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While some people decorate their walls with Picassos or Monets, others seek out beer cans that celebrate everything from jazz great Bix Beiderbecke and rock 'n' roll's Chuck Berry to fictional figures J.R. Ewing and James Bond.

One person's discarded beer can is another collector's treasure.

And some area collections of beer cans and brewery collectibles are so extensive that just housing them has been a factor in deciding what home to buy.

The first beer can was introduced 75 years ago this week by the Krueger Brewing Co. in New Jersey. It marked a revolution in packaging — cans were nearly unbreakable, stacked easily, chilled quickly, were nonreturnable and colorful.

That last one is key to why Donald Roussin of Maryland Heights has more than 8,500 cans displayed in his house. "A lot of them I remember where I got them or from whom. They all have good remembrances," he says.

With 10,000 brewery collectibles — cans, neon signs, bottles, glass and a whole lot more — displayed, beer is represented everywhere in Roussin's home. He even bought the house because its 18-foot cathedral ceilings offered more display space and the reinforced beams let him safely hang his heavier beer signs.

Just moving the big signs around the Roussin home is a challenge. "Painting is tough. You have to do it by sections," he says. Photos of what's on the walls help Roussin make sure that signs and other memorabilia go back in the same places.

For Roussin, 55 and a buyer for Boeing, it all started with beer cans. "It was a fun hobby in high school, and it didn't cost a lot of money. Cans could be found on streets or you could dig them out of trash cans."

It didn't stay a cheap hobby. Beer can prices have come down of late, but a 007 can recently went for $500 on eBay.

Roussin is a member of the Brewery Collectibles Club of America (bcca.com), based in Fenton and marking its 40th year. Founded in St. Louis as the Beer Can Collectors of America, the club has expanded to include other breweriana, much like Roussin's collection.

COLLECTORS SPECIALIZE

With so many beer cans produced over the years, and only so much room in basements and houses, a lot of hard-core beer can collectors have taken to focusing their collections.

Take Jed Conroy, an electrical contractor in Bethalto, who collects cans that have numbers in their name, such as 905, Cloud Nine, 5 Star, Brew 66 and Straight 8 beers.

"I've hit that wall now where it's hard to find numbered cans that aren't so rare they cost a fortune," he said.

His rarest can is a white A-1 Beer test can from Phoenix, and there are only three known to exist. You can see it at beerbythenumbers.com.

Others now specialize in number beer cans, but Conroy, 46, says, "I'm the original."

Bob Chapman of North County remembers getting a call at 11:35 one night from another collector who thought he had a can he might want. When he brought over the can and Chapman saw that it was a black St. Louis ABC Old English Ale can, "it took me five seconds to say yes," he recalls, pointing to the can, one of only five known to still exist in this country.

The Lever Bros. retiree, 73, once had 20,194 cans but now specializes in Missouri collectibles and cans, including Muehlbach, Country Club, Fishbach and Capital beers. He's partial to items from Griesedieck Brothers in St. Louis and M.K. Goetz Brewing Co. in St. Joseph, Mo., partly because so many people in St. Louis are focused on Anheuser-Busch memorabilia, he explains.

Of his collection, he says, "It's history."

Collinsville collector Kevin Kious has focused on Southern Illinois brews and breweries.

On a tour of his collection, he pointed to Highland, Bluff City (Alton) and Mound City (New Athens) memorabilia and noted that East St. Louis was home to the Central Brewing Co., while Belleville breweries turned out Stag, Oldtimer and Stern Brau. There were also breweries in Granite City, Bethalto, Trenton and even Collinsville.

"Any town that had 100 Germans in the 1860s had a brewery," says Kious, 50, a recently laid-off auditor. Kious, Roussin and Henry Herbst, who died last year, are the authors of "St. Louis Brews: 200 Years of Brewing in St. Louis, 1809 - 2009" (Reedy Press, 304 pages, $39.95).

Mike Bender, a head chef at the Veterans Affairs hospitals here, specializes in flat top and cone top beer cans, and his collection of about 4,000 cans "is pretty much in the basement with some trays lining the walls of the stairs."

The beer can collection complicated the couple's search for a home. Bender, 53, says he and his wife knew they wanted to find a house in Fenton when they married in 1983. "Karen and I saw a lot of nice houses, but they wouldn't fit my beer cans."

His wife doesn't mind all of his beer cans. "She collects Precious Moments statues," he says.

Al Kell's specialty is 16-ounce aluminum bottle cans, the newest craze in collecting.

He originally heard Anheuser-Busch was only going to turn out 20 of the "cabottles."

"Heck, I only built shelves for that many," he says. "In no way did I think A-B would put out as many as they did."

The Florissant collector, 43 and a foreman at a machine shop, now has all 130 of the aluminum bottle cans A-B has produced, and more on the way, as new Budweiser and Bud Light ones are expected to mark St. Patrick's Day.

The most unique A-B cabottles are black light cans that appear silver in daylight with the beer label visible only in black light.

Can collecting was in its heyday in the '70s and '80s when grade school and high school students were big collectors. Now the BCCA's Gateway Chapter has more than 150 members, and many say the club is as much about the friendships and camaraderie as it is about collecting and trading.

Gerry Schwarz, half of a beer can and breweriana collecting couple in South County, says, "The BCCA is the best thing that's ever happened to us."

Herb and Gerry Schwarz started collecting in mid-1973 and now "There are beer collectibles in every room except one bathroom," says Gerry, 69.

Lemp and Falstaff plates grace the walls of the dining room and hallway, a restored Lemp St. Louis wood clock hangs in the kitchen and more than 1,200 cans line a wall in the basement. The two retired civil service employees' basement collection also includes glasses, beer bottle openers and aluminum bottle cans.

Outside there are beer signs all the way around the fence by the pool.

Gerry's specialty is barrel beer glasses, but, "It's all kind of near and dear to our hearts," says Herb, 68.

BEER MUSEUM ON TAP?

Where will all the beer cans and breweriana of collectors go years from now?

Roussin, whose home resembles a beer can and brewery collectibles museum, says there are plans for a museum in St. Louis. The Brewery Museum Foundation (brewerymuseum.com) is seeking funding for the museum now.

The Lemp Brewery complex, near the Anheuser-Busch brewery, has offered free space, says Roussin, who is vice president of the foundation.

"When you spend a whole lifetime gathering things — and some collectors have items that are one of a kind — you hate to see things dispersed," says Roussin.

"A museum in St. Louis would be someplace where everyone could enjoy the history of beer as seen in cans, signs, advertisements, exhibits and more."

And what better place than St. Louis, with its rich beer history, for such a museum?