“Remember the Little Medical Tins?” — A Tiny Piece of Everyday History

Before plas­tic bot­tles took over our med­i­cine cab­i­nets, pain relief came in small met­al tins — Anacin, Excedrin, Bay­er Aspirin, and oth­ers just like them. These palm-sized cas­es were every­where in the 1960s and ’70s: tucked inside purs­es, glove com­part­ments, and bath­room draw­ers across Amer­i­ca.

Each tin had that famil­iar metal­lic click — press here, pop there — that instant­ly trans­port­ed you to anoth­er time. The paint would chip, the cor­ners rust­ed a lit­tle, but the labels promised the same depend­able com­fort: Fast Pain Relief! They were sim­ple, stur­dy, and built to last.

These weren’t just pill con­tain­ers; they became tiny keep­sakes. When the med­i­cine ran out, peo­ple reused them to store but­tons, safe­ty pins, gui­tar picks, sewing nee­dles, fish­ing hooks, and even child­hood trea­sures. Some even served as secret stash­es for less-than-offi­cial “reme­dies” dur­ing the ’70s.

And who could for­get that feel­ing of accom­plish­ment when you final­ly man­aged to pop one open with­out bend­ing the lid? They were tough lit­tle things — like the gen­er­a­tion that car­ried them.

Today, find­ing one of these tins at a flea mar­ket or tucked in a relative’s draw­er feels like dis­cov­er­ing a piece of liv­ing his­to­ry. They remind us of a time when pack­ag­ing was reusable, designs were bold, and every­day objects had a lit­tle more soul.

Maybe the world has got­ten sleek­er, shinier, and more dis­pos­able — but there’s some­thing com­fort­ing about those tiny, inde­struc­tible reminders of care and rou­tine. One glance at them and you can almost smell the met­al, the med­i­cine, and a hint of nos­tal­gia.