Silver Cream Beer Cone Top Can

Menominee Silver Cream Cone Top

Manufactured by the Continental Can Company in the early 1950s, this 12-ounce high-profile cone top was issued without an Internal Revenue Tax Paid (IRTP) statement, placing its production after the 1950 repeal of federal tax-notice requirements. The container displays a label set against a field of thin, horizontal metallic silver bands. Dominating the front is a deep blue cartouche framed in looping white scrollwork, anchored at the bottom by an interlocking ribbon flourish. At the crest of the emblem sits an escutcheon depicting an eagle perched above a star enclosed in a laurel wreath, flanked by small banner ribbons reading "TRADE MARK."

The Silver Cream name originated during the Prohibition era, when the plant produced it as a near-beer cereal beverage to survive temperance laws. Following the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment, Silver Cream was reintroduced as a full-strength lager. By the early 1950s, the brewery shifted its canning focus away from its earlier Menominee Champion label, promoting Silver Cream as its premier packaged brand. It served as the company's leading product throughout northern Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula until the brewery closed at the start of the 1960s.

The brewery traced its roots to 1870, when the Leisen & Henes Brewing Company was established in Menominee to serve the booming lumber and rail workforce along the state line. Facing early local and statewide dry laws, Leisen & Henes consolidated with neighboring Menominee River Brewing under the name United Beverage Company. In 1933, the business was reorganized as the Menominee-Marinette Brewing Company. Operating as an independent regional concern, the plant faced mounting pressure from major national shipping breweries during postwar consolidation, ultimately shutting down permanently in 1961.

Representing the final era of cone tops filled in Michigan's Upper Peninsula before the brewery transitioned to flat top cans in the mid-1950s, this can is an essential regional piece. It is widely pursued by collectors specializing in Great Lakes breweriana, small-town Upper Peninsula brewing history, and graphic metallic packaging.