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Many people don't realize this, but in many states of the Union, a metal lunchbox is legally classified as a deadly weapon. It seems a quaint conceit in an age where a student swinging a lunchbox would have to weigh the risk of being shot in reply. But back in the early 1970s, a group of concerned mothers successfully lobbied the Florida legislature to act against such sinister tools of mayhem as the Disney School Bus and Jetsons dome top lunchboxes.

Eventually, numerous other states and Canada enacted similarly restrictive laws, and the major makers of lunchboxes-- Aladdin, and American Thermos-- were forced to convert to vinyl lunchboxes by the end of the decade. The alleged last metal lunchbox produced for the American school market was released in 1985, ironically featuring a rather violent set of scenes from the movie Rambo.Of course, the production of metal boxes about the size of a lunch box never ceased altogether, and commemorative tin boxes for candy, CDs, collectible cards, and other promotional properties have been made over the past 15 years. And reproduction boxes meant specifically for the lunch box collector's market have been on the scene for several years now.

But it wasn't until August of 1998 that steel lunchboxes for the school market made a comeback, when Thermos® released a trio of new metal designs for the 1998 back-to-school market. The three boxes featured images from the remake of Godzilla, the movie Small Soldiers, and the classic Hot Wheels "T-Bucket" hot-rod. No word yet of any litigation they might have caused. It's likely that prosecutors have their hands full with more serious weapons charges, and that the proliferation of reproduction boxes has provided lunchbox manufacturers with a ready defense.

Lunch kits for children have been around since the 1920s; through the pre-war era, most were simple, oval boxes with two handles. Disney was one of the first companies to license its characters for use on lunch pails, but they didn't capture the public eye and were not produced for more than a year or two. They are so seldom encountered that most lunch box price guides do not mention them. The first character lunchboxes as we think of them today appeared in 1949 and 1950. The 1949 Joe Palooka box was not a great success, but the Hopalong Cassidy box of 1950 was one of the hottest toy items of the year. The piece was really a plain blue box with a decal of Hoppy stuck to its sides; but television was creating an explosion of desire for visual character items, and demand only increased with the advent of fully lithographed lunchboxes a few years later.

With the great proliferation of designs that appeared over the next 35 years, the variety can seem functionally infinite. The truth is that there are only about 450 total lunchboxes released between 1951 and 1985 that have some form of license or distinctive character design to recommend them to buyers (That red plaid generic box that some unfortunate kids had in school are not considered collectible). That means that while the dream of owning all of them will remain elusive for most, it isn't totally beyond the realm of possibility for one collector to acquire every collectible lunchbox known.

One collector who has achieved that goal is Allen Woodall, who runs the Lunch Box Museum of Salem, Alabama. The museum is located in the Ol' Salem Antiques & Collectibles shop at Hwy 280 & 431, 7 min East of I-85 Exit 62 in Opelika, AL. Woodall only began collecting in the 90s, but acquired much of the collection of a friend, Dr. Robert Carr, who passed away unexpectedly. Woodall began the museum as a promise to Carr's widow, and is now known as one of the best sources of hard-to-find lunchboxes in the country.

There are rarities and variants in the lunch box field, as with almost any collectible. When John Schneider and Tom Wopat walked off the set of Dukes of Hazzard in 1983 in a dispute over licensing royalties and script quality (!), the producers of the show immediately replaced them with new characters named Coy and Vance, played by Byron Cherry and Christopher Mayer. Licensees like Aladdin had to scramble to replace images of the old actors with the new ones, which they barely managed to do before the producers relented and the original actors returned. The lunchbox with the replacement characters is very difficult to find and has gone for as much as $1,200 at auctions.

Another TV series, 240 Robert, was the source of the single most valuable lunchbox known today. The rescue-adventure series was cancelled before the lunchbox could reach the market, so only a limited number of examples from the initial prototype run are known, and these are valued at $2,500!

Dozens of classic licenses were issued to lunchbox makers, and a piece's value often has a lot to do with how many collectors of the character licensed there happen to be. The Star Trek dome top from Aladdin, vintage 1968, draws prices in excess of $700 intact with the matching bottle, partly because so many people love star Trek, and partly because it is an uncommonly beautiful lunchbox.

There has been a great deal of fluctuation and inflation of value in the lunch box market over the past five years; accurate pricing information has sometimes been difficult to come by. One book recommended by many collectors is the Pictorial Price Guide To Metal Lunchboxes & Thermoses By Larry Aikens, L-W Book Sales PO Box 69 Gas City, IN 46933, 1998. Mr. Aikens provides a detailed scale of condition and bases his prices on individuals of Grade 8, the best condition commonly encountered. The whole scale is as follows:

Grade 1 = Terrible: Rusted or painted beyond recognition.
Grade 2 = Bad: Heavy rust, fading, dents, no handle, bad inside.
Grade 3 = Poor: Neither side good for display.
Grade 4 = Fair: Only one side good for display.
Grade 5 = Good: Heavy wear on both sides, dents, light rust inside.
Grade 6 = Very Good: More than normal spot and rim wear, large dents, metal next to latch broken.
Grade 7 = Fine: Normal rim and spot wear, small dents, light rust and feels dry.
Grade 8 = Excellent: Minor high edge wear, spot wear, light scratches and rust stains.
Grade 9 = Near Mint: Very little wear, surface has wet look, feels slick.
Grade 10 = Mint: Store new with original price tags.

One more word: Beware of reproductions! Most of these are clearly marked as such, but that kind of thing can be hard to detect in a murky digital photo posted on an eBay auction page. They are meant to be affordable alternatives to the truly high-priced items on the market, and no one in the hobby likes to see new collectors given a bad impression of what is still a young and highly accessible hobby.

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