A Collection a Day #18 – Vintage Lunch Boxes

A collection a Day #18 – Lunch Boxes, originally uploaded by Cool and Collected.

Want to know what my favorite shows were when I was a kid? Just take a look at my lunch boxes. I kicked these things down the street, threw them in the air, and sometimes even caught them. I never brown bagged it as a kid. I had to have a metal lunchbox to carry my lunch, never mind the fact that the thermos never stayed put and always smashed my PB&J.

Lots of people collect lunch boxes because they are reminders of our pop culture past. The best lunchboxes have great embossed graphics that vibrantly portray our favorite heroes. When you see one of these in mint condition, you’ll see what I mean–these things are beautiful!

Metal was phased out in the 80’s for cheaper plastic and graphic stickers, but who wants one of those? Not me. make mine metal, with a little bit of rust, and a latch that never quite lines up.

One of the downsides of collecting lunchboxes is that they take up a lot of room, especially if you have a lot of them. Obviously, I collect a lot of different things, so one thing I like to do is to use the lunchboxes to store other items in my collections–ephemera and other things that aren’t so easy to display.

You can find vintage lunchboxes in the $10-20 range but for the ones in good condition, the prices can go much higher. A Superman lunchbox from 1954 once sold for over $10,000.00 so the sky is the limit.

I have collected so many different things that I thought it would be fun to try and photograph a collection a day and see how far I can get.