Dubuque Star Brewing Company, the brewery weathered Prohibition and severe Mississippi River floods before falling into decline by the late 1960s. In 1971, veteran brewmaster Joseph S. Pickett Sr. purchased the brewery with his family and completely modernized the equipment to support modern canning and bottling operations. To maintain production volume alongside its flagship Pickett’s Premium, the company actively pursued contract packaging, commemorative cans, and revivals of heritage labels. The brewery gained national exposure when it was used as a filming location for the motion pictures F.I.S.T. and Take This Job and Shove It. The Pickett family sold the operation in 1980, initiating a series of ownership transfers that ultimately ended commercial brewing at the site in the early 1990s.

Within breweriana circles, this can represents an era when collector organizations directly shaped brewery canning runs. It remains sought after by thematic collectors focusing on canine and animal illustrations, as well as specialists pursuing the diverse contract portfolio of Pickett's Dubuque facility.