Going for the Prize Inside

 

QUESTION: Ever since I was a kid and read the back of the cereal box as I was downing a bowl of cereal before going to school, I’ve loved them. Cereal boxes were fun and often had games to play on the back and many contained prizes inside. Recently, as I was cleaning out an old desk drawer, I came upon several of the prizes I had retrieved from cereal boxes. At first, I would eat the cereal until the prize suddenly fell out as I poured some of it into my bowl. But after a while, I became impatient and dumped the cereal from a newly opened box into a large bowl or pot to search for the prize. Are these little prizes collectible today? I know mothers detested the prizes found in McDonald’s Happy Meals and saw them as junk. What about the cereal prizes? 

ANSWER: A cereal box prize was a form of advertising that involved using a promotional toy or small item that cereal makers offered as an incentive to buy their brand. Prizes could be found inside or sometimes on the cereal box. The term "cereal box prize" is sometimes used to include premiums that consumers could order through the mail from an advertising promotion printed on the outside of the cereal box.

Cereal makers distributed prizes and premiums in four ways. The first was an in-store  prize handed to the customer with the purchase of one or more specified boxes of cereal. The second was to include the prize in the box itself, usually outside the liner bag. The third was attaching the prize to the box, such as printing games and trading cards on the cereal box or simply attaching the prize to the box with tape or shrink wrap. Some prizes included a gameboard or other interactive activity printed on the box that corresponded with the prize inside the box, which kids used as a gamepiece. The fourth method of distribution was to have the consumer mail in the UPC proof-of-purchase labels cut from a specified number of boxes, sometimes with a cheque or money order to defray the cost of shipping. A third-party sent the premium to the consumer by mail. 

In 1909, Kellogg’s offered the first cereal box prize. Shoppers who purchased two boxes of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes received a copy of Funny Jungleland Moving-Pictures, a little booklet illustrated with dancing tigers, storks, horses, hippos and more. Children pulled a tab to slide new pictures in and out, creating new combinations of the animals’ heads, bodies and feet. By 1912, consumers redeemed The Funny Jungleland Moving Pictures Book 2.5 million times.

With the success of the Kellogg’s prize campaign, other cereal makers, including General Mills, Malt-O-Meal, Nabisco, Nestlé, Post Foods, and Quaker Oats, followed suit and inserted prizes into boxes of their cereals to promote sales and brand loyalty.

The first prizes buried inside cereal boxes were small pinback buttons decorated with World War II U.S. Military insignia, available in Pep, at that time Superman’s favorite cereal. 

By the 1920s, cereal companies turned to then-popular radio shows to advertise their premiums. 

The invention of a screw injection molding machine by American inventor James Watson Hendry in 1946 changed the world of cereal box prizes. Thermoplastics could be used to produce toys much more rapidly, and much more cheaply, because recycled plastic could be remolded using this process. In addition, injection molding for plastics required much less cool-down time for the toys, because the plastic wasn’t completely melted before injected into the molds.

During the 1940s and 1950s, cereal prizes followed a transportation theme, with metal or plastic cut-out planes, cut-out trains, and license plates included in General Mills offerings. It wasn’t until 1943 that Kellogg’s placed a model airplane into a package of its Pep Whole Wheat Flakes cereal. 

Also in the 1950s, the maker of Wheaties distributed brightly-painted steel automobile maker emblems, representing 31 American and European auto makers, including  luxury names like Bugatti, Alfa Romeo and Rolls Royce alongside now-defunct manufacturers like Kaiser, Hudson and Riley. 

In the 1970s, Hendry developed the first gas-assisted injection molding process in the 1970s, which permitted the production of complex, hollow prizes that cooled quickly. This greatly improved design flexibility as well as the strength and finish of manufactured parts while reducing production time, cost, weight, and waste.

All kinds of collectible figures—from rocket ships and submarines to cartoon characters and rings—could be cranked out and hidden beneath cereal. 

In the early 1980s, Apple Jacks cereal included a rubbery, squid-looking toy in every box that could be thrown at walls and slowly “crawl” down to the ground as it stuck and unstuck itself. Even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles got their turn. 

And in 1996, General Mills distributed the PC video game Chex Quest on CD in boxes of Chex cereal.

Today, cereal box prizes have become a unique collectible. Most vintage cereal box prizes sell anywhere from $5 to $30, but rare ones can go for as high as $175 for a Banana Splits TV Show ring and and $250 for a General Mills Lucky Charms Game.

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Airline Collectibles Take Off

Question: I’ve traveled a lot for business in my career. Most of the time I’ve flown Business Class, but occasionally I got upgraded to First Class. Over the years, I’ve amassed a bunch of items from my many flights—baggage tags, menus, odd pieces of flatware, napkins, toiletry kits, and even little gifts from some overseas flights.  Are these things collectible? Are they worth anything?

Answer: Airline collectibles are hot. Although airline memorabilia collecting has been around for many years, many people don't realize just how long such items have been collected. Even the smallest of items can make for an interesting collection.

Collecting commercial airline items is still a new area, and, depending a what a collector chooses to collect, can still be quite affordable. The fact that many long-established airlines that were once household names have stopped flying adds to the lure of collecting airline memorabilia.

There are almost as many ways to collect airline items as there are airlines and airplanes. In fact, many people collect them by airline, a distinct collecting category. Some people have a love or hate relationship with a specific airline. It may be with the airline on which they flew first, or one they or a family member worked for. Some collectors build their collections around a specific aircraft or focus on a specific type of item such as airline china or insignias. There’s also a distinction between "vintage" airline items and newer ones, such as photographs or new models that can be found at shows. Beginning collectors should be aware that in addition to vintage postcards, newer ones have been produced in recent years and may be found at shows. Often these newer cards, which may look similar to vintage ones, are priced like them.

Some collectors choose to collect airline insignia or service pins by airline or crew position. Service pins feature small insignia, or items bearing the corporate insignia, awarded to crew members for a certain number of years in service. Collectors have found several different styles of insignia for an individual airline. Some companies used cloth hat badges before turning to metal hat insignia. Wings may be all metal or made with ceramic insets containing the corporate logo. The price for insignia varies depending on age, condition, style, crew position and airline. Depending on the piece, prices for more common insignia can be less than $50. Collectors can expect to pay up to several hundred dollars for older or rare pieces.

Today, many airlines have eliminated in-flight meals. Passengers are lucky to get a tiny bag of peanuts or pretzels. In the early days of air travel, passengers ate from fine china with metal flatware. Not only does the china reflect the elegance of an earlier time, but it’s a popular aviation collectible. Prices vary based on airline, age, piece and condition. When buying airline china, collectors use the same criteria as when purchasing other vintage china or ceramics, such as chips, cracks, and scratches.



Depending on where they’re purchased, prices for glasses can range from $5 to $25 as compared to cups and saucer sets that have a higher value of between $30 to $50. Plates can range from $50 to $250 depending on the age, decoration, condition and airline. Collectors expect to pay more for pieces from early airlines or ones that catered to "first-class service."

Airplanes themselves also attract collector interest. Some antique aircraft can be seen in museums. Others have been lovingly restored by collectors or consortiums and can be found tucked away in small local airports or seen flying high at air shows. For those who can't afford an entire plane, collectors can still land a variety of items related to their favorite aircraft such as instrument panel posters used for crew training or flight manuals.

Aircraft used by commercial airlines from around the world have been captured in photographs and prints, as well as on postcards and in paintings. Those who love the form and graceful lines of an aircraft aren’t restricted to pictures. Models, whether put together by future pilots or professionally made for a travel agent's desk, are collectible. A metal travel agents' model can cost upward of $2,000, even more if it’s of a popular airline or airplane.

Much of the paper ephemera directly associated with planes can be relatively inexpensive. Most safety cards are valued between $1 and $3. Safety cards are plastic laminated cards or folders that give information to passengers on the locations of emergency exits. Other types of paper collectibles are postcards and playing card decks. Postcards can be picked up for a dollar or two, and many playing card decks for between $5 and $10. For those who collect manuals, user's manuals and flight logs from the 1950s and older are preferred, although that may change as newer planes are removed from service. An added value to a manual is that many of them contain sketches and photographs, as well as the technical specifications, and were put in binders bearing the company logo.



Before the days of computers and the Internet, printed flight schedules were the travelers'—sometimes the flight crews'—travel guide. Prices vary for flight schedules depending on age, condition, airport and airline. For instance, those from the 1990s sell for $1-2, those from the1980s for $2-4, those from the 1970s for $4-6, and those from the 1940s and 1950s for $20-30. Schedules from the 1930s can cost between $60 and $100.

Almost anything with a corporate logo can be found in an airline collection including corporate literature, annual reports and magazine advertisements. There can also be crossover collecting where the advertisement showcases the aircraft. Illustrating the graciousness of airlines of the past are complimentary toiletry kits. Given to the traveler who forgot his toothbrush, kits can also contain razors, toothpaste and shampoo. Perhaps the most unusual airline collectible are air-sickness bags. Yes, there are collectors who desire them—preferably unused.

After eating Yankee pot roast and glazed carrots with sourdough rolls, passengers on a Pan Am flight could enjoy cherry pie and saltwater taffy. Beer was 50 cents and a split of champagne cost $1. And it didn’t cost a dime for you to be free of your luggage. Those were the days.

To learn more about collecting airline memorabilia, read "Up, Up and Away With Airline Collectibles" in my antiques ezine, The Antiques Almanac.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about the early 20th century in the Fall 2018 Edition, "20th Century Ltd.," online now.