Greg Stinsa 2004

During one of my 2002-2003 trips back to the Midwest to photograph cans for the MBC project, my family was staying in Chicago overnight, flying out the next morning. I had previously exchanged some emails with Greg Stinsa about maybe stopping by to visit, but wasn't sure if times would work. Well I got into Chicago early afternoon and gave Greg a call and not only did he expect me to visit, but he had already arranged for an awesome dinner with Dave and Jane Stark and a couple other local collectors. A very enjoyable, first-class evening talking about the hobby and viewing Greg's wonderful collection. So many gem mint beer cans.

Well there were two more MBC visits to the Chicago area. One on family vacation I was able to visit Greg to photograph his Detroit Goebel Guinness cans before running off to Cedar Point in Ohio. Later that same year I was able to arrange another trip to Chicago to drive three hours to Appleton, Wisconsin to photograph the only indoor Detroit Regal, and Greg arranged on the drive back to Chicago for me to visit Dave Stark and photograph some cans from the most awesome Dave Stark collection! If you visit the Rusty Bunch message board, a couple of the avatars are from pictures I had posted of Dave's cans. An absolute museum of collecting and probably not possible without Greg's help. I could have spent months and months photographing Dave's collection!

Well I think it was fall of 2004 and I heard that Greg was selling off most of his cans. Less than 24 hours later I was on a morning flight out of Monterey, visited with Greg that evening, and returned to California the next morning! While Greg's collection had already been heavily cherry picked by some other dealers/collectors, the cans I brought back with me were definitely worth the trip! Those copper Goebels looks awesome in their full shine all in a row...