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The next time you're at a garage sale, keep an eye out for old lunch boxes. A box in good condition could be worth $20, $50, $100 or more - and you'll probably be able to buy it for a dollar or less.

Better yet, if you're planning on having a garage sale, find out how much your kids' old lunch boxes are worth before you set them out in the driveway. Check out a lunch box price guide at the library or buy one of the many guides at bookstores. Scott Bruce's "Lunch Box Collectibles" is useful.

You can also have the box appraised by an antique dealer. If you own an old "Lost In Space" box in good condition, for example, you could get $90 for it. Even a cheesy "A-Team" box could bring $15 to $20.

There's a strong and thriving market for old lunch boxes, local antique dealers said. Plenty of people, particularly on the East and West coasts, collect the boxes for their sentimental value and are willing to pay well for them.

"A lot of people don't know this stuff is worth anything," said Steve Buckley, owner of Windmill Antiques in Andover.

Buckley said he once found a "Land of the Giants" lunch box, worth about $75, in someone's garage. The owner was storing nails in it. Buckley bought the box for $2.

A few years ago, Buckley's collection had grown to 175 metal lunch boxes and about 80 plastic ones. Since then, he has sold most of them to other collectors, who are called "boxers." Collecting the lunch boxes is called "boxing" by its fans.

How much an old lunch box is worth depends on its condition, the popularity of the show or star it depicts and its availability.

Metal boxes are usually worth more than plastic ones. Vinyl ones are generally the most valuable, Buckley said, because they are the rarest.

Science-fiction and Western-themed boxes have a special appeal for collectors and are usually worth more, he said.

A 1954 "Lone Ranger" lunch box, for example, is worth anywhere from $55 to $135. A 1957 "Roy Rogers and Dale Evans" box is valued at $45 to $95, depending on its condition: the thermos from the Roy Rogers box is worth another $20 to $35.

Other lunch boxes are very common and aren't worth much at all. There are plenty of "Strawberry Shortcakes" and "Dukes of Hazzard" lunch boxes around, for example.

Lunch box collectors call their most sought-after prize "The Holy Pail." It's a 1935 Geuder, Paeschke and Frey Company Mickey Mouse lunch box, and is an oval tin pail with a four-color design and removable pie tray. The box is very rare and would easily sell for $1,000, the collector said.

Once you've found out how much your lunch box is worth, you can sell it by placing a newspaper ad or by putting an ad on the World Wide Web.

There are many Web sites devoted to lunch box collecting, and several have classified sections.

For some people, collecting the boxes "is a way of recapturing their childhood," Buckley said. "Looking at the box brings back a smile."

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