- My next collection visit takes me toward the twin cities.

Of all the collections on my trip, Randy Reers might be my favorite.

Randy lives in Lionel Lakes and has spent a number of years collecting a Minnesota icon.

You know what comes to mind for me?

It's that wonderful hams musical jingle.

I can't sing it, but I can hear it.

- Oh, yes.

You're talking about the famous Tom Tom from the early 1950s.

- Can you sing it?

- Absolutely.

From the Land of sky blue waters, waters from the land of pine, lofty balsam, hams, the beer, refreshing hams, the beer, refreshing hams.

- You should cut your own album.

Do you have any of the old musical?

- I absolutely do.

- Water.

- Water - Of the beer refreshing and the beer Refreshing - From - And - Water of all the varieties of beer.

Randy, you could have chosen really any why hams?

- The connection to the outdoors is really what drew me in as an outdoors man.

I love the lakes, the trees, the up north feel.

And hams really captured that the advertising that Hams used was so unique and so different than anything anyone else did.

And they were, they were known for some of the most beautiful advertising out there for so many years.

- Hams has a rich history in Minnesota, doesn't it?

- Yeah.

The, the history of the Hams Brewery dates back to the early 1860s.

Theodore Ham was an immigrant from Germany in the 1850s, and when he ca came to St. Paul, he worked in the brewery with another gentleman who eventually went to California for the secondary gold rush.

When he failed in his gold, gold venture, Theodore Ham acquired the brewery and eventually changed the name to the Theo Ham Brewery.

And that was founded in 1865 in the east side of St. Paul.

My first collectible was a sign that I was gifted from my father via my grandfather.

So when I was a little boy, my grandfather had a basement bar, a real simple basement bar.

And I remember from the time I was about that tall, that there was this beautiful ham sign on the wall, and it had a boat and it had some folks water skiing.

So I remember asking my grandpa when I was a little boy, I said, grandpa, who's on that picture?

And he looked at me as a matter of fact, and he said, well, that's, that's your great grandma Elsie.

That's me.

And that's Grandma Artie right there.

And that little fella, that's your Uncle Ernie.

And for the longest time, I, I, I thought grandpa was, was shooting me straight.

Years later, of course, I found out it was just an advertising piece.

And today I am fortunate to own that piece.

I've been heavy collecting into the Hams Brewery advertising and memorabilia for about six years now.

The items can be very hard to find some of the items.

The more, more common items would be the items from the seventies and and eighties.

The items prior to that, really the golden years of hams from the fifties and sixties, those items can be tougher to find because really, they, they weren't designed to be kept.

Some of the plastic signs, they were designed to go on a bar or tavern wall.

And when they were done, a lot of times they just went in the trash.

Hams was really prolific in the advertising of their products.

They, they recognized that the more product they could get out there, the more advertising, the more beer they were gonna sell.

That's the best thing about this collecting community is to show it and to share it with friends and others who appreciate it.

Pam's is now owned by Molson Coors, and it's still brewed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

One of my most favorite things is to drink a hams beer out of a vintage hams glass.

So I'll take a glass that's a hundred years old and I'll pour a beer that was maybe brewed a month ago into that old glass, and I'll toast with a friend and enjoy a crisp, cool hams beer refresh.

It's a taste of history, isn't it?

It's absolutely a taste of history.

- Sky, how about a hams beer today?