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How to Identify Misprints on Pepsi Cans

Packaging errors can confuse customers, compromise the PepsiCo's integrity and seriously damage the company's reputation -- in one case, a printing error on Pepsi products caused a riot in the Philippines! For these reasons, when Pepsi employees find a misprint on one of their products, it is generally recycled before hitting the shelves, as per company policy. Since PepsiCo has strict quality control, surviving misprinted items are fun and often valuable collector's items. There is a substantial community of Pepsi memorabilia collectors who can help you identify misprints and assess the value of misprinted items.

Instructions

- 1
  Inspect your can to see if anything seems unusual. While some printing errors are obvious, such as an offset label or the label being inside the can instead of outside, other errors are harder to detect.
- 2
  Compare your can to other Pepsi cans from the same time period to see whether there are any differences.
- 3
  Search online for Pepsi cans to see whether yours is any different from the norm, if you have an older can and don't have any other examples handy. Collector sites such as eBay often have classic Pepsi cans available, and Pepsi Collectables has auctions specifically for Pepsi products, as well as a directory of resources for collectors.
- 4
  Search the same auction and collector sites for Pepsi can misprints if your can is still different from the other cans you looked at. If you find a can with a similar misprint, the asking price can give you an idea of the item's worth.
- 5
  Browse through and post on forums of beverage and Pepsi collector sites. BevNet has an active forum of beverage industry professionals and collectors, and Pepsi Collectables also has a forum. You can ask for an opinion on your item and its possible worth.
- 6
  Look through a book of Pepsi collectables. Several are available from the Pepsi Collectables Web site. These books contain information about numerous Pepsi products, and often have a price guide.

Collecting Memorabilia