A man who amassed a beer can collection worth £25,000 has been named as the ‘Dullest In Britain’, after spending 40 years curating the UK’s largest collection.
Avid collector Nick West has over 9,000 unusual and rare tinnies and started collecting his prized possessions when he was just 16-years-old.
Now 59-years-old, Nick has had to move house twice to fit them all in, after having to build an extension on his previous home to make space for the cans.
The father-of-two started his collection in 1975 after seeing a report on TV about a man who sold beer cans to collectors in the US.
Nick West (pictured above) amassed a collection of 9,000 beer cans over 40-years after he started collecting them at the age of 16
Nick even includes supermarkets own brand beers in his collection such as Morrisons’ savers lager and bitter
He started collecting cans after watching a programme about a man who had sold his beer cans to a collector in the US
Nick said that when he attended parties, he would go around at the end collecting the cans in order to add them to his collection
Nick had previously featured in a 2015 book titled ‘Dull Men of Great Britain’, alongside 39 other men who were deemed boring
At the age of 16 he attended a party held by a school girl called Deborah, who would later become his wife.
Nick remembers how the other people at the party thought he was weird after he swept over the left over cans.
Nick and his wife have drunk all the beer and at one point, had to move into a large five-bedroomed Victorian house so that Nick could display his treasures.
But the beer can fan has now donated most of them to a local museum – so he can buy a smaller house.
He amassed 9,300 cans before making the ‘heartfelt’ decision to trim down his £25,000 collection – to just 1,500.
Some of the cans that Nick has collected feature detailed designs and patterns. But he said the rise if craft beer has made it difficult to keep up with collecting
These cans feature four different women dressed in swim wear. Also pictured is a can on Tennent’s Lager and Deep Brewed Piper Export Ale
Nick (pictured above) said his determination to collect cans has had a huge impact on his and his wife’s relationship
In 2015, he appeared in a book called Dull Men of Great Britain alongside 39 other men deemed boring.
A newspaper in Scotland recently held a poll asking readers to vote for the dullest – and Nick won.
Others that came close were a brick collector, a roundabout enthusiast and a man whose job is watching paint dry.
Nick says the poll saw him take nearly a quarter of all the votes for Britain’s dullest man.
Speaking today, he said proudly: ‘I came out on top – with between 20 and 25 per cent of the votes.’
The book included Paul Rabbitts, from Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, who has visited a remarkable 300 bandstands across the UK and kept detailed records.
It also featured another ‘boring’ Brit is pensioner Jeremy Burton, who lives near Windsor in East Berkshire, and has spent the last 50 years counting the huge number of countries he has visited.
While David Morgan, 72, from the Cotswolds, has the world’s largest traffic cone collection and actor Tim Barker, who lives in Silloth, Cumbria, has been collecting toy soldiers for 50 years and he now has more than 12,000.
Nick, who worked in marketing until retiring in 2017, said: ‘My wife and I drank nearly all the cans I’ve collected between us.
‘I drank the beers and stouts and Deborah would drink the lagers.
‘It all started when I was 16-years-old, I enjoyed collecting things like stamps but I had just become interested in drinking so married the two past times up.
‘I remember at the very beginning Deborah hosted a party when we were at school and everyone thought I was weird because I went around collecting the empty cans for my collection.’
He said that Deborah grew to resent the hobby, as he only had a small collection when they first met.
David Morgan (pictured above), 72, from the Cotswolds, has the world’s largest traffic cone collection, which can be seen in the back of the picture
Tim Barker, who lives in Silloth, Cumbria, has been collecting toy soldiers for 50 years and he now has more than 12,000
Cans from well known brewers such as Carlsberg and Hoslten Pils feature in his collection, as well as craft beer brands
‘It’s had a massive impact on our lives’, he said.
His first can was a half pint of Heineken – and the oldest in the collection dates back to 1936.
Now, he has moved back to smaller premises with wife Deborah, 59, who met when he was 16 at school.
Deborah bought him a book about beer can collecting which helped invigorate his passion for collecting.
He sold 6,000 of the cans for a sum of £13,500 which is helping to fund his retirement.
The other 1,800 have been given to local museum Oakham Treasures in Portbury, Bristol.
He said the beer cans were ‘beautifully kept and curated’ around his homes with ‘curtains to stop them being damaged by light’.
Nick’s wife helped his collection along by drinking alongside her husband and even buying him a book about beer can collecting
Nick said he was pleased with the result of the poll and that he was happy with his mantle on ‘the dullest man’ and said he was never going to be the ‘most handsome’
Nick has now downsized his can collection to a humble to 1,500, selling most of the cans and giving the rest to a local museum.
Another reason which prompted him to quit was the boom in popularity with craft beers. For the first 40 years, he was collecting between 150 and 250 cans per year.
But after the rise in craft beers he was collecting up to 650 a year which became too much to handle.
Nick, who lives in North Somerset, was so obsessed with his hobby he would pick empty cans up from the street. But he was pleased with the result.
Nick added: ‘I was really chuffed, I’m never going to be most handsome or tallest so I’m quite happy with my mantle of dullest man.’