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In third grade, carrying one was cool. In seventh grade, only a brown bag cut it. So at 26, what kind of office reception does a "Lost in Space" model get?

"Everyone was tripping out," said car-loan officer Roger Beck, recalling the first time he took his vintage 1967 dome-model lunch box to work. "They thought it was neat. Most of them remember the show."

Old lunch boxes are Beck's bag. During the last three years, he has collected 320 different ones, 640 including duplicates.

Lunch box heroes line the shelves of a display room in his Woodstock home like an anniversary episode of "Hollywood Squares." Disney characters and the ever-evolving Barbie are old standards. Western and space adventurers marked the 1950s and early '60s (remember "Tom Corbett, Space Cadet"?). The '60s brought sitcoms ("The Munsters") and psychedelia (The Beatles' "Yellow Submarine"). Disco fever hit the lunchrooms in the '70s with Bee Gees Maurice, Robin and Barry Gibb each earning a box.

"Somewhere between the baby bottle and the brown bag, you were what you carried," said Scott Bruce, author of Lunchbox -- The '50s and '60s and The Official Price Guide to Lunchbox Collectibles. Collecting them is "collecting your childhood. . . . It takes the sting out of getting old."

Lunch boxes have appreciated more than 100 percent a year in the last three years, Bruce said.

Until the price guide came out, Beck didn't think much about the value of his collection (somewhere between $7,000 and $8,000). But now he can't find a box for much less than $30. Renewed interest in old characters inflates the prices. "You can't touch a Batman lunch box for less than $50," said Lance Dobson, a dealer at the Atlanta Flea Market and Antique Center. Beck's older brother, Ken, started collecting lunch boxes about four years ago, planting a seed for a family rivalry. Now Beck, his sister, father and three brothers compete.

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