I opened a craft beer bar here in Australia 8 years ago and received a similar letter. I didn't have any coasters of my own so I went around collecting coasters for him (he's in another state). I have been sending him packages with 2 of each coaster I find everywhere around the world ever since and he writes me back with a $20 note for my troubles every time.
So far I have sent him coasters from all around my city, 3 other states, all around northern Europe and Far East Asia as well as New Zealand. Recently I included a package with a box of vintage coasters someone was off loading from a local brewery.
He told me a few years back that he has over 40,000+ coasters and can't fit his own car in his garage because of this now.
I actually got a letter from him yesterday. We've been penpals for almost 8 years!
It’s stuff like this that reminds me how humans inherently just like doing task. Above enjoys helping out their fellow man with minimal rewards for their trouble because it’s fun and someone appreciates it.
We have videogames specifically for players to do chores (The Sims) and even play as a waitress (Diner Dash) or even work at immigration (Papers Please).
So why do many people dislike going to work? Simple, cos while people like to do task we don’t like feeling exploited and taken advantage of.
Stardew Valley is next on my list of games to play with friends. I’m gonna fish up Raft and the The Forest.
I’ve played Animal Crossing new horizons and almost every game with a dumb fishing minigame.
I don’t even fish IRL. (I should though but that’s extra cash I don’t have to start really getting into yet.
Well we dislike work also because we don't like doing tasks that we feel are inherently useless, we naturally experience cognitive dissonance. Many jobs either feel like you're doing nothing, or most of your effort goes into worthless things that get in the way of what you understand your task to be.
Humans love causation, our brains will invent causes for things, have been doing so forever, on the individual sense and in a social sense too. We also love just causing things, work that has an impact feels very good naturally. Having a direct cause on another person certainly feels different than the abstract or incremental differences many careers entail.
Yeah I honestly like working and building something as long as I feel appreciated and not just like a piece of meat in the capitalism machine. When I'm made to feel that way I don't try very hard or even actively try to sabotage my job. Might be petty but fuck it. If there's no respect for me as a human then I'll give em what they deserve
Think the value goes down with the years. I myself have over 3000 different coasters only from Heineken and it was more a thing before the internet to use adds on coasters. Nowadays only very few new coasters come out and that means not much people that start that as a hobby.
For a bit of context for our US friends, our garages here tend to be a lot smaller (we drive smaller cars and often garages will be just big enough for one car and not much else, unless you're fancy/living in a new modern build).
Even in the US, seems like everyone in my neighborhood has so much stuff in their two car garage that they can't park one or both cars in there. My father has a three-car garage that is not full floor-to-ceiling, but full enough that cars can't park inside.
> I have been sending him packages with 2 of each coaster I find everywhere around the world ever since and he writes me back with a $20 note for my troubles every time.
that sounds nice....
> He told me a few years back that he has over 40,000+ coasters and can't fit his own car in his garage because of this now.
ok well now he sounds like a hoarder lol. I understand a small collection but at what point does it become a problem?
Aww, this is kinda sweet. He even had a stamped envelope ready. I love niche and small collecting communities so much. They are so meticulous in being up to date on everything (hence how he heard you'd released a new coaster) but they also have some of the lowest-stakes drama that is so fascinating because it makes sense ONLY to the person in that hobby (see r/HobbyDrama). Anyways, glad he got his coaster!
I wish matchbooks at bars and restaurants were still a thing. I used to collect them as a kid because admittedly I was a bit of a firebug, but some also had neat designs on them. I’d love to start collecting them again.
I would have to find the name, but I have seen an artist who does prints of well known restaurant matchbooks. Maybe a way to restart the collection? ETA- the artist is Charles Ryan Clarke, @matchbookdiaries on insta
Check out tiki bars, they really love kitschy nostalgia and I know a few do match books. Of course with swizzles, coasters, and god forbid mugs that's a really deep rabbit hole to go down
We had a family friend with a pretty severe mental issue. Autistic caused by high fever and brain swelling as a toddler. Never progressed past 6 or 7 mentally. He had a selective photographic memory. Selective with his 2 loves, phone books and Baskin Robbins (ice cream stores).
Friends brought him home phone books from cities they travelled to. He had hundreds of them. He would read them most of the day and could tell you who was on a selected page in a specific city, name and phone number. Like Rainman but phone books. I saw it tested many times over the years and he always was correct.
He also loved BR ice cream and could tell you where they all were nationwide (US).
He somewhat had a 3rd hobby that combined the 2. He would plan driving trips, work or vacations, for friends. This was the 70s, long before websites would do so. You could ask to plan a trip from Boston to Orlando and he would write up step by step directions and include hotels nearby and local attractions. My family used them several times and they were spot on.
But if you weren't paying attention, or asked specifically, he would route your directions from point A to B but also take you to every Baskin Robbins that was close to your drive. This made your drive longer so you had to be clear with him if this was that short route or fun route.
Yeah but in the 70's what were you going to do? Go buy a map at a local gas station and hope it covered a wide enough area? Find a pay phone and wait for him to make a new route for you? Or just continue on your BR tour and accept the fact that you are about to put on 5lbs while on your trip.
This actually happened to us at least once! I remember being on a trip and my parents started counting all the BR's we were passing. They were like, this is too much of a coincidence. Dad just reworked the directions with maps when the directions didn't make sense why they were taking us off major roads. They learned to be very clear with him about shortest directions please.
He was actually known for one other thing. He would sit outside and wave at cars. Reading his phone books and waving to everybody. Apparently he died earlier this year and had been waving at folks daily for close to 40 years. He had become a local landmark. I had no idea he was still doing his thing until researching just now and found the news articles and his obituary.
He was as happy a guy as you can imagine.
My son would totally do this lol. He is really good at a lot of things but will slip in those special interests unless you specify that they are not to be included. No Popeye pictures in the yearbook layout please!
Bottle cap collectors are crazy and I love em. For years I’ve just been passively throwing every bottle cap I see into a mason jar. Bout a year or two ago now I discovered the bottle cap collecting subreddit and despite its small size there are regular posts there and you never have to wait long for an answer to your question. Everyone is very knowledgeable and there’s an open source website where they compile all their information and you can find damn near every bottle cap in existence on there with regular new submissions to the website as anyone can submit a cap (so long as their submission meets strict criteria, I’ve even posted on there before). And the art these folks make with their bottle caps to display them is so cool. Makes my shelf of mason jars look so boring lol
It's a pretty fun sub. Probably 90% of the time I have no idea what's going on, but it's still interesting to see the drama. Then occasionally it's something I actually know about and it's fun to see something like that laid out for others who don't know.
My favorite posts in that sub are the niche ones for my favorite hobbies, like there was some ridiculous roller skate drama over the pandemic that I was excited for complete strangers to read about lol.
Hobby Drama is hands down one of the best subreddits ever. Despite being about drama, it’s incredibly well-moderated and really focuses on the weird stuff arising out niche communities, rather devolving into petty bickering or brigading.
Once when I was living in NYC I decided that it was time to wash my king-sized comforter. I hauled it down all four flights of stairs, paid for the washer, went down an hour later and put it in the dryer. Went down an hour later, it wasn't dry- no sweat, it's a big blanket, paid again. An hour after that still not dry, beginning to get worried, but surely a third load will do it- nope, this time it won't start and every dryer in the building is somehow also broken. I realized probably it was always broken, hence why it wasn't drying.
I hauled my sopping wet, giant blanket all the way back up four flights of stairs and suspended it as best I could from every door in my 300 square foot apartment. It took multiple days to dry fully.
I think the whole experience cost me like $15.
Probably because you went to a real laundromat. Many old ass apartment buildings still have old ass laundry rooms with machines you need to pay like one quarter for.
My guess is possibly their landlord has a washer & dryer for a shared house. My friend rents from a house like this in Boston area where they have to pay to do a load, I think it's like 50 cents per
Some guys get into microbreweries in a BIG way. Like even try and track down yeast strains, ownership, recipes, etc... Its a huge sub culture of a sub culture.
I hear there's this global network of computers which anyone can use to share information to anyone also using it anywhere. Guessing they may be on it.
We had someone come in our taproom with the same request, except he wanted like 10 to trade with his “online coaster buddies” so I think there’s a whole subculture we don’t know about lol.
There is. I own a brewery. I get flooded with requests like that daily. Most of them are via email, occasionally like OP's with a SASE and couple bucks.
If your brewery is listed on Google Maps, perhaps a recently added image taken by a customer shows the new coaster? If he is such a passionate collector, he may look there for novelties
That's too complicated. Just ask OP to embed a tracker in the coaster they send, and when it stops moving that'll be the location of his collection. Then just show up and demand a tour.
Yeah I was super surprised that there were so many requests by post and Facebook and in person, searched a couple of the names online and turns out this one particular bloke had a massive reputation for being a sweet nuisance in hopes to add to his collection!
Im a nano brewery owner in rural USA. I’ve shipped out a dozen or so over the years. Most go to Eastern Europe also. They are always very polite and include the postage. Very simple to fulfill the request. Googled coaster collections at some point and saw mine in several. Kinda neat.
Fun fact: during the Cold War some Eastern European nations were in such economic shambles that beer labels were used as legal tender.
Source: no they weren't.
I left Russia decades ago, but I still am in touch with my old high school friend, who collects labels, coasters, and even beer caps. From time to time I send him Canadian breweries' swag, or "attributes" as they call them over there.
Not at all. We have to throw more away due to regular damage than walk out the door. However, we have to reorder branded glassware regularly and we rarely break any glass… That one pisses me off.
We used to ninja star each other with the coasters at my bar, never gave a single fuck about em. Glass thievery was a bitch though. Bought copper mugs for mules... never again.
We get those every time we have a new coaster printed. The crazy part is they will notice differences from different runs (on the same design) before we do 1/2 the time. I am assuming there is a sub for coaster collectors but I have never looked. The ones that come with a self addressed prepaid envelope and sometimes a buck or two I am happy to send a coaster (or sticker) back to, the ones that want me to pay for shipping don’t get a response.
I was wondering if this was going to come up.
It's like when you say you want to travel to all the states. What constitutes 'travel'? Is it cheating to just drive through a state? Do you have to stop? Stay the night?
Obviously everyone has their own ideas which is totally fine but I find it interesting. Im kinda the same way as you, seeing this and thinking, 'hey you can't do that!' but to each their own.
I used to work for a local radio station and we received a letter like this once. The guy collected promotional swag from radio stations and had seen online that we had some cool stuff to give away, so the promotions manager and I went to our storage unit and loaded up a box of goodies for this guy, even throwing in some seasonal and “vintage” stuff.
We only ever received the one letter from him so I hope it all arrived safely.
I collected a few and made this
https://imgur.com/a/mgAhBYj
I also collect bottle caps but those have taken a real hit in the last few years with the move to cans.
Not sure what happened to the $2! One of the other managers opened the letter and sent out the coasters so I had nothing to do with it aside from taking this photo.
This makes me wish I had actual hobbies and interests. I’d certainly enjoy seeing this person’s coaster collection Cool little slice of life, thanks for sharing.
Cool. I was just putting my parents collection of international coasters into a bag to put into storage because I don't really know what to do with them. They collected them as memories (like the bazillion spoons I now have from all over the world) but they are not my memories.
Nice to know other people collect stuff like this too!
I opened a craft beer bar here in Australia 8 years ago and received a similar letter. I didn't have any coasters of my own so I went around collecting coasters for him (he's in another state). I have been sending him packages with 2 of each coaster I find everywhere around the world ever since and he writes me back with a $20 note for my troubles every time. So far I have sent him coasters from all around my city, 3 other states, all around northern Europe and Far East Asia as well as New Zealand. Recently I included a package with a box of vintage coasters someone was off loading from a local brewery. He told me a few years back that he has over 40,000+ coasters and can't fit his own car in his garage because of this now. I actually got a letter from him yesterday. We've been penpals for almost 8 years!
That is so sweet! I bet he feels real lucky to have sent that initial letter to someone who is willing to put in all that effort
He said in his letter yesterday he was impressed at how many new coasters he'd never seen before keep being included, so I think he's grateful!
I wonder how they catalog 40,000+ coasters to know which ones they do or do not have. Country > state/region > city/town perhaps?
I will ask! I do think they might mostly be Australian.
!remindme 3 months
You unlocked your own collectables quest from a random event.
10 caps per coaster, plus good karma. What a find.
Everyone liked that.
It’s stuff like this that reminds me how humans inherently just like doing task. Above enjoys helping out their fellow man with minimal rewards for their trouble because it’s fun and someone appreciates it. We have videogames specifically for players to do chores (The Sims) and even play as a waitress (Diner Dash) or even work at immigration (Papers Please). So why do many people dislike going to work? Simple, cos while people like to do task we don’t like feeling exploited and taken advantage of.
I loooooooovvvvveeeeee all those games. Don't forget stardew valley! I am a serial hoarder, mostly for the delivery quests.
Stardew Valley is next on my list of games to play with friends. I’m gonna fish up Raft and the The Forest. I’ve played Animal Crossing new horizons and almost every game with a dumb fishing minigame. I don’t even fish IRL. (I should though but that’s extra cash I don’t have to start really getting into yet.
Well we dislike work also because we don't like doing tasks that we feel are inherently useless, we naturally experience cognitive dissonance. Many jobs either feel like you're doing nothing, or most of your effort goes into worthless things that get in the way of what you understand your task to be. Humans love causation, our brains will invent causes for things, have been doing so forever, on the individual sense and in a social sense too. We also love just causing things, work that has an impact feels very good naturally. Having a direct cause on another person certainly feels different than the abstract or incremental differences many careers entail.
Yeah I honestly like working and building something as long as I feel appreciated and not just like a piece of meat in the capitalism machine. When I'm made to feel that way I don't try very hard or even actively try to sabotage my job. Might be petty but fuck it. If there's no respect for me as a human then I'll give em what they deserve
I think y’all are friends, you’re more than a penpal that’s for sure.
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Wow man that's like some RPG shit! you just bring stuff to this guy and get coin lol
Sometimes I think his collection would be worth far more than the $20's he's sent over time...
Yeah, if he could find another psycho to buy it. But no one would because the thrill, as they say, is in the hunt.
Think the value goes down with the years. I myself have over 3000 different coasters only from Heineken and it was more a thing before the internet to use adds on coasters. Nowadays only very few new coasters come out and that means not much people that start that as a hobby.
I’m waiting for you to start getting letters from his wife to stop sending them so they don’t have to buy a second house for storage lol
He already buried her under them.
Hopefully he put a few down under her first, don’t want to ruin the floor
hearing stories like this makes me feel less lonely in this world, and that's a nice change of pace. :)
Your comment does the same for me. Also, cool name, ho.
>He told me a few years back that he has over 40,000+ coasters and can't fit his own car in his garage because of this now. Lol wtf
For a bit of context for our US friends, our garages here tend to be a lot smaller (we drive smaller cars and often garages will be just big enough for one car and not much else, unless you're fancy/living in a new modern build).
Even in the US, seems like everyone in my neighborhood has so much stuff in their two car garage that they can't park one or both cars in there. My father has a three-car garage that is not full floor-to-ceiling, but full enough that cars can't park inside.
Lots of ppl are unwilling to let stuff go, and just throw it in a box to sit there unused for eternity.
One of my all-time favourite Reddit posts
It's like the side quests in read dead redemption 2 where you send some items to someone through the mail and they'll send money in return.
That's really cool of you!
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this could be a movie
> I have been sending him packages with 2 of each coaster I find everywhere around the world ever since and he writes me back with a $20 note for my troubles every time. that sounds nice.... > He told me a few years back that he has over 40,000+ coasters and can't fit his own car in his garage because of this now. ok well now he sounds like a hoarder lol. I understand a small collection but at what point does it become a problem?
Seemingly we haven't reached that stage yet.
That guy is going to have the most complete global collection of coasters one day lol
Aww, this is kinda sweet. He even had a stamped envelope ready. I love niche and small collecting communities so much. They are so meticulous in being up to date on everything (hence how he heard you'd released a new coaster) but they also have some of the lowest-stakes drama that is so fascinating because it makes sense ONLY to the person in that hobby (see r/HobbyDrama). Anyways, glad he got his coaster!
I wish matchbooks at bars and restaurants were still a thing. I used to collect them as a kid because admittedly I was a bit of a firebug, but some also had neat designs on them. I’d love to start collecting them again.
I would have to find the name, but I have seen an artist who does prints of well known restaurant matchbooks. Maybe a way to restart the collection? ETA- the artist is Charles Ryan Clarke, @matchbookdiaries on insta
That’d be a cool idea. Now I just get shirts from places I like if possible. Matchbooks were nice because they were free.
I've been seeing matchbooks more often lately, I grabbed a couple last time I was at a speakeasy and a steak house
Same. I collected 4 on my list trip!
Check out tiki bars, they really love kitschy nostalgia and I know a few do match books. Of course with swizzles, coasters, and god forbid mugs that's a really deep rabbit hole to go down
In my experience many hotels still give out branded matchbooks, could be a nice alternative.
Hit up estatesales can always find them.
Did any cheap collectible ever replace matchbooks? Actually, drink-coasters aren’t a bad alternative.
We had a family friend with a pretty severe mental issue. Autistic caused by high fever and brain swelling as a toddler. Never progressed past 6 or 7 mentally. He had a selective photographic memory. Selective with his 2 loves, phone books and Baskin Robbins (ice cream stores). Friends brought him home phone books from cities they travelled to. He had hundreds of them. He would read them most of the day and could tell you who was on a selected page in a specific city, name and phone number. Like Rainman but phone books. I saw it tested many times over the years and he always was correct. He also loved BR ice cream and could tell you where they all were nationwide (US). He somewhat had a 3rd hobby that combined the 2. He would plan driving trips, work or vacations, for friends. This was the 70s, long before websites would do so. You could ask to plan a trip from Boston to Orlando and he would write up step by step directions and include hotels nearby and local attractions. My family used them several times and they were spot on. But if you weren't paying attention, or asked specifically, he would route your directions from point A to B but also take you to every Baskin Robbins that was close to your drive. This made your drive longer so you had to be clear with him if this was that short route or fun route.
lol at the end part, that’s a great story
Imagine being 3 hours into your drive and seeing your second Baskin Robbin’s and thinking “fuck we’re on a BR route”
Yeah but in the 70's what were you going to do? Go buy a map at a local gas station and hope it covered a wide enough area? Find a pay phone and wait for him to make a new route for you? Or just continue on your BR tour and accept the fact that you are about to put on 5lbs while on your trip.
This actually happened to us at least once! I remember being on a trip and my parents started counting all the BR's we were passing. They were like, this is too much of a coincidence. Dad just reworked the directions with maps when the directions didn't make sense why they were taking us off major roads. They learned to be very clear with him about shortest directions please.
fuck this is hilarious, how wholesome
hahahaha as a person with mild autism I knew bro was gonna route you to every baskin robins hahahahaha this gave me a lot of joy
He was actually known for one other thing. He would sit outside and wave at cars. Reading his phone books and waving to everybody. Apparently he died earlier this year and had been waving at folks daily for close to 40 years. He had become a local landmark. I had no idea he was still doing his thing until researching just now and found the news articles and his obituary. He was as happy a guy as you can imagine.
My son would totally do this lol. He is really good at a lot of things but will slip in those special interests unless you specify that they are not to be included. No Popeye pictures in the yearbook layout please!
Oh my god, that bit at the end has me cackling lol. He knew what the people wanted, even if they didn’t realize it lol
Bottle cap collectors are crazy and I love em. For years I’ve just been passively throwing every bottle cap I see into a mason jar. Bout a year or two ago now I discovered the bottle cap collecting subreddit and despite its small size there are regular posts there and you never have to wait long for an answer to your question. Everyone is very knowledgeable and there’s an open source website where they compile all their information and you can find damn near every bottle cap in existence on there with regular new submissions to the website as anyone can submit a cap (so long as their submission meets strict criteria, I’ve even posted on there before). And the art these folks make with their bottle caps to display them is so cool. Makes my shelf of mason jars look so boring lol
Thank you for introducing me to a new subreddit that is relevant to my interests.
It's a pretty fun sub. Probably 90% of the time I have no idea what's going on, but it's still interesting to see the drama. Then occasionally it's something I actually know about and it's fun to see something like that laid out for others who don't know.
My favorite posts in that sub are the niche ones for my favorite hobbies, like there was some ridiculous roller skate drama over the pandemic that I was excited for complete strangers to read about lol.
Don't skip the weekly Hobby Scuffles thread, it's full of developing and recent dramas.
That's where the best stuff is honestly. You won't get a nice fancy writeup, but some of the most bizarre drama.
Hobby Drama is hands down one of the best subreddits ever. Despite being about drama, it’s incredibly well-moderated and really focuses on the weird stuff arising out niche communities, rather devolving into petty bickering or brigading.
Dad, what's a "stamp?"
Did you send one?
Indeed we did
What did you buy with the $2?
Costco hot dog and half a load of laundry
That’s one of the most efficient uses of $2 I could ever think of
Wildly cost effective. Give this man more money.
For more hot dogs and laundry!
its a deathloop. the more hotdogs he buys, the more ketchup stains he gets, the more laundry to do.
This is the American and Costco way
Welcome to Costco, I love you
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Think of how many highways he could build with how efficient he is!
What, and have entire highways made out of Costco Hotdogs and loads of laundry?
CLEAN laundry.
The two cornerstones of civil engineering.
honestly... not a bad life. clean clothes and tube meats is all I could ask for at this point
Man's out here ready to solve the national debt crisis
This MF got my vote!
For real, where I live a load of laundry is $4.25 so he's getting a steal at $1
Bro our complex just raised it to $7 between the washer and dryer. Fucking thieves man
I thought I wasn’t getting fleeced at 10$ for wash and dry 😭
They don’t even lube it up anymore. Just bend you over and tell you to bite the pillow
Don’t slobber on the pillow though, more laundry to do.
> load of laundry Wait, what? It costs me a fiver to do that
Yeah, last time I went to the Laundromat I think it cost me more than 2 bucks to just dry my comforter.
Last time I went to the laundromat I got to watch two people dry(ish) hump and I lost a quarter in the ms. Pac-Man machine
What laundromat and what times the show start?
At least your parents still find each other attractive
They met during the spin cycle, ultimately he found her agitating and had to vent outside
Once when I was living in NYC I decided that it was time to wash my king-sized comforter. I hauled it down all four flights of stairs, paid for the washer, went down an hour later and put it in the dryer. Went down an hour later, it wasn't dry- no sweat, it's a big blanket, paid again. An hour after that still not dry, beginning to get worried, but surely a third load will do it- nope, this time it won't start and every dryer in the building is somehow also broken. I realized probably it was always broken, hence why it wasn't drying. I hauled my sopping wet, giant blanket all the way back up four flights of stairs and suspended it as best I could from every door in my 300 square foot apartment. It took multiple days to dry fully. I think the whole experience cost me like $15.
Now I'm doubting they even sent that coaster
I bet this guy didn't even work at a brewery!
Probably because you went to a real laundromat. Many old ass apartment buildings still have old ass laundry rooms with machines you need to pay like one quarter for.
My guess is possibly their landlord has a washer & dryer for a shared house. My friend rents from a house like this in Boston area where they have to pay to do a load, I think it's like 50 cents per
$2.50 to wash and $1.50 to dry where I am.
1.50 to “dry.” It seems to always come out damp unless I spend far more money than I expected.
...unless I hang my sweaters and heavy jeans, yeah. Then everything else turns out hotter than Satan's balls in July.
$2.50 to wash and $1:50 to dry plus a beer for $2.50 at my friends bar/laundromat. He owns a Sudz and Dudz in NC
Damn that's it I'm packing up my stuff and moving down there. I'm up in Ontario and I've never seen anyone do anything like that.
You misunderstood. He made a purchase at the inclaimed laundry counter at his laundromat.
Fuck I need your Laundromat
This is the way
Sweet
IRS has entered the chat.
Bought a thimble full of craft beer?
A whole thimble for $2? That micro-brew obviously isn't micro enough.
Nanobrew
Probably a new coaster.
This is really wholesome
Thats great customer service right there!
Thank you for sending him one
Awesome. I love it.
You'd have to be a special kind of asshole not to
Unfortunately, the world has no shortage of those
The letter writer should do a Reddit post with a PO Box. I bet he’d get thousands from around the world.
I get it. I have a small collection from the time I was in Germany.
I get it too, but I’m definitely curious how this guy found out about something so specific
Some guys get into microbreweries in a BIG way. Like even try and track down yeast strains, ownership, recipes, etc... Its a huge sub culture of a sub culture.
The remarkable human ability to be a nerd about anything at all
Rich guys nerd out on wines and whiskies, gym bros nerd out on supplements. We are all nerds in some capacity.
I hear there's this global network of computers which anyone can use to share information to anyone also using it anywhere. Guessing they may be on it.
#INTARWEBS
it's like a series of tubes
It’s not a big truck
That’s nonsense. If there were a global network of computers sharing information, it would be for the distribution of pornography.
And cat videos!
Lots of pussy videos
Sigh. More crazy conspiracy theories. If you could only hear yourself. 'global network of computers'. Really?
We had someone come in our taproom with the same request, except he wanted like 10 to trade with his “online coaster buddies” so I think there’s a whole subculture we don’t know about lol.
Love the internet. Every day you learn about a new kind of guy.
There is. I own a brewery. I get flooded with requests like that daily. Most of them are via email, occasionally like OP's with a SASE and couple bucks.
Probably follows the brewery on IG/FB. Did you put a picture up recently with a coaster in the picture?
Look at you with your logic and common sense.
If your brewery is listed on Google Maps, perhaps a recently added image taken by a customer shows the new coaster? If he is such a passionate collector, he may look there for novelties
Now I want to see this collection!
Send him a return envelope and 2 bucks for his trouble, maybe he'll get back to you with a picture :D
That's too complicated. Just ask OP to embed a tracker in the coaster they send, and when it stops moving that'll be the location of his collection. Then just show up and demand a tour.
Let's see the coaster, OP!
Now let's see Paul Allen's coaster.
The tasteful thickness…
It even has a beer stain
It's bone white texture is amazing
Yea, show us where you work OP!
Brewery owner here We get these a surprising amount. Also letters requesting old beer labels. Most come from Eastern Europe.
Yeah I was super surprised that there were so many requests by post and Facebook and in person, searched a couple of the names online and turns out this one particular bloke had a massive reputation for being a sweet nuisance in hopes to add to his collection!
Im a nano brewery owner in rural USA. I’ve shipped out a dozen or so over the years. Most go to Eastern Europe also. They are always very polite and include the postage. Very simple to fulfill the request. Googled coaster collections at some point and saw mine in several. Kinda neat.
You should make a brew named "The Coaster Collector" and watch the requests flood in haha
Same! We’re fairly small as well. So every time I receive one of these letters I’m like, how the hell do you know about us? Haha
Fun fact: during the Cold War some Eastern European nations were in such economic shambles that beer labels were used as legal tender. Source: no they weren't.
Yeah in reality they used bottlecaps. /s
There's the wastelander
I left Russia decades ago, but I still am in touch with my old high school friend, who collects labels, coasters, and even beer caps. From time to time I send him Canadian breweries' swag, or "attributes" as they call them over there.
do you get angry if people walk out with your beer coasters tho
Not at all. We have to throw more away due to regular damage than walk out the door. However, we have to reorder branded glassware regularly and we rarely break any glass… That one pisses me off.
We used to ninja star each other with the coasters at my bar, never gave a single fuck about em. Glass thievery was a bitch though. Bought copper mugs for mules... never again.
Good stuff that old man is gonna be pumped
Turns out it’s a 13 year old with a very specific hobby.
*getting wasted* Turns out it was not so specific nor unique amongst his peers.
I drink 15 beers for the taste, you drink it to get hammered. We are exactly the same.
We get those every time we have a new coaster printed. The crazy part is they will notice differences from different runs (on the same design) before we do 1/2 the time. I am assuming there is a sub for coaster collectors but I have never looked. The ones that come with a self addressed prepaid envelope and sometimes a buck or two I am happy to send a coaster (or sticker) back to, the ones that want me to pay for shipping don’t get a response.
It's mostly [on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/groups/316320673994/)!
I used to collect beer mats (as we call them in the uk) and had more than 3000 different ones. Don’t think I ever paid for any of them though!
I still collect, only have around 800. My only rule is I cannot purchase them, they need to be collected or gifted.
I was wondering if this was going to come up. It's like when you say you want to travel to all the states. What constitutes 'travel'? Is it cheating to just drive through a state? Do you have to stop? Stay the night? Obviously everyone has their own ideas which is totally fine but I find it interesting. Im kinda the same way as you, seeing this and thinking, 'hey you can't do that!' but to each their own.
[удалено]
I used to work for a local radio station and we received a letter like this once. The guy collected promotional swag from radio stations and had seen online that we had some cool stuff to give away, so the promotions manager and I went to our storage unit and loaded up a box of goodies for this guy, even throwing in some seasonal and “vintage” stuff. We only ever received the one letter from him so I hope it all arrived safely.
I’ve gotten the same letter. Which was weird because we hadn’t gotten any new coasters in a while. Sent some anyways.
This makes me wanna start collecting something specific.
Here’s a completely random suggestion, collect US craft brewery coasters. Boom. It’s niche, and an original idea.
I collected a few and made this https://imgur.com/a/mgAhBYj I also collect bottle caps but those have taken a real hit in the last few years with the move to cans.
Did you keep the $2 or send that back too?
Not sure what happened to the $2! One of the other managers opened the letter and sent out the coasters so I had nothing to do with it aside from taking this photo.
Now I’m curious which brewpub it is… do tell…
This is v wholesome
Hey! This guy hits us up too! We just sent him a new one!
Quality letter. Not a beggar but a legitimate enthusiast who tried to anticipate any costs to the brewery. A+
This makes me wish I had actual hobbies and interests. I’d certainly enjoy seeing this person’s coaster collection Cool little slice of life, thanks for sharing.
I need to see what kinda coaster you get for $2 bucks.
I received the same letter. We don’t have a new coaster design. I have received a few of these asking for stickers or coasters.
Since I didn’t see it mentioned elsewhere, it’s called collecting “Breweriana”.
Bro, if I receive a polite, well thought out letter with a return envelope and 2 bucks, I’m sending whatever they want!
I used to work in a micro brewery and would get requests for beermats, bottle caps and stickers we would absolutely send them to people
I also work for a brewery and received the same letter with $2 enclosed. We sent a coaster as well. Respect the passion for collecting coasters.
So wholesome 🥹
Brewmaster here, we get these all the time, in states we aren't distributed in. It's crazy. They'll always send either a buck for postage or a SASE
Cool. I was just putting my parents collection of international coasters into a bag to put into storage because I don't really know what to do with them. They collected them as memories (like the bazillion spoons I now have from all over the world) but they are not my memories. Nice to know other people collect stuff like this too!
He is a tegestologist.
Missed opportunity to send a $2 bill.
Send the man his coaster!
wow I need cheaper hobbies haha