The Great Beer Sign Bamboozle

I wrote this article last year on the old version of the website but I figured I bring it back again because it’s something that needs to be heard by beer collectors all around.

Since Hamm’s Beer has been making a resurgence of popularity in the last couple years, some people have decided to milk it out for everything its worth.

My biggest gripe was people taking random pictures and throwing some Hamm’s coolers and cans and whatever on them and pretending it’s an authentic advertisement and then SELLING IT for a profit. That’s complete bullshit right there.

My other gripe was that people were taking actual Hamm’s advertisements, printing them on aluminum and then giving them a fake rust effect to make it look old and putting them up on ebay. But when I started seeing them at actual collector shows, I had to put my foot down and write a post about it.

My main mission is to prevent people from buying knockoff crap. Hamm’s has produced so many things with the logo/ bear and related merchandise throughout the years that it’s pretty unnecessary to start making counterfeit merchandise.

But at least these signs were once sanctioned by Hamm’s BUT designated to only be seen in a magazine….they were only in print media version, never were on tackers…..I’m 99% sure….but most likely correct haha.

I will say Miller Coors now Molson Coors (stupid name change by the way) cuz really who drinks Molson?, did put out this one a couple years ago but again it’s pretty new and not from the 1950’s/60’s.

So we will start with the one that started all this madness and that’s this picture of a guy fishing and thinking about having a Hamm’s afterwards…or is he?

Who starts out a sentence out with a lowercase letter? Nobody.

Well Target has recently changed their logo to start out with a lowercase T but yeah.

Ok I will say Hamm’s did have “the beer refreshing” start with a lowercase letter once here…

Maybe they were drunk or they were just trying to be hipster in the 60’s, who knows?

So the real phrase was “The beer refreshing as the crisp cool land it’s brewed in”. NOT “refreshing as the land it comes from”

Rephrasing things never seem to work out right. Its like saying Star Wars, The Empire is mad and it’s getting it’s revenge!

Also another key to spotting the fakery is that Hamm’s has never had a cooler in any of their ads before, glasses, cans and bottles yes, but never a cooler.

I’m assuming they got the inspiration to make this sign/poster from these real ads….

And now another faker has started showing it’s ugly mug…..

This one also has the same traits as the OG of fakery. You can put Theo Hamm Brewing Co, St Paul on the bottom all you want but it’s still not legit.

Ok on to the “rusty” ones. As I said before they made me mad before but now I’m starting just accept the silliness of them …kinda but don’t go bringing these to collector shows and selling in place of actual old school merch cuz they aint, know what I’m sayin?

So remember the fisherman ad from above that was most likely inspired to make these knockoffs, well here it is in all it’s rustiness ….

You can pretty much take anything these days and gussy it up to make it look old, pictures, videos anything. I found a couple things funny from the sellers of these signs, one of the companies is called “Desperate Enterprises” Ironic? I think so.

Another seller was stating to only buy from them because they are in the US and that some Chinese sellers are stealing their listings and the quality is bad which I agree with but guess what guy, you are also selling made up stuff too so yeah.

Dont get me started on this one….

First off …wait what? You can add a bottle of Sunny D - Purple stuff all you want here and it still wouldnt be considered a real Sunny D ad. Also copyright? Hahahahaha give me a break. I saw this on ebay a while back and also found it on a google search of Hamm’s signs again recently.

And just cuz I keep finding them, here are a couple more examples on things to look for in impostor signs. The crease or in this case the middle of the magazine from where they got the ad is blatantly right there along with fake rust of course.

I know this is from a magazine ad because I posted it a few times during Christmas myself but I wouldn’t have thought they would need to “rust it up”.

Since you have suffered enough through those, here are a couple real old school signs people should be searching out for ….

And just cuz, here are some great looking classic Hamm’s print ads that should get more attention….

So in closing, I wrote this article because I want to protect my fellow beer drinking/collector friends to not get fooled by the recent wave of fake merchandise.

We all love Hamm’s and old school beer merchandise and it’s easy to get swooned by some good looking newfangled stuff, but if you do, just make sure the bullet holes and rust are real before throwing down your hard earned money.

I’m not an expert but for the last 15 years I have been buying breweriana and going to shows so I hope my experience can give you some type of upper hand/heads up on collecting.

PS the real guys you should be asking if you are in doubt are Barry Travis and Stevan Miner from ibuyoldbeer.com …they know their shit! Haha