And I thought paying $1,000 or more for an iPhone was ridiculous.

Chicago-business-man Adolf Grenke, who has been pulling beer cans out of gutters and collecting them for more than 40 years, plans to auction off his entire collection of cans and vintage beer memorabilia starting tomorrow, and one of the most rare beer cans is expected to sell for somewhere in the range of $50,000.

From AntiqueToyWorld.com:

“[T]he Grenke collection includes as many as 500 highly collectible vintage beer cans. The can collection is regarded as one of the finest collections of its kind ever assembled, with some of the cans expected to sell for $20,000 to $60,000 each. “The collection also includes over 400 beer taps – with many expected to realize more than $1,000 each – and a bevy of colorful advertising signs. Highlights include over 50 Gillco glass light-up signs, and two examples of late-19th-century Anheuser-Busch signs of such rarity that they are not even represented in the famed St. Louis brewery’s archive.”

The can that’s expected to pull in around $50,000, according to Dan Morphy, CEO of Morphy Auctions, the company that’s holding the auction, is a Gibbons Bock Beer can. Morphy says the Gibbons Bock can is “the most desirable of all bock beer cans.”

I’d rather have a can of Baxter Stowaway I.P.A.

UBN