Lunch Boxes Carry Only Memories
By STAFF - The Gazette Colorado Springs, CO) - 09/10/1990
Darroll Miller never had a lunch box when he was a schoolboy. Now, he has 400. About 100 are on display at Families Submarine Shop, 300 E. Fillmore St., which Miller owns with his wife, Carol. He began scooping up lunch boxes at flea markets and garage sales about a year ago. Now, he says, "The hard part is building shelves fast enough." Customers scan the shelves for tin lunch boxes depicting The Lone Ranger, The Bionic Woman, The Waltons and many other television and movie heroes, looking for ones they remember or used to have. Darroll, 51, says his personal favorites in the buy, sell or trade collection are those with Western heroes, which were among the first produced. "They started in the '50s with Hopalong Cassidy, and then along came Roy Rogers, and then they started into all kinds of TV and cowboy Westerns, and then on up as television expanded. There's about 1,500 different ones." A few are worth big bucks. For example, an unused 1963 Jetsons lunch box in mint condition might bring as much as $1,200 from a collector, according to Carol. The lunch boxes Darroll collects, however, sell for $4 to $50, which suits him fine. He'd rather make talk and trades than money, he says.
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