Web Site News

Site Map

Contact Us

Home

Browsing the fields at the Brimfield Outdoor Antique Shows, Selectman Martin J. Kelly spotted a square metal lunch box like the one he'd carried to St. Brendan's Catholic School in Rhode Island.

Kelly's lunch box's service was short-lived, though, because Kelly soon found it could do more than hold a sandwich.

"There was a kid who was tormenting me and I whacked him with it," Kelly said. "I put a heck of a gash in his head."

Metal lunch boxes were banned from the school after that, Kelly recalled.

While lunch boxes like Kelly's are still collectible now, a few years ago they were a hot commodity. Today, dealers say, eBay has contributed to the drop in lunch box buyers at Brimfield. That, combined with the fact that a book written about the metal collectibles created a sort of artificial boom in market for a period of time has caused the market for lunch boxes to bottom out, dealers said yesterday.

G. Barry Kirsten of Bridgeport, Conn., has been coming to the Brimfield Outdoor Antique Shows for about 20 years and managed to get in on the craze when it came. Now he leaves his lunch boxes at home.

"It was an artificially inflated market and it came out of nowhere," Kirsten said. "Suddenly. It went crazy."

Now it's over.

Dealer Steve Brackett agreed, though he still stocks lunch boxes at the Brimfield shows.

"A person can relate to these," he said. "But now, with eBay, there's so much available and those people don't have to worry about restocking. It used to be I could be the only one at Brimfield with a rare lunch box. Now you go on the Internet and there might be any number of them out there."

Brackett said he sometimes sells lunch boxes to people he calls "crossover" buyers. A person who collects Barbie items may buy a lunch box featuring that character. Mostly, though, lunch box buyers collect lunch boxes - a few even use them.

"It's more high school and college kids who use them," Brackett said.

Some double as purses for those who want to make a trendy fashion statement.

Among the most sought after are the dome-top style which held a thermos in the domed lid. Add the thermos and the value increases.

When it comes to the square style lunch boxes, any with Western themes or outer space designs such as Star Trek and Lost in Space can fetch as much as $100, dealers said.

Brackett said he's hoping to sell a Chuck Connors Cowboy in Africa lunch box, which he's priced at $155, and a vinyl-covered number featuring the Peanuts Gang for about $75.

Comments or Suggestions?