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Beginning with small "carry-all tins" in 1931, Ohio Art switched over to the familiar steel box in 1957, phasing out the tins the next year. Plastic handles were introduced to boxes in 1962. Ohio Art stopped lunch box production in 1984.

Unlike other lunch box makers, Ohio Art controlled all aspects of production from its Bryan plant-- from the creation of art, to sheet lithography and assembly. Up until the mid-1980s, the company kept an example of every lunch box it ever made in its so-called "morgue." Although most were thrown out by the company, a few sample sheets, including Captain Astro and Bond XX are in private hands.


Okay Industries
In the 1960s, Okay Industries, a Hartford, Connecticut housewares outfit, bought the lunch box stamping equipment from Universal's old operation in nearby New Britain, Connecticut. Okay waited until 1973 to launch a series of steel lunch kits which included Underdog and Action Jackson. Because they were made from the same dies, these kits contained matching steel/glass thermos bottles which say Universal on them, and are easily confused with Landers, Frary & Clark's kits.

After 1974, Okay included plain plastic bottles in their kits up until the time they stopped lunch box production altogether in 1978. Although all the original lunch box art was destroyed in 1986, a search by the company discovered a few lunch box blueprints, now in private collections.

Okay continued to make other houseware products into the late 1980s.


Omni Graphics
All that is known about this outfit are the words "Yonkers, New York" lithographed on the steel VW Bus lunch box made during the 1960s.

The company is out of business.


Owens Illinois Can Company
The Libby Glass Company swept up three smaller can companies in 1936, including Tin Decorating Company (Tindeco), into an entity known as the Owens Illinois Can Company. From 1938 to 1941, Owens Illinois was licensed through its subsidiary, Libby Glass, to produce several Disney lunch pails including Pinocchio and Snow White.

Having fared badly through the war years, Owens Illinois closed down its metal stamping operation in 1945.


Pittsburg Metal Lithography
Located in rural Pennsylvania, PML manufactured the steel production sheets later made into lunch boxes by ADCO Liberty, Universal, King Seeley Thermos, and Okay Industries. A wealth of PML's lunch box production and proof sheets were recovered in the 1980s.


Plastene Corporation
Acquired by American Thermos in 1952, this injection molding outfit supplied all the plastic parts such as box handles, bottle stoppers, and cups for Thermos' lunch kits. When taken over by Thermos, Plastene moved its operation from Indiana to Taftville, Connecticut.

As steel kits were phased out after 1973, the Taftville plant made all of Thermos' plastic bottles and lunch boxes.


Spencer, Bartlett & Company (see Ohio Art)


Standard Plastic Products
SPP manufactured all of Thermos' vinyl lunch boxes from 1959 to 1965, beginning with the Ponytails line.

Before it was purchased by Mattel Toys in 1965, the New Jersey firm produced its own Kaboodle Kit series, including The Beatles, Fess Parker, and Mickey Mouse boxes.

Mattel closed down the New Jersey operation and seems to have lost all records concerning vinyl box production.


Stanley Company
Maker of the Stanley Bottle-- an early steel vacuum bottle invented by William Stanley in 1913. Landers, Frary and Clark (Universal) bought the Great Barrington, Massachusetts company in the 1920s and continued to sell a "Stanley Bottle" in their line. When Landers, Frary and Clark was purchased by General Electric's housewares division, the Stanley Bottle trademark was sold to Aladdin Industries.

No Stanley Bottle was ever marketed as part of a lunch kit.


Thermos Company
Thermos Company is the current incarnation of the old American Thermos and King Seeley companies. Thermos Company is still producing plastic and vinyl lunch kits, again began to produce metal lunch kits in 1998. This marked the first time since 1987 that metal kits were produced by Thermos.


Tindeco
Originally a subsidiary of the American Tobacco Company, the Baltimore-based tin decorating company manufactured many brightly lithographed tobacco, cookie, and candy tins in the 1920s and 1930s. These are easily identified by "Tindeco" stamped on the bottom. Strictly speaking, these small tins featuring characters such as Peter Rabbit, Mother Goose, and Santa Claus are not lunch boxes, but they appear often in lunch box collections.

Tindeco was bought by Owens Illinois Can Company in 1936, which had a subsidiary called Libby Glass. The Pinocchio and Snow White pails licensed to Libby Glass Company during 1938-1941 were actually made in Tindeco's Baltimore manufacturing plant. Owens Illinois closed down operations in 1945.


Universal
The old yankee housewares firm of Landers, Frary and Clark was in the lunch box business from 1954 to 1963. All of its products were sold under the Universal trademark, visible on the bottom of their steel/glass vacuum bottles. Universal hired outside artists to create lunch box artwork, including the legendary Wally Wood. Pittsburg Metal Lithography made the production sheets which were cut and stamped into kits at the company's New Britain, Connecticut plant.

From 1959 to 1961, Universal also sold a line of vinyl kits made by an unknown "bag house."

Lunch box production stopped in 1963, resulting from (depending on the account) a plant fire or a stalled company buy-out by employees. General Electric purchased the company in 1965 and later sold the lunch box stamping equipment to Okay Industries. An Okay spokesman stated that the company also bought much of Universal's vacuum bottle stock, which explains why the Universal plastic bottle bottom appears on Okay's 1974 vacuum bottle line.

The Local History Room of the New Britain Public Library houses the only known Universal catalog pages. Further research failed to uncover any original art or store displays. Universal ads have been spotted in the 1950s "Child Life" magazine series.


W. H. Hutchingson
The metal decorating division of this Birmingham, Alabama firm lithographed the steel production sheets for many of Aladdin's steel lunch boxes during the 1960s and 1970s.

The company was later bought by National Can, which eventually merged with American Can to become American-National Can. No records of Hutchingson's lunch box lithography have been found.

Information courtesy The Official Price Guide to Lunch Box Collectibles.
Additional information provided by Lunch Box Pad.

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