I find myself cap in hand

I was pretty proud of my bottle cap collection after I’d magnetized some 130 caps last month to the front of the beerafrator in the garage. The collection covers a wide range of breweries, including several in Belgium that don’t market their products in the U.S. Seeking a little more information, I typed “beer bottle cap collection” into Google, and quickly learned that I’m not even navel lint when it comes to this particular avocation. There’s a community forum at www.beeradvocate.com on the subject. One guy is saving enough caps to cover a table top; another collector says he has been saving these caps, also called crowns, since 1979, and now has some 20,000; and, then there’s this guy at http://imgur.com/QXUt355, who has an entire wall lined with them. There are also serious collectors who are willing to pay for these caps. At www.bottlecapman.com, an old Old Milwaukee caps sells for $6; a Falstaff cap, complete with a Georgia tax symbol, goes for $8; and a Patrick Henry crown will set you back $30. There’s also a yearly conclave for these collectors, held under the auspices of the Crowncap Collectors Society International. It will be awhile before I apply for membership.