BRIMFIELD, Mass. — For more than 40 years, Dan Morean Auctions has been bringing breweriana collections to market from across the country, suggesting that there’s not much this house hasn’t run across during its history. Its January 14 sale featured what it called Highly Selective Beer Cans and Advertising, with vintage cans from “a collector who specialized in finding THE BEST examples of cans!” With superlatives like that, what could go wrong? Not much, as the postsale results attest. Complete numbers are now available at LiveAuctioneers.

As expected by the auctioneer, the rarest beer cans performed the best. Many breweries opened after the repeal of Prohibition (also known as the 21st Amendment to the Constitution) in December of 1933. Fernwood Brewing Co. of Lansdowne, Pennsylvania opened in 1934 and lasted until 1941, probably succumbing to competition and the government regulation of steel used for beer cans. Its Wolf’s Beer featured a cone top on its quart size steel can design, and this label is described as “Incredibly rare to find this clean.” It earned top-lot status when it hammered for $29,000 ($35,380 with buyer’s premium).

A circa-1950s Sunshine Bock flat-top beer can from Sunshine Brewing of Reading, Pennsylvania was a close runner-up, selling for $25,500 ($31,110 with buyer’s premium). Noteworthy as the best-known example in existence, the can carries provenance to the respected Garard collection of the 1970s and has been depicted in numerous collecting guides.

Looking nearly new and “the best we have seen, with a fantastic shine and perfect color” is a Schmidt Bock cone-top quart beer can dating to the 1940s. The Philadelphia-based brewer launched in the 1890s and survived in various forms until 1981. The beer can sold for $19,500 ($23,790 with buyer’s premium).

From the advertising category, two key items were in the sale’s leading lots. A Schaller Bros. Main St. Brewery 1896 advertising calendar featuring a young woman with the year’s tear-away dates over her back took $9,500 ($11,590 with buyer’s premium). And a highly desirable Gillco ‘cab-top’ barback illuminated display for Old Reading Beer did a respectable $7,000 ($8,540 with buyer’s premium).