Dubai, September 27: An empty beverage can, discarded with the rubbish and, perhaps, heaped into a landfill, is being sought-after by a Brazilian collector.
Andre Marques is an ‘OCOC’ collector – which stands for one can,
one country.
Marques, who has around 4,000 cans in his collection, is looking for a rare Budweiser edition that was available only in the UAE and Qatar in 2006.
“This Budweiser is the first to mention Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Dubai in Latin characters in the can,” he told Khaleej Times. “This means it is extra special for a collector like me.” The Budweiser can was produced in 2006 to commemorate the World Cup and is not available any more, the collector said.
Two months ago, Marques left an ambiguous post on a group on Facebook, but has not heard from anyone.
However, he said that should anyone find the can, he would give a reward of Dh180 in addition to postage and packaging – provided there are no dents.
“A full can would be worth more,” he said. The 42-year-old said that in the last five years there were not many gaps in his collection.
“The only cans that are missing include some from very difficult places that produced or imported cans once, like Afghanistan,” he said. Also missing from his collection is a can from Bophuthatswana – a country that no longer exists.
“It was a region in South Africa that was autonomous for some years, and in this period a can was produced there,” he said. Marques said that all the cans in his collection sit on specially constructed shelves in his home in Brasilia, Brazil.
“They take up a lot of space,” he said. “When I began, every can was eligible to be there. But because I do not have space for infinite cans, I had to focus my collection.”
–Agencies