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It begins with a discovery, a fling and a leap into the unknown. But eventually, you get hooked. Welcome to the world of collecting.

For Phil Krainz, his addiction started innocently enough about 10 years ago. While reading the newspaper, he came across a story about the Partridge Family, and of all things, a lunchbox depicting the musical family's likeness. Being a full-fledged baby boomer, the article caught his attention.

"I wasn't into collecting anything," admits Krainz, co-owner of Rose's Flower Shop, 804 N. 68th St., in Wauwatosa. "So it just hit me, lunchboxes. That would be cool."

We're not talking about the run-of-the-mill lunchboxes. No plastic here. Some vinyl, maybe. It's the metal tins, popular from 1950 to 1985, that made Krainz get involved in the hobby.

Remember? The ones that used to have all your favorite television characters and personalities colorfully splashed across the entire box. The ones that came with the matching thermos which clanged against the metal sides as you walked to school. And God help you if yours was one of those pre-1960s thermoses that had the glass insulator. They were as fragile as eggs.

Krainz had reason for starting his collection. He wanted a conversation piece for patrons visiting his corner shop. He thought they could be entertained while his wife, Monique, prepared orders.

Little did he realize at the time that the cute collection would make him a creature of compulsion.

"I went out and picked one up and before I knew it there were three or four of them and then it just kept growing," Krainz explains.

Fortunately there were only so many made during its 35-year lifespan; Krainz estimates about 500 or so.

Krainz recognized the need to display his new found passion; perhaps, he could place them high above the flower arrangements and cooler filled with roses and lilies, nicely stacked out of harms way.

He built shelves to store his collection. First, one level. Then, another. And then, another. He eventually needed more room, so he extended his display into the preparation room adjacent to the shop. And later, expansion would consume some wall space in his office.

"Fortunately, there's a finite number," he smiles. "They weren't going to keep adding to them. So I had a goal to collect every one of them."

He did. He's got the very first character box ever produced by Aladdin Industries, considered the granddaddy of lunchbox creations. It's a red tin with a decaled Hopalong Cassidy, circa 1950. At two bucks a pop, Aladdin produced and sold some 600,000 in just the first year. Can you say jackpot.

It wasn't until 1953, that the first full-color lithographed box was developed featuring the likeness of Roy Rogers. That one grossed somewhere in the two million dollar range.

Aladdin and its closest competitor, King Steeley began producing a number of styles and characters as the television industries kept fueling the fire.

"It no coincidence that lunchboxes were shaped like a television set," Krainz says. "Baby boomers were the TV age. We grew up with television. So all the TV shows that were popular were marketed."

Two of Aladdin's marketing geniuses credited with the lunchbox craze were Robert O. Burton and Elmer Lehnhardt.

Burton was an industrial designer hired by Aladdin in 1946 to improve product "look" and advertising for the Chicago-based company. In 1949, he sketched the Hopalong Cassidy kit, and continued to turn boxes into gold through the 1950s. Among his creations were Chuck Wagon, Space Cadet, Disneyland, Robin Hood and Zorro. He even was credited with designing the dome shaped lunchbox that rivaled the square tins. Burton went on to design the famous Kentucky Fried Chicken logo.

Lehnhardt, also from Chicago, started as a professional wrestler. An artist at heart, Burton hired him to assist in the finishing department. When Aladdin moved to Nashville, so did Lehnhardt. He became art director in the 1960s. Lehnhardt enjoyed the finer years with Aladdin's, producing best sellers like The Beatles, the Beverly Hillbillies, Batman, Gomer Pyle and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

"Lunchboxes were the first products influenced by children," Krainz says. "Kids actually made corporate and marketing companies come to attention.

"Toys were always parent's decisions. They judged them as to whether they were acceptable or not. But the lunchbox was part of school curriculum. Every August, just like clock work, kids went with parents to by school supplies and there, right next to notebooks and such were displays filled with lunchboxes."

By the 1960s, corporate American discovered children had immense buying power. According to Krainz, that was when, the lunchbox age peaked. In fact, the Voyage of the Bottom of Sea kit was probably the last successful seller before things began to level off.

"It's not like today," Krainz says. "Back then, if you wanted to do a lunchbox on The Monsters, you'd flash a few thousand dollars at them and you'd get the rights to produce a product. Today, licensing is big business."

In 1985, the whole metal lunchbox craze saddened ceased following the production of the Rambo edition. A group of moms in Florida petitioned against them because they viewed the kits as dangerous. Kids were merrily strolling along swinging their lunchboxes on their way to school and taking out classmates along the way. At least that's how Karnes describes it.

"The boom was over when that happened," Krainz says. "They started coming out with plastic boxes but the appeal wasn't the same."

That's when the other obsession took root. Collecting.

"In the beginning, you could pick up a decent box for $20 or $30," Krainz says. "Years later, the same mint kit was probably worth hundreds of dollars.

"That's when someone figured out this was going to be a lucrative hobby. There was a time in the early-'90s when the prices went through the roof. At the time, the sky was the limit. In time, though, things began to level out. But the mint boxes have maintained their prices."

It's true. To be a collector today, you have to do your homework. It's more than a hobby.

"It's very time consuming," Krainz says. "The more you collect, the more involved you become. When I started any condition box was good until I saw what the next one would bring.

"Someone once told me that once I get my first brand new box, with the tissue paper still inside and the price tag on it, then I'd be hooked. Because from that point on all I wanted were mint boxes. They were right."

Consuming, you say?

"I'm pretty picky," he says. "I strive for a mint collection and most of my kits are either mint or next best."

The condition of the lunchbox weighs heavily on its value. Few survived the ordeal of daily school lunches without bumps, dents, scratches, and rusting. The demand is much greater for those few boxes that are pristine or near mint. When judging a box, collectors use a rating scale:

C-10 -- Mint, pristine new condition. As from the factory, absolutely no wear. C-9 -- Near mint, excellent condition, slick wet look to metal, minimal wear, no scratches or rusting. C-8 - Very good condition, light wear, light scratches surface rubs to paint. And so on. The higher the grade the better the kit. The better the product the rarer it is to find on the market and the market will dictate price.

"Mint grades for box have seen its value skyrocket in the last five years," Krainz continues. "The value of some of the boxes could be 100-fold more than what they originally cost."

In recent years, Krainz does most his best shopping and bidding on the internet, specifically on E-Bay. He has dealt with more than 300 vendors, either looking to sell or to buy.

"E-bay has created this inventory of bizarre stuff," Krainz says. "It has educated even the non-collector. People find something in their attic or basement that looks valuable and they turn to E-bay to find out its worth. There are no more bargains out there like in the old days."

In the old days, Toy Trader Magazine, published out of Iola, Wisconsin, was the best source for trading. People would place ads in the magazine for potential customers.

"Yes, even that was competitive," Krainz says. "I used to pay a little extra to have the magazine delivered to me the day after it was published so I could check out the ads before the other guy."

Krainz also mentioned that the industry missed out on some potential big sellers back in the height of the kits.

"Like any thing else, the makers took gambles," he says. "A lot of them had to make snap decisions about new TV shows. By the second or third year, it would be too late to capitalize on them. Remember, it took six months to a year to tool up the market.

"Sometimes they hit it big like The Beatles box and sometimes they blew it like 240 Robert."

240 Robert?

"That show survived just sixteen episodes," Krainz says. "By the time they got the box and thermos on the shelves, the show was canceled."

There were also some popular shows that never made it to the lunchboxes such as Rin Tin Tin or The Three Stooges. There was no Bewitched or Gilligan's Island. Heck, there wasn't even a Mr. Ed lunchbox.

"I couldn't tell you why some of the most popular shows did have a lunchbox," Krainz admitts.

What about sports heroes?

Oddly enough only one box was created specific with a sports theme in mind. In 1964, a box was made with the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears in action of the lid and the Cleveland Browns and New York Giants on the back. As for individual stars, the Michael Jordan of the time was Pele, an international soccer phenom.

"It shows you the shift in heroes from one era to the next," Krainz said. "Lunchboxes depicted heroes. In the '50s, it was cowboys. In the '60s it was astronauts and space. By the mid-'60s it was more geared toward popular kids' shows."

And little girls seemed to be left out, too.

"Girls were ripped off," Krainz says. "In the early-60s, the first box made for girls was a flowery one. Obviously there was Barbie, but only in the vinyl model. To get one made of metal, you had to go to Canada.

"In '80s, there was Holly Hobby and Junior Miss. Very generic. The kits were designed with boys in mind.

"Certainly, if boxes were produced today, athletes would be prominent. So would rap artists. But the problem I foreseen would be the licensing fee with would astronomical."

Lunchboxes are big business in the collecting world. Recently, the Museum of Modern Art had a traveling exhibit make its way across the country.

"The closest it came was to Chicago last summer," Krainz says. "It now has a permanent display in New York. It drew big crowds wherever it went. I didn't go."

Why not?

"Well, I've got pretty much the same collection here," Krainz quickly said. "Other collectors come to see my display. I had one collector from Ohio come up just to see the collection."

You could see Krainz's collection, too. Just pop into his shop during regular business hours. He'll be more than happy to share his story.

"I could tell you when I got each kit," he said. "Where I got it. And, what number it is in the collection. And people stop in and quiz me about them."

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